Silver and Starlight: A High School NA Reverse Harem Dark Fantasy Bully Romance (Cruel Princes of Wyvern All-Boys Academy Book 3)

by Rachel Angel

  “It’s not what you think,” Flint said. “We just didn’t like the idea of having a girl at Wyvern. It’s always been an all-boys school and she had no business being there. At least that’s the way we saw it at first.”

  William gripped the knife he’d been using to chop more onions a little more tightly. “I can’t believe you guys didn’t treat her with the utmost respect right from the start, no matter what. I can’t believe you actually bullied her. What kind of man does that?”

  The princes looked at one another.

  “We’re not proud of what we did,” Tar said. “I’ll admit we were a little hot-headed. But we also partly did it to protect her. When she first arrived, we didn’t know what she was capable of. We didn’t know how strong she was. I bet you didn’t even know how strong she really is.”

  William shrugged.

  “Kids are killed at Wyvern every day,” Jasper added. “It’s a tough place, even for us. It was hard to believe that a girl could survive.”

  “That’s still no excuse,” William said, his tone angry. He stabbed his knife into the cutting board. “And you guys call yourselves princes. Hell.”

  “Hey,” Flint shot out, holding up the knife he’d been using to slice the meat. “I wouldn’t talk, brother. You lived with her all your life. She’s your fucking sister, whether you like it or not. Yet here you are thinking of her as a girlfriend. What does that say about you?”

  William turned his chest to Flint who did the same. Standing face to face, chest to chest and looking eye to eye, the men silently challenged each other, both of them huffing like angry bulls.

  “Okay. That’s enough,” Razor said, grabbing all the sliced meat and tossing it into the boiling pot of water. “We’re not going to get into a fight here in her house.”

  He tossed in the rest of the vegetables and stirred the pot with a wooden spoon.

  “Right,” Flint snapped, his chest still up against William’s

  “Right,” William grunted, not yet willing to back down.

  “Look,” Razor said as he set down his spoon and turned around to lean against the counter. “Can we all agree that we all care about Ally?”

  Flint and William nodded and mumbled their agreement, but neither back away.

  “Come on, guys,” Razor insisted. “We all care about her. Damn! We all love her. Right?”

  “Right,” they all muttered.

  “Look, William,” Razor said. “We’ll never be able to express just how much we all regret how we first treated Ally. We were misguided. That goes without saying, but we know that now. We’ll spend the rest of our lives making it up to her.”

  “Yeah,” Flint said, looking menacingly at William. “So, what’s your excuse?”

  “Really?” William said. “Do you think that just because my parents decided to officially adopt Ally that I stopped being a red-blooded man who was looking at a beautiful girl. I’m not a robot, you know. I have feelings. I have eyes. I can see who she is, and I’ve always felt strongly about her. Worse still, I had to keep how I felt a secret… from her and from my parents. Do you know how hard it’s been?”

  “So, why’d you decide to spill the beans now?” Tar said.

  William finally backed away and leaned back against the counter beside Razor. “I thought I was dying. That day when I’d been bitten, I thought it was my last hour on this earth. I had to tell her how I felt. She had to know.”

  The princes all looked at him with a degree of empathy. Flint finally patted William on the shoulder. “I guess we can’t blame you for falling for her.”

  “Okay, well now that that’s settled, let’s clean up this mess and set the table while this thing that resembles a stew cooks up a bit.”

  They cleared the kitchen, throwing away the remnants of vegetables and eggshells, then cleaned the utensils they’d used to chop and mix.

  “Dinner’s just about ready,” Razor said as he gave the boiling stew a final stir. “I’ll go get Ally.” He headed out to where she’d been working but didn’t find her.

  “Ally,” he called softly as he headed to her old room. He stopped at the threshold and his heart filled with love for her once more as he found her lying on her bed asleep. Still dressed and with her boots still on, she lay over the thin blanket that covered the bed.

  Razor went to her and looked down at her angelic face. Her rainbow of hair lay all around her head and he was tempted to kiss her but didn’t want to wake her. Instead, he gently pulled her boots off and quietly left the room.

