Dirty Wicked Prince (Court Legacy Book 1)
Dirty Wicked Prince: Chapter 16

Dorian – age 16

Parties at Pembroke University were a bitch to get to, but they were worth it for a few hours out of town and a good time. Ares and I loaded up my Audi with a few girls, a six-pack, and some smoke. We’d even been feeling gracious this evening and brought Wells and Thatcher along for the more than two-hour drive. I supposed they were getting their corruption pretty early only being freshman this year, but the two shitheads were into way more foul shit than I’d been just last year. I came to Windsor Prep only slightly less corrupted, but once Ares and I realized what being Legacy of some of the elite families of Maywood Heights meant upon entering high school?

Yep, we’d been good as opportunists, and we took full advantage of that. The college party tonight had been one of those advantages. Graduates from Windsor Prep ruled Pembroke-U, most of the alums rolling through it. The four of us Legacy kids were greeted like gods to the party filled with more booze and women than any of us could ever consume.

Though, we sure tried.

We’d made Ares the designated driver, so he was only slightly less intoxicated than the rest of us. I’d lost him first, then Wells and Thatcher second to the party at a multilevel home in the upper westside hills. We had no idea whose house this was.

Who fucking cared?

The DJ played on the top level, indoor pool flashing with neon lights below and filled with half-naked women. Not girls. The fellas and I had ditched our female companions sometime between the car and the bar. There was much better ass to own here tonight. I’d already seen several posts on social media about what the girls we’d brought here were up to in our absence, though. Something told me they were getting just as much out of this party as we were. It’d been an honor to come with us tonight, a mutual exchange. They were getting their stories, and we were getting ours.

I was fucking baked.

I had a blond on my lap and a brunette under my right arm, our little party of three passing a joint around. They had the best bud at these parties, and I was coming away with more than one story tonight. I sat back and enjoyed it, one girl asking me if I wanted a drink while the other asked if I wanted to get out of there—with her friend. Both options sounded nice, but I had to take a leak.

I left them to make out with each other. Trying to find a fucking bathroom in this place was hard with all the weed smoke that filled it. I eventually found the bathroom line but wasn’t trying to deal with that.

I ended up using a plant.

Not one of my finer displays, but I wasn’t going to go outside like some barbarian. I did my business, then started to go back to the girls, but some sighing took more of my interest.

Heavy pants and excited moans from nearby shot my cock up, and I wondered if it was a female party that needed a third. Ares and I had lost our virginities together, but not together. We’d been in the same house, different rooms screwing separate chicks.

I was wasted enough where participating in my first orgy didn’t sound like a particularly bad idea. And if there were dudes, I didn’t care, as long as they kept their hands (and parts) to themselves. I was a pussy killer only, but had no problem having other guys around. One of my best friends, Wells, was bi. Wasn’t a thing.

I edged a look through the plant (not the one I’d pissed in) and spotted a couple on the other side.

A guy and a girl were there, and he had her pinned against the wall, luscious red hair gripped in his fist.

He jerked his conquest back by it, laughing as he forced kisses into her neck. His head was bowed so I couldn’t see his face, and the girl had so much hair I wasn’t seeing hers.

That was until he grabbed her neck.

A mouth smeared with red lipstick angled in my direction, a familiar face I had to take a double look at. I’d seen this girl, this woman before.

And this guy.

He’d let his hair grow out over the summer, but there was no mistaking the familiarity. The guy had the same face as my mother.

Because he was her brother.

My uncle Charlie was making out with the headmaster of our school, Principal Mayberry, and I was standing there high as hell thinking I was making that shit up. This wasn’t possible. Charlie was a senior at my school. He was eighteen, but a student nonetheless.

“Make me come, baby,” Principal Mayberry panted. My jaw dropped to the floor, as she reached behind Charlie and grabbed his ass. He shot his dick back into her from behind, nothing but their clothes keeping them apart.

Chuckling, Charlie kept her mouth away by the tight hold he had on her hair.

“So greedy,” he growled into our principal’s neck. He tongued and bit it so hard she cried out, and I wasn’t imaging this shit. This was happening. My uncle was having an affair with my high school principal.

My married high school principal.

The woman’s husband literally coached our football team, a team Charlie himself was on. He played too with Ares, Wells, Thatcher, and me.

I started to back away, not knowing what else to do, but then heard my name and stiffened.

“Where the fuck did his ass go?” I heard Ares call from somewhere, called too close from somewhere. He grunted. “He knows we gotta be back at a decent hour. It’s a two-fucking-hour drive just to get back to town.”

