by Eden O'Neill
DIRTY WICKED PRINCE: Court Legacy Book 1
Copyright © 2021 by Eden O’Neill
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, including electronic or mechanical, without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to any person, living or dead, any place, events or occurrences, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
Cover Art: RBA Designs
Editing: Straight on till Morningside
Proofreading: Judy’s Proofreading
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter One
Sloane
The screams hit the moment I braked at the stop light. A woman on the sidewalk just ran past my car.
A hooded dude sprinted behind her.
He chased her. He was big and broad, and I had a moment of: what the fuck?
I watched the pair in shock, an actual emergency taking place in front of my eyes. The light changed, but I pulled over and left my car. The man had chased her around the corner, and in a panic, I rounded my dad’s old Chevelle to the back.
I popped the trunk, hoping my dad’s baseball bat was still in there. The screams continued down the block, and I wrestled around until I found the bat.
And something else.
My father had a legit air horn back here, one of those with the funnel and everything. I wished I’d been surprised.
“Stop it!” the woman screamed, running backwards. “What do you want?”
My gaze shot forward, and I left my trunk. I left my car and all sense included. To make myself appear more intimidating, I pulled my long hair in, then tugged my hood up. I raced down the street in an act of bravery I most certainly didn’t have after that.
The woman’s screams led me on.
I found the pair pretty quick, the woman on the ground and the guy above her trying to get her up. It was easily a guy. He was huge, large back and even longer limbs.
“Get up, you little bitch,” he growled at her, tugging her. His voice was distorted and weird like he had some kind of scrambler on it. She kicked at him from the ground with her tennis shoes, and he cursed. “Fucking cunt. If you don’t get up and make this easy, I swear to God—”
“Eh, motherfucker!”
Dude whipped around.
He wore a skull mask.
Like a full, evil skeleton mask and the hoodie and all-black attire made him even more intimidating. I had no idea what age he was, couldn’t tell since he was dressed head to toe in black. He could have easily been older or even around my age, eighteen. “What the fuck—”
I raised my bat, ready to knock this guy’s goddamn head off. “Want to test me? I’ll knock your fucking nuts off. No fucks given.” I gripped the bat with a confidence I most certainly didn’t have, and maybe the guy saw that, because he merely tilted his head like I was crazy. He started to stride in my direction, but then I raised the air horn. I shook my head. “Don’t take another fucking step.”
I started to squeeze the button, but he shook his head.
“Fucking crazy-ass,” his weird voice growled before doing a little jog backwards. He raised his hands, washing them of me apparently. He sprinted down the block around the corner, and I could breathe again.
I dropped the bat, my adrenaline pulsating. The woman sat on her side, rubbing her hip, and I ran over to her. “You okay?”
She seemed like it, rolling to her front. She was older than me, middle-aged and with exceedingly red hair. She had gathered it up in a messy bun, and with all that Lycra she wore, something told me this woman had been out for a run tonight.
“Fine. I’m okay,” she huffed, brushing her legs off. She sat upright. “Could have been worse. Would have been if you hadn’t have come.”
I supposed it’d been a good thing I’d been driving past. I placed my hands on my legs. “Can you get up? Do you need help?”
I could call someone, but when I offered, she passed that off. She did, on the other hand, allow me to help her up.
She brushed herself off. “I’m not parked far from here. Little miscreant thought he could rob me blind. Though, I told him I had no money. I don’t carry any when I go out jogging.”
Sometimes that unfortunately didn’t matter and did make me kind of scared. I’d just moved here myself and would like to leave my house if I felt like it without getting friggin’ assaulted.
“This a common thing around here?” I asked her, the woman getting herself together. “Being robbed? I have to say that wasn’t on the brochure when I came to town.”
Not that I’d gotten one, or really anything. My brother, Bru, and I had just gotten here a couple days ago, and we’d come with very little to our name. We really didn’t have anything. Never had.
The woman gazed up at me after what I said, her expression curious. “Oh, did you just move?”
Nodding, I acknowledged that. “Yeah, my brother, Bru, and I start school on Monday.”
“Which school?”
“Windsor Preparatory Academy?” I stated, her eyes flashing for some reason. “Why?”
After she got herself straightened up, she stood tall before me. She placed a hand on her chest. “I’m actually the headmaster,” she said, then gave me her hand. “Elaine Mayberry. Though, I suppose on Monday you’ll be calling me Principal Mayberry or Dr. Mayberry. My students call me either or.”
Well, this was a small world. I shook her hand. “Please tell me school’s a little less rough than casually striding down the streets of Maywood Heights.”
Really, I thought this would be a sleeper town, not much going on.