  He headed to the front room where Kate and Bilbo were saying goodbye to the last of the patients.

  “If you guys are ready,” Razor said, “dinner is served.”

  Kate and Bilbo both looked at him as if he’d spoken in a foreign language.

  “You guys must be hungry after such a busy day,” Razor said, himself eager to sit down to a hearty meal.

  When he returned to the dining area with Bilbo and Kate, Flint and William were setting bowls of piping hot stew on the table while Tar brought eating utensils and Jasper brought in the bread and butter.

  “Wow,” Kate said, her eyes wide with surprise. “This is so unexpected. I had smelled this wonderful aroma earlier and had wondered which neighbor was so fortunate as to have a delicious meal waiting for them.”

  “Well,” Tar said, pulling out a chair for Kate. “The fortunate one is you.”

  Smiling, she sat down and Tar pushed the chair in slightly.

  “Thank you,” Kate said with a pleased smile.

  Tar bowed and took the seat beside her.

  “Where’s Ally?” Kate said.

  “Sleeping,” Razor said. “There’s plenty of stew. We’ll set aside a bowl for her.”

  “That’s a shame.” Bilbo sat down and immediately dug in. “I’m sure you all went to a lot of trouble to impress her.”

  Kate’s gaze quickly went to William, but she made no mention of the relationship he had with Ally.

  “What about you, Will?” Bilbo said, refusing to be as tactful as Kate. “You want to impress Ally, too?”

  “Bilbo,” Kate chastised.

  “What? We have to put it out there. This is reality.” He looked at William. “Right?”

  William didn’t answer but concentrated on his bowl of stew.

  “This is going to be complicated,” Kate said under her breath.

  Chapter 11

  “You’ve raised quite a girl,” Razor said after an awkward moment of silence.

  “We did our best.” Kate blew on a spoonful of hot stew.

  “She’s the toughest girl I’ve ever seen,” Flint added.

  “We’ve never seen any reason to raise a girl differently than a boy,” Bilbo said.

  “I was raised to be rough and tough,” Kate added. “I did just about everything a boy would do, and no one ever stopped me.”

  Bilbo looked at his wife, then at the princes. “I went to school with this one,” he said, pointing a thumb at his wife. “Everyone was scared of her.”

  Kate took a mouthful of stew and smiled as she looked lovingly at her husband.

  “Were Ally’s parents strong as well,” Jasper said. “Were they rough and tough?”

  “Her parents were very special people,” Kate said. “It’s such a shame about them.”

  “How did you come to take her in and adopt her?” Tar said.

  “I know you boys are all pretty taken with our girl,” Bilbo said. “You guys want to know if she’s worthy of you, or what?”

  “No,” Jasper said. “That’s not it at all.”

  “We all know she’s worthy,” Razor added. “No matter where she comes from, we love her.”

  “We’ll see,” Kate said.

  “Ally doesn’t really remember much about her early childhood,” Bilbo said. “But she was born into royalty.”

  The princes all sat back in surprise while Will’s eyes narrowed.

  Razor smiled as he thought of Ally; a royal. What a surprise.
“And how did you come to know her?”

  “I worked for her father,” Bilbo said. “We both did. He was the Crowned Prince of Wisteria.”

  “Wisteria?” Flint said, looking in the air as if searching. “Where is that exactly?”

  “It’s at the furthest point to the east of The Borders, beyond Wyvern,” Kate said.

  Bilbo nodded. “Years earlier the prince had met with a beautiful young woman with vibrant hair of every color. Rosalie. He fell in love on the spot. What he didn’t know, however, was that Rose was a dragon shifter.”

  “Hmm,” Razor let out. That certainly explained Ally’s abilities.

  “It took a few weeks before he learned just how special Rose really was,” Kate said.

  “When the prince announced he was marrying her,” Bilbo went on, “he was forced to relinquish his right to the throne. His kingdom did not want a dragon as their queen.”