“Right. Dad’s already blowing up my phone wondering where I’m at,” Thatcher said, the voices even closer.

The shuffling in front of me stopped.

“Someone’s coming,” mumbled Principal Mayberry, freezing. The woman stiffened against the wall Charlie had her pinned to, but he kept her there. He didn’t want her to move.

I supposed because he spotted me.

He stared at me, right in the eyes in that very moment, and the horror within his couldn’t be denied. He’d been caught.

And I’d been the one to find him.

Currently, he had his side piece’s (well, I guess he was the side piece in this scenario) head in the other direction. Like stated, he had her pinned down so she couldn’t move, and I assumed so she couldn’t make any noise. The voices of Thatcher, Ares, and Wells grew closer, and Charlie’s head shot forward.

He heard them too.

Charlie and Principal Mayberry had maybe moments before the other three guys knew as well. I mean, I was standing there, looking at something. It wouldn’t take long for my best friends to move the same plant.

Charlie made eye contact with me again, a plea in them that told me all he wanted to say. He didn’t have to say it.

I’d always have his back.

I pushed out of the plant, striding down the hallway a few feet before making myself known. “Fellas!”

I overinflated the hell out of the declaration, not that high but I made my buddies laugh, which did the job required. I spread my arms out, coming to them, and Ares faked me out with a sock to the gut. We’d been calling him Wolf on the field recently. Dude was a crazy good player and annihilated anything in front of him.

“You’re trying to get us killed, kid. You know we gotta be home soon,” Ares said, but pounded my fist with a grin. He dropped an arm around my shoulders. “Sorry to break you away from your pussy.”

Had he done that, he knew I wouldn’t be so lax about it. I rolled my eyes, the other two immediately asking about my activities like a couple of virgins. God knew they weren’t, but these guys liked to fucking talk since the notches on their belts were so few and far between. They were still trying to establish themselves.

I draped my arms around the youngins before leading the whole group away, and when I gazed back, I saw no one coming out from behind the plant.

“Come on, guys. Let’s go,” I made sure to say nice and loud. The coast was clear for Charlie. I’d watch his back always.

Moments later, the boys and I found ourselves on the lawn with our chicks. It’d taken too long to find these girls, and had we been lesser guys we might have left them. We didn’t, the girls stumbling-ass drunk on the way to the car. We had to hold them just to keep them on their feet.

“The fuck is this,” came from behind us, and when I turned, I spotted Charlie. He came alone, stalking the lawn like a caveman.

His mere presence had the other guys stiffen. Charlie was the responsible one out of all of us. He may technically be my uncle, but he was like a brother to us. He was my brother. He’d lived with Mom, Dad, and me since I was ten years old, so yes, this guy was my brother.

And he looked pissed.

Pissed at all of us when he’d definitely seen me before this moment. I’d covered for his ass. He got to us, eyes narrowed. “The fuck you guys doing at a college party?”

Oh, yeah. Shit.

Charlie definitely was the most responsible of us, and I could imagine, since he was on his way to Pembroke in the fall, he thought him being here and us being here was different. I mean, it was, but I wasn’t about to bust myself out.

Charlie eyed the guys, frowning. He eyed the girls, frowning deeper. But when his dark gaze fell on me, I saw nothing but hot fire beneath it.

“You’re baked as hell,” he drummed, and I rolled my eyes.

I wrestled with my hair. “You want to make something of it?” I asked, the audacity of him talking down to me right now. I’d covered for his scandalous ass. “It’s not as bad as other things that are probably going on here tonight.”

I put that out there, his eyes expanding. Swallowing, he passed a look over the other guys, and considering how confused my friends appeared to be about what I said, that told Charlie all he needed to know. I’d kept his secret.

That didn’t mean he wasn’t still pissed at me.

A muscle feathered in his tight jaw. He faced Ares. “You baked too?” he asked. “Wasted?”

“Sober.” Ares shoved his hands in his pockets. “Had like half a beer.”

“He’s the designated driver,” I informed, and Charlie weaved his fingers through his hair.

“Good,” Charlie said. He jerked his chin in the guys’ direction. “Take those girls and get yourselves home.”

He must have recognized the girls from school. Us guys obviously brought them.

I started to go with the group, but Charlie got a hold of my arm.

“You’re coming with me,” he said. “I’m taking you home personally.”

He let go of my arm, passing us all before I could protest to any of that, and my friends whistled, laughing. They probably thought Charlie was going to own my ass so my parents couldn’t, but I most certainly knew what this was about.