I compared it to bigger. Bru and I came from Chicago, so needless to say a city of less than two hundred thousand and surrounded by cornfields would be completely different for us.
Principal Mayberry didn’t say anything at first, but she did smile at me. She placed her other hand on top of mine. “Mind your Ps and Qs and you should be okay.” She eyed my bat on the ground behind me. “And something tells me you’ll be all right everywhere outside of the academic sense anyway.”
I had no idea what that meant, but I guess I had no reason not to trust her. She was my principal. I asked if she needed a ride to her car or anything, but again, she passed me off.
“Oh, and I didn’t g
et your name,” she said, popping one of her AirPods into her ear. This woman was brave. Apparently, she was about to finish her run despite what had just happened to her.
“Noa Sloane,” I said, shaking her hand. “Though my friends call me Sloane.”
Literally no one called me Noa, so best to get that going now.
Principal Mayberry smiled. “Nice to meet you, Ms. Sloane,” she returned, jogging backward. “I guess I’ll see you on Monday. And thanks again for saving my life.”
I saluted her off, which made her nod, and after getting myself together, I got my ass back to my car. I actually left it with the doors open and everything. Had I done that in Chicago, there wouldn’t have been a car left to return to.
Maybe Maywood Heights wasn’t as dangerous as I thought.
Chapter Two
Sloane
The drive back home didn’t take long despite the fact my brother and I lived out in the boonies. Trailer parks most definitely used to be the norm for us, so pulling my father’s busted Chevelle up to gates that required a key code entry was different, to say the least.
I tapped in the code I had written on the back of my hand, still trying to not be freaked out by that. Wrought-iron gates opened to me like I was royalty, and I simply shook my head, taking the paved path up to the garage. When the sun was up, a wide overlook of the city could be seen from my brother’s and my new house. We were stationed up on a hill and literally lived out in the middle of nowhere. I hadn’t complained because what was there to complain about?
We lived like royalty.
The house on the hill sparkled, all glass walls and modern like something out of a design catalog. The home was all hard angles and polished uppitiness, definitely not my style or Bru’s. In this case, we hadn’t had a choice. This was our digs.
This was home.
I kept trying to associate that term with myself, home and this town, but I kept having a hell of a time. I’d lived in several “homes” over the years, never having stayed at any of them longer than it took the time to unpack. My brother and I were always on the move, so there hadn’t been a point.
My hand worked the steering wheel as I advanced toward the garage. It was motion-activated to my ride, so I hadn’t even had to touch anything before pulling in.
That was another mind fuck I had to push out of my mind, and I got myself and my groceries out of the car. The new digs definitely had all the modern amenities, but what it hadn’t had was actual food that two teenagers could eat without gagging. The fridge had been stocked with nothing but cardboard and health food when we’d arrived, and I supposed I’d have to have a talk with our guardian about it.
Then again, I obviously took care of things tonight, and I found my brother right where I left him.
“You get the milk?” he asked from his place on the couch, a flat screen about the size of the wall sat in front of him. My brother, Bruno, was playing a game system that hadn’t even been released yet, video games included, and I’d been given an entire room for my art stuff. Really, it was completely over the top, but again, I hadn’t complained. It would be both ungrateful and rude to the person who’d provided it.
I tossed my seventeen-year-old brother the half gallon I got him, cookies too, and he caught both with an ease like he actually played sports. He’d always been built to do such things. He’d just never had the opportunity. My father stressed relying on books and school to get us by.
He had stressed.
Like a savage, Bru ripped off the lid of the milk, then proceeded to down the half gallon right in front of me. We looked absolutely nothing alike. My brother couldn’t hold a tan for anything, and I was naturally golden. Besides our heights being similar (crazy since I was a chick), I couldn’t pass for this kid’s sister any more than he could pass for my brother. My hair was even darker than his chestnut brown.
And I had manners.
“Use a fucking cup,” I growled, heading to the kitchen. I dropped the bags of groceries off, then managed to find a drinking glass amongst the many pearl white cabinets. Those cabinets had been filled as well, crystal dishes Bru would make sure to take out with his butterfingers. I returned with the glass, but by then, he’d already drunk the thing down to half. I sneered. “You’re a pig.”
“And you took forever.” He had a milk mustache when he brought the carton away. He wiped his upper lip clean. “Weren’t you just going down the street?”
“Just down the street” was like five miles from our house on the hill. I knocked his head forward, and he didn’t fight because he knew, despite being slightly bigger than me, I could handle my own. I had in the past. I shrugged. “Ran into a little trouble. Took me a second to get back.”
That was putting it lightly considering I had to stop a near assault, and when I plopped on the sofa lounge, the look of concern on my kid brother’s face was evident.
