I had no time for that.
What about Alex?
Fuck, I wished I could stop thinking about him. I assumed he wasn’t a royal. No royal would be that friendly. With that logic, the dark-haired asshole was almost certainly from a royal family. He bled superiority, and his mere presence was so commanding that even now I couldn’t get him out of my mind—for different reasons than Alex, but he was there. He’d made an impression.
Flicking through the thick tome’s worth of paper, I knew it was impossible for me to read this in the short time I had to get ready, especially when I had to learn how to be girly. My friend Meredith always made it look effortless, but something told me that was years of practice in the making. I missed her already. She’d be beside herself over this place, and she’d have us decked out like we were the royals.
I really needed a friend like her here, someone to give me the condensed version of who was royal, who was the queen bitch—because there always was one—and who was safe to co-exist near. I wanted to know which guys were assholes and which ones were only interested in screwing around.
Actually, the screw around guys were often the only guys I went near—I didn’t have to worry about them wanting anything more than one night of hot, sweaty sex where neither of us even knew the other’s name. That was how I kept anyone from discovering my secrets—secrets that could not only get me killed, but other people I cared greatly about.
I’d made it to eighteen by following my rules and playing it safe. There was one truth though—staying alive required knowledge. Right now I was wandering around without a clue of the dangers surrounding me, with no understanding of this new world I’d found myself in.
And it was a dangerous world; only a moron wouldn’t expect it to be survival of the strongest in this school. Politics, royals, and sports. Fuck. This was probably more dangerous than the few skirmish zones that the monarchies hadn’t been able to get under control since the Monarch War.
Okay, maybe that was an exaggeration. But it wasn’t going to be fun and games, that was for sure.
Seeing the time, I let out a low screech and dropped my towel as I hurried into the closet to choose from the mass of clothes provided by the school. I grabbed the first underwear set my hands touched, and they turned out to be black and lacy, the bra cut low on my breasts and panties high on my ass. The thought that someone had picked out underwear for me was weird as heck, but I couldn’t be choosy. At least everything seemed new. And it fit … Somehow they knew my sizes?
Next was a pair of tight jeans, black with fashionable fading across the thighs. When I moved to the shirts, I thought about the weather and decided on a white undershirt, long sleeved and maybe the softest thing I’d ever worn. Most clothing was created in labs, and the quality varied greatly. Growing up, the motto in my part of the world was: practical, not fashionable.
However, the rich and the royals apparently got superior quality lab-created clothing. This shit was next level, and I was going to steal it all when I left here.
Over the white shirt I added a vintage band shirt—because somehow they also knew I loved them—and a black jacket that hung down past my ass with huge buttons on the front that I could secure if the party was outside.
I grabbed some over-the-knee black boots with medium-sized heels to finish off the look, dropping them near the door to pull on after I finished my hair and makeup.
Twenty minutes later, I had reasonably straight hair, and I couldn’t get over how long it was when it wasn’t a mess of tangled curls. Thanks to a few pumps of the miracle balm, it was shiny and golden. With my makeup I went a little darker than usual, mostly because in my old life I had pressed powder, one eyeliner, one mascara, and a blue shadow. That was it. And I had to use it all so sparingly that I wore it only on occasion.
Did these people even know that it was hard to buy makeup now? Even for the rich? I mean, nearly all resources since the war have gone into producing enough food to keep the world alive, and everything else was secondary. Makeup was way down the list, but it was around and I’d cherished my small stash.
A knock at the door came just as I started to line my eyes, and I cursed as I drew across my cheek. The clock told me that Alex was early, and I grabbed a tissue to dab at the spot I’d drawn while running to open the door.
Taking a deep breath, I yanked it open, then blinked at the sight of someone who was definitely not a tall, golden, surf-god.
“Mattie,” I said, surprise coloring my words. “Shit. Did I forget we were meeting?”
I hadn’t forgotten anything, but I didn’t know how to ask what she was doing here without sounding rude as fuck. And since she was one of the nicer people I’d met today, I’d like not to piss her off just yet.
Her large hazel eyes, the green so dark it was like the forest at midnight, perused me slowly. “You clean up nicely, new girl,” she said, flashing that perfect smile in my direction.
New girl was better than orphan at least.
Without waiting for an invite, she pushed her way into my room. Her heels, at least twice the height of the boots I’d picked out to wear, were silent as she crossed my floor.
Immediately I felt like a poor, underdressed loser. She looked spectacular. Her purple minidress skimmed her curves, stopping just below her ass. It was rich and shiny, like it had been made from the contraband silk, shot through with gold. The heels I’d admired were also gold, wrapping around her slender feet and up her calves. She had on a white, fluffy coat that made the red of her hair stand out starkly. That style of coat would have made me look like I was wearing a polar bear, but not Mattie … she looked like she should be a model not a college student.
Dropping onto my bed, she leaned back, tilting her head to the side as she stared at me. “I heard that Alex invited you tonight,” she said without preamble, and I was starting to understand that she was both blunt and honest.
I liked that.
“Yep, I ran into him on the soccer field—or more like his ball almost ran into my face—and we got to chatting. He seems nice.”
Her lips twitched. “For a prince, he’s okay.”
I choked on air, spluttering as I stared at her. “Prince?”
Fuck. Seriously. Fuck off with that.
Mattie shook her head, sitting a little straighter, elegantly crossing her long legs. “Yeah, Prince Alex of the Australasias.”
Great, not only was he a prince, he was from one of the four superpower monarchies. “What’s his game?” I asked with a sigh, dropping down next to her. I decided I might as well be as honest as she was, and while I had no fear of a physical attack from Alex—he was nothing I couldn’t handle—there was a lot of other shit he could drop on me. I wanted to be prepared. “I mean, the charity-case scholarship winner is not really going to be on a prince’s radar, right?”
Princess Ballot. Fucker was living up to its name.
Mattie cleared her throat. “Crown prince at that.”
Great. Even better.
She hurried on. “Don’t stress on it. We’re royals, but that doesn’t automatically make us horrible people. I might be a princess of some small obscure nation, but thankfully my twin is the crown prince, and that means I’m at Arbon to have some fun.” Her lips quirked up. “For some reason, new girl, you look like my type of fun.”