  “What they didn’t realize,” Kate cut in, “was just how special Rose really was. She wasn’t merely a dragon shifter, but a descendant of a species of ancient lore. Unlike other dragons, she could absorb power from others. She could take their energy and use it to fight or to camouflage.”

  “I’ll tell you,” Bilbo said. “They were quite a formidable pair. While she absorbed strength and power, not only did she become stronger, but through her love of her husband, she also transferred some of that energy to him.”

  “Once the prince had relinquished all rights to the throne,” Bilbo said, “he moved his beautiful new bride to an enchanting castle in Wisteria near The Borders. He was offered and accepted the title of Duke and Duchess.”

  “And we moved in with them,” Kate added. “It was a quaint little castle. Nothing too ostentatious, but large and airy with a huge flower garden out front and an equally huge vegetable garden out back.”

  “Ally came along just a few years later,” Bilbo said. “I don’t think I’d ever known a happier family.”

  “Except us,” Kate said with a playful grin as she looked at Bilbo and William.

  Bilbo smiled warmly at his wife, but then became serious and solemn. “They had five blissful years as a loving family. They doted on their little girl all while teaching her that she was allowed to be tough, that she should go out and be rough. They allowed her to play in the mud, just as they allowed her to play with her dolls.”

  “She was a darling little girl; always laughing and running around. She loved to get into mischief and even at a young age wasn’t afraid of much.”

  “But when she was about five years old…” Bilbo stopped for a moment.

  “I was upstairs and looked out the window of Ally’s room and saw movement in the distance making their way to the castle. It was dark, just a bit after supper, and I knew the Duke and Duchess weren’t expecting visitors.”

  “She came running to me,” Bilbo said, “telling me about the intruders and I went in search of the Duke to warn him. By the time I found him, the intruders were at the door, pounding like mad.”

  “The Duchess was filled with worry when the intruders started breaking down the door,” Kate said. “The Duke told us to gather the children and run out the back way. William was already at my side, but Ally was up in her room. I’d just put her to bed.”

  “I told Kate to start running with William,” Bilbo cut in. “Meanwhile I went up to get Ally and ran out to catch up with Kate. And just in time. We reached the wooded area nearby just as two of the intruders made their way to the back door.”

  “It was horrible,” Kate said as she lay her spoon down and covered her face with her hands.

  “We don’t know what happened in there exactly,” Bilbo continued. “But we could hear the screaming. Like Kate said; it was horrible. Blood curdling. Sometimes I wake up and still hear them, especially Rosalie.”

  William, who’d remained silent, suddenly let out a long, shuddering sigh.

  “You okay,” Kate said, reaching out to pat his hand. “I’m sorry. Maybe we shouldn’t have brought it up.”

  “No. I’m glad you did. For years I’ve woken up in the middle of the night hearing that awful scream, but never knowing why. I don’t really remember much about that night… nothing really, except that scream.”

  Everyone was quiet for a while, eating the remainder of their dinner, all lost in their own thoughts.

  “We never went back,” Kate said after a while. “To this day, we still fear that whoever killed the Duke and Duchess might still want to kill Ally. No one ever found out who did it or why.”

  Chapter 12

  Ally is lost in the dark, running through corridors that go nowhere, always seeing the light at the end of the hall, but never finding it.

  She runs down the stairs, only to see the massive castle doors, shaking under the endless banging from outside.

  Someone wants to come in.

  A strong, male arm picks her up and for a moment she wants to scream, but then she sees Bilbo’s face. He runs back up the stairs, down the hall and behind her she hears her mother screaming. The pounding at the door has stopped, but the screaming gets worse and worse. Her father. Her father?

  “Daddy!” she called out from her bed. She shifted and twisted, trying to run away, even in her sleep.

  Her father comes to her and kisses her brow. Be strong, he tells her. You’re a brave little girl.

  The tunnel is long as they continue to run. So long… endless.

  “Daddy!” she called out again, her breathing hard and labored as the nightmare continued to grip her. She wanted to shake out of it, to get out of that tunnel, and out of the pain.