I tapped my buddies’ fists, going along with the ruse. I got some jostling about how I was about to get my butt handed to me, but I took it. I was no snitch. If Charlie didn’t want his business out there, I wasn’t going to share it.

We were in his Lexus not long after that. He’d inherited a good portion of my grandparents’ assets after they died. Grandma Helen had been a homemaker but Grandpa Lindquist had a lot, and the assets had been split half and half between my mom and Charlie.

Charlie had never gotten rid of their car.

He still drove the same thing Grandpa Lindquist did, his main car and not the one he’d been driving the night of my grandparents’ accident. The Lexus he’d only used for in-town driving, not road trips like he did with Grandma Helen.

The soft leather seats warmed with heat when Charlie turned the car on, but the car didn’t move.

We just sat here.

Quiet.

In fact, I only heard Charlie’s breathing, husky and labored. He was still amped up but something told me not because he’d caught me tonight at a college party with my friends.

“It’s wrong, you know,” I said, starting right in on him. Just because I kept his secret didn’t mean I agreed with it. I tipped my head back. “You shouldn’t be doing this. Coach is a good man.”

He was good to us, the best coach ever. He didn’t deserve his wife to be two-timing him.

The declaration only made Charlie laugh, and that enraged me. I’d kept his fucking secret, hadn’t I?

“You know nothing, Robin,” Charlie informed me. He hadn’t called me that in so long. Not since we were kids and used to play the superhero game. The other guys were the rest of the Justice League, a game we all used to love. Charlie wet his lips. “Coach hits her. Did you know that?”

I blinked, shaking my head. “What?”

“Yeah.” He nodded. “Black and blue when he’s angry, or just because he fucking feels like it.” The back of his head touched the seat. “She hides it under her clothes.”

Something I guess he would know.

The thoughts had me thinking about how messed up this was, but not just because the woman was married and in an abusive relationship.

I mean, Charlie was a student. She wasn’t his teacher, but still, a student. I didn’t know how old our principal was, but the age didn’t matter in this situation considering their current roles to the other.

“Even still, what you’re doing is wrong,” I said, making him laugh again. “You’re a student. You guys shouldn’t be messing around.”

“We are both consenting adults,” he stated, facing me. He frowned. “And you got some nerve preaching your moral compass to me.” He shook his head. “How much fucking shit do I keep from Royal and December about all the crap you get up to? All the girls you fuck around with at six-fucking-teen. Coming to parties like this and getting baked and shit—”

“We’re not even in the same ballpark,” I seethed, making his eyes lift. “I’m not in the wrong here. The shit I get up to is nothing like what you’re doing.”

It was nothing like it—at all, and he had no right comparing the two.

“Well, aren’t you just perfect, Robin.” He angled around to look at me. “Just fucking perfect and have it all together.”

“I never said that.”

He laughed.

Until, well, he didn’t.

Until he was in my face and giving me a look he’d never given me before. A look of darkness and laced with so much heat and aggression. Charlie had never stared at me this way.

“Newsflash, kid,” he said to me, eyes scanning mine. “Sometimes shit isn’t perfect. Sometimes it’s hard for some of us to have it together all the fucking time.”

I never said that he had to, and I never made him feel like it had to be that way. Shit wasn’t perfect. Not for me either and especially not for him.

I knew that.

We all did, Mom, Dad, and the rest of our family. My friends and his friends… We all knew things weren’t perfect for him.

We all knew he was hurting.

My grandparents’ death left a void in my life. I mean, they were my grandparents, but even still, it was different for Charlie.

They were his parents.

Charlie put on a good front. I’d give him that. He never waltzed around angry or broken. In fact, he made it appear as if he were the epitome of the opposite. He was number one in his class, senior class president, captain of the football team.

Homecoming king.

He did have his shit together, and no one would ever question that.

Maybe we should have.

Mom, Dad, and even the guys and me checked in with him all the time, but that didn’t mean he told us shit, and I wondered if Principal Mayberry was giving him something we couldn’t. Maybe she wasn’t pushing. Maybe she was letting him give in and just bury himself in other thoughts for a while. Maybe she was being different with him like we weren’t.

Charlie blinked, like maybe he’d said too much. He faced away, putting the car into drive, and I didn’t want him to. I didn’t want to just leave like this.

That didn’t mean he didn’t do it anyway.

He started us off on that more than two-hour drive, a pregnant silence in the car, and I had more than a sinking feeling. If Charlie was bottling up all this stuff, it wasn’t good, and the fact made me feel nothing but powerless. This wasn’t like when we’d been kids.

Just tucking him in and telling him we were brothers wouldn’t be enough this time.

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