“Assuming I’ll be there,” I quipped, dabbing a napkin over my lips.
“You will be,” Samuel smirked. “Aren’t you curious about the fourth Champion envisioned by the Oracles?”
“You’re going to keep it a secret?”
Samuel smirked wider, folding his arms over his chest. “Oh, we’ll make the announcement on Monday. But if you attend the meeting, you’ll know it first.”
Wow.
Wow.
The audacity to bait me with information that would be available to me eventually. Like, a one-day difference.
Just. Wow.
“Fuck! Fine,” I huffed, earning a victory laugh from that man.Ass.Was it pathetic they already knew how to manipulate me? Transparent as glass.
“I love how your lady curses, especially when it’s because of me,” Samuel goaded my twin knights, who only looked unbothered by him. “Very unladylike. Frankly, unbecoming for a noble daughter.”
I glared at him. “Bet you’d like that anyway. Feisty and bold, was it?”
He froze like I’d caught him in a lie. Or in a truth. Either way, the startled look on his face was comical.
Winston grabbed his shoulder and squeezed before letting go a second later. “That’s enough. Claude, let’s have dinner first before we proceed as planned. As for you, Bea … do you want to talk about the bastard?”
Ugh. My kidnapper’s boss.
I glanced at Mia and my knights, taking in their solemn faces. Honestly, they seemed to want to know about the guy more than I did. I wanted him punished, though, for causing great pain to the people who cared for me.
When I agreed, the Prince offered me a sweet smile.
“See you at the house.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
With how often I had been here at this mansion, it started to feel like a second dwelling. Or a third, if one counted my dorm. This time, I had my knights with me, while Mia requested to stay behind so she could continue catching up with her brother, Milo. She also made me promise to take my revenge against the bastard. Very unexpected from a sweet girl like her.
I didn’t expect everybody else who was present that night to be here, too.
“Are we going to take turns beating him up?” I joked at them as Prince Winston and Theodore led us through the lower floors of the mansion.
“I don’t want your pretty hands to bruise, so I’m against you beating him up. We’ll do it for you,” Claude exclaimed casually, as if calling someone’s handsprettywas an everyday thing.
I kicked my feet as we walked. “I could kick him. Got my boots on.”
Some of them laughed at my stupid joke. “No hurting the noble,” Uriel stated without humor. Unsurprising that it was my professor who would take my words seriously.
“I was only joking, Uri,” I teased him, and the nickname probably caught him unawares that he choked on air, earning more laughs from the other men.
“Very cute nickname, Uri,” Samuel smirked.
I giggled. “I have one for you too, Sammy.”
Samuel’s face turned a bit red. I had the last laugh of them all.
“Do you have one for me, too?” Surprisingly, it was Vincent who asked. He didn’t seem like the type to worry about nicknames of all things.
“You don’t like Vince?”