  Her father whispers to her mother, but they are both so far away. They’re going far, far away, until she doesn’t hear them anymore.

  All that remains is the silence… and her heavy breathing.

  She looks up at the sky, so dark and filled with stars, but with a rising moon that quickly lights the night.

  You’ll be safe, her father tells her.

  But you’re so far away. She sees him at the end of the hall, standing there, promising her she’ll be all right. She’ll be safe. He’s such a tall, handsome man. She dreamed of one day marrying a prince just like him.

  Her mother, so beautiful, with her rainbow-colored hair pulled up into a bun. Ally always marveled at the swirl of color at her mother’s nape.

  But now, the neat bun has wisps of blue and strands of green and locks of red escaping.

  Get into the wagon, Ally.

  She falls instead and starts to cry.

  “Daddy! Mommy!” she cried out from her bed, sitting up and finally breaking free from the dream. Soaked in sweat, she gripped the blanket and let her breathing return to normal as she tried to analyze the nightmare.

  It’d been a long time since she’d dreamt at all, never mind have a nightmare. But this one, it seemed so real.

  Her father. She had so few memories of him, and yet in the nightmare… it was like being with him again. And her mother. She knew for a fact that her mother had that glorious rainbow of hair. Her very first memory of her mother was of that gorgeous hair.

  As painful as it was, she forced herself to remember every aspect of the dream, every frightful moment. She knew the dream represented a reality, in a mixed up sort of way.

  Then her heart stopped, and she gasped. The night had been dark until the moon had come up, yet she remembered flames, but didn’t know where they’d come from. Had the castle burned down?

  But then she had looked up at the sky, noticing strange movements. At the time, so young, she had not been able to figure out what she was seeing, but now… now she knew all too well.

  The strange things that had moved in the sky that night were dragons, dragons who’d landed on the far side of the castle and turned to humans.

  Those dragons were responsible for the horrible screams she’d heard in the night. They were responsible for her parents’ death.

  She was certain of it.

  Chapter 13


  Ally heard the tinkling of dishes and the swish of water coming from the kitchen and suddenly noticed the scent of food. It smelled heavenly and she wonder what Bilbo had concocted for breakfast. She realized she’d not eaten the night before and was famished.

  She headed to the kitchen expecting to see Bilbo cooking in the kitchen with his usual brown-striped apron but was surprised to see the four princes and William there instead.

  “Hey, sleepy head,” Jasper said. “We missed you at dinner last night.”

  “Yeah, sorry about that. What are you guys doing?”

  “Roofing a house,” Tar said. “What does it look like, silly?”

  “Looks like you guys are making a mess of Bilbo’s kitchen.”

  Bilbo and Kate who sat quietly at the table smiled and shrugged.

  “Well,” Jasper said. “Let us clean up the mess while you head back to your room, take your time waking up and I’ll bring you breakfast.”

  He leaned in to give her a quick kiss on the forehead. “Even after all these days of fighting you still look great, but maybe a bath is a good idea before breakfast.”

  She sniffed herself. “Really? Is it that bad?”

  Jasper nodded. “I’ll go in and help, if you like.” He leaned in to kiss her, but she eased away before he did.

  “No, that’s okay. I can handle it.”

  He persisted and leaned in closer, this time landing his lips on hers. His warm lips quickly arousing her.

  “Well,” she said. “Maybe you could wash my back.” She suddenly realized it’d been a few days since she’d last lain with one of her lovers and the need to connect struck her. Perhaps that was why she was so tired. A little time with Jasper would surely energize her.

  He followed her to the bathroom which had been completely cleared of any sign of all the potions Kate had bottled over the past days, but the small space didn’t allow for much movement.

  Jasper closed the door behind them, leaving him almost nose to nose with Ally. “Let me help you out of that ratty shirt.” He unbuttoned her shirt and peeled it off her skin. “Man, that is really nasty.” He let the shirt fall to the tiled floor.