“What kind?” He put down his controller and everything. Apparently, this conversation was legit serious. The controller hadn’t left his hands since he started playing two days ago. “You weren’t fighting, were you?”
Despite what my brother may think, I didn’t fight just to fucking fight. I fought when people messed with me, completely different. I rolled my eyes. “I wasn’t fighting. But I did have to stop an assault.”
“What the fuck?”
“Wasn’t me. Relax.” I tossed a pillow at him. “Some woman was running and this tool thought he could handle her.” I reached for one of his cookies. “I used dad’s bat. Took care of it.”
Leaning back, I popped my leg up on the couch arm. Despite my reassurances, though, my brother didn’t seem any more at ease.
He worked the controller in his hands. “Okay. Well, I’m glad you’re okay,” he said lounging back. He shrugged before playing his game again. “But maybe we should call Callum.”
“Call him about what?” Callum was our guardian, a family friend that got us this place. He was a businessman, and Bru and I had never met him before circumstances occurred to bring him into our life. Circumstances surrounding our father.
We hadn’t even known he had a will.
But our dad had, which I supposed matched his paranoia. He had always seemed to be on all the time, anxious. He’d had a hard time keeping a job because of it, and we’d moved so many places. He had struggled a lot with his mental health before he’d died over the summer.
Like Bru knew I was thinking about him, what brought us here and our situation, my brother left me to my silence for a second. He still continued to play his video game but looked over at me more often than not.
“Maybe we should call him about security or something,” Bru said, shocking me. “He did say to call him if we needed anything.”
My father’s friend had been gracious to say the least. It’d been him to suggest us coming to Maywood Heights. He’d relocated us and everything.
“It’ll be great for a fresh start,” he’d said to us, the first time we’d met him at our dad’s funeral. Our father had died in a factory fire at his last job, a job he’d managed to hold on to for almost a year. Things had been getting better toward the end there. Bru and I had actually been able to settle down at a school. Stay for more than one term.
But then the fire.
Bru and I had struggled a lot with our father. We loved him, but my brother and I, i.e. me, had to be the parent a lot when our dad had hard times. He’d dealt a lot with depression too as well as anxiety, and most days I’d had to make sure he’d leave bed to get to his job. Not to mention my brother and I off to school.
I shook my head at the thoughts, those times severely hard. I’d had to step up from a really early age. Bru and I—most of the time—were just Bru and I with everything going on with our dad. Our mom had died when we were really little.
“What the fuck would we need security for?” I rolled my eyes. “It’s not like we’re the president’s kids.”
“Might as well be at that rich-ass school we’re about t
o go to,” he said, laughing. He wasn’t lying. I had looked at the brochures for the place, and it was pretty crazy. My brother and I had only gone to public schools coming up, so a place that looked more like a college campus than a high school in the brochure would certainly be different. Bru chuckled. “I’m just saying. Might as well. If we ask Callum, he’ll get us security.” He threw out a hand. “Wouldn’t put it past those other kids on campus to have the same. ‘Staff’ and shit.”
He air quoted, and I laughed.
“We don’t need to be milking this arrangement any more than we already have,” I said. Callum had been more than generous to us. Besides a place to live and a new school, he was covering all our essentials. Food. Clothing. Everything. It’d been more than lavish and more than we could ever have deserved. We’d literally come to this town with nothing. Our dad most certainly hadn’t been rich, and outside of a little savings and the Chevelle, he’d basically left us with nothing.
My brother and I would definitely have been out on the streets right now had Callum not come along with that will my father had created before his death. Or worse, in the system. Bru still was not yet eighteen and that, most certainly, would have been his reality. I had nothing either to take care of us with.
I tossed a pillow at my brother. “And you are milking things for all they’re worth.”
He’d put his grubby little hands on anything Callum had put in front of him. Hadn’t blinked an eye after finding out our new guardian was rich. All his video games and his closet full of designer labels told that.
Bru popped a big shoulder. “I’m just trying to move forward.” His gaze slid in my direction. “I don’t know. Maybe be normal instead of slumming it for once? If Callum’s offering it, I’m going to take it.”
And why not, right? Play pretend? I eased forward. “You do know this isn’t our money, right?” This was Callum’s money. Not ours and never would be. We hadn’t been well off before Dad died. Not by a long shot.
Bru knew that too, his jaw working. He’d had to sacrifice the nicer things in life just like me. We’d both worked jobs just to help Dad out when he’d been in between jobs. Bru huffed. “You’re not going to make me feel bad for moving on. Callum’s giving us an opportunity to live a normal life. Why not take it?”