There was nothing that Ashley wanted more than to hear her father say he was worried about her as well. But that seemed too big of an ask, especially since he wasn’t her actual father.
“Your brother is worried about you,” Ned repeated himself after a second, almost as if realizing that Ashley was lost to the world at that moment and could hardly process his words. Of course, those words came out of him awkwardly, almost uncomfortably, and Ashley could see just a flicker of the Ned that she had known. The one who wore flannel shirts and work boots rather than this knight that was currently walking around in a steel jumpsuit holding a sword like he knew what the fuck he was doing. “He…asked that I come in and talk to you. He thought that it might be more comforting if I were the one to talk to you and make sure that you know everything that’s going to happen soon and that you’re ready for the nobles to start arriving tomorrow.”
Ashley squinted at her father with a mix of confusion and anger. at that moment. She didn’t know how to feel about what he’d said. He just felt so distant from the man that she used to know. She could only sigh and shake her head, knowing that all she was meant to do was to show that she was polite and respectable. Oh, and she had to agree with everything people said. The ones that said the right things, that is.
“I’m fine,” Ashley reassured her father as she slowly rose from the seat by the window she had been sitting in, the same seat where she had been slowly devouring all the books she had found in the house.
Reading was one of Ashley’s primary pastimes, mainly because it was free, and if you had a good library in town, then you were pretty much set. Thankfully, the Opal Castle had an amazing library, which meant that Ashley could learn a little bit more about her world. Not a ton. She wanted to complain about the fact that the library hardly had any fiction, but she was slowly starting to get an idea of what she was facing at that moment.
Which made the fact that tomorrow nobles from around this strange world would start arriving even more jarring. Because really, she didn’t know how she was meant to act with any of them, what she was expected to say to them, or whether she was supposed to curtsy to them or something else that might cause a scene when she didn’t. All she knew was that she was very likely a piece of meat to them, so all the dragon men would be eyeing her up and down, undoubtedly entranced by the idea of new blood…while the women sneered at her.
Wouldn’t they be surprised to see that it was white trash that her brother dragged to this world?
Ashley had promised herself that she would never really change her opinion of herself. Although she might be considered white trash, she knew that slapping lipstick on a pig didn’t makeit a princess. Or at least, that was something that her father had said once upon a time. But now that he was her knight, she was pretty sure he would say something different.
“You can tell him I’m not going to jump out of my bedroom window, if it will make you feel better,” she finally said, not wanting to see him go, but he also wasn’t the same man who changed her diapers, or gave her ginger ale when she had an upset stomach. This was someone else, even if he looked the same.
Ned nodded obediently and wrung his hands at his daughter’s assurance that she was okay. She sensed that he wanted to tell her more but was unsure what to say.A hard line had been drawn between them, and they were no longer on equal footing.At that point, he probably realized the same thing she did: he didn’t have the right to ask her questions.
After twenty years of being in the role of his daughter, Ashley was now the one with authority over him.The idea didn’t exactly sit well with her either.
“The other nobles and such are coming tomorrow, aren’t they?” Ashley said with a squint, hoping that her father would give her more information about the other kingdoms and what she could expect. He merely shrugged in response.
“As you already know, the Opal Kingdom nobility is here, so you’re meant to entertain them again tonight. Many of them hope to gain a better stronghold in the Kingdom and solidify their place at the king’s right-hand side.” Ned didn’t attempt to hide the less-than-romantic notions that the other men possessed. Although she was sure that her father had more than a few words to say about it, a small part of Ashley longed for him to say them. Another part of her knew he never would. The fact that her father always understood the line between professionalism and everything else kind of sucked.
Ashley sighed as she crossed the room, shaking her head at the thought of meeting more nobles and trying to appease them. Shewasn’t surewhether she trusted them oranyone who had anything to do withher brother.The reactions she had heard since her arrival made her wonder if this was the right place for her. Maybe she wasn’t safe here either.That wasn’t something she could tell her father, whose main job waskeepingher safe.
Rather, the only thing to do was to walk across the room, bracing herself on the windowsill, and, for a moment, will herself to transform into a dragon so she could take off.Her father had been transformed into a wolf. There was noway that awolf could overcome a dragon. Or at least, that’s what Ashley’s fantasies told her. Although she was unsure if this was true, she was certain that her father would travel the world to find her if she left at that moment.That wasn’t something she wanted to bother him with.
“How far away is the debut?” Ashley asked her father, attempting not to show any signs of weakness by keeping her face blank. Ned seemed pleased for the most part. He looked away, as if unable to look at her when he answered. Does he hate this place as much as she does? “One week.”
She had one week until her debut. Ashley’s eyes returned to the window frame. Once again, she considered using the extravagant ball as an excuse to sneak out of the castle. This might be her last chance to escape, so she needed to make the most of it. Some sort of distraction was likely to take place at the ball. Maybe if everyone focused on her brother, she could use that opportunity to escape. That idea was the only thing that motivated Ashley to turn back to her father, nodding and offering her arm again as she moved from her bedroom into the dining room. The moment she entered the dining room, she realized something fundamental: she didn’t fit in there and didn’t really want to.
It tookAshley only a few minutes to conclude she disliked her brother more after seeing his disgusting friends.She didn’t want to let other people taint her view of him, but there was no denying there was something wrong with him, especially if he could hang out with guys like those.
She recognized that these families had already been rewarded with nobility status in the Opal Kingdom decades before she was born.She wished that shehad some chance to wrest back control fromthem,especially if those down the line proved to be completeasswipes.The men currently sitting in front of her were some of the worst.
She’d made up her mind about all of them the moment one of them patted Emma’s ass while making little to no secret about it and grinning a gloating smirk.Ashley’s blood boiled when she remembered how she had lived the life of a server before and had had quite a few handsy men’s fingers touch her ass cheeks.The fact that she wasn’t able to do anything to help Emma, at least nothing that she knew of, made her mad. But not as mad as when she realized her brother had seen this motion, and he was very obviously more than well aware of how these men’s eyes kept going up and down from female servant to noble woman, making no secret of their desires. But far more insulting was they could just fucking paw them when they wanted, even though female servants weren’t exactly their business. Ashley wasn’t their business either, but they decided to make passes at her as well.
And not good passes. These were the kind of passes that were heavily veiled compliments and obviously contained somethingmore. Something unsaid. Something that made very fucking uncomfortable.
“You’re far prettier than I had ever thought you would be,” the tallest one of them said, and Ashley learned then that his name was Landon. And that she hated assholes who were named Landon, who had far too much money to their names, and obviously didn’t think of women as people. But, since her brother was watching her, she bit back that comment. As Landon’s eyes were currently on her breasts instead of her face, he obviously thought her ample chest was the most attractive part of her.
She would probably kill to meet someone as kind and considerate as Alexander again, or at least half as entertaining as Jack Tracey, whose passes at her could be brushed off, considering he was a nice person, to begin with, and never leered at her body. But instead, she was at the table with Tweedle-dee, Tweedledum, and the two Tweedle-dumbasses.
She learned their names quickly, not because they were talking to her but rather because they were talking around her.
The tall one named Landon had a lot of land and holdings, and he was very proud of that. Almost as proud as he was of keeping a few hundred servants in his abode, though, the fat one named Dudley insisted that he didn’t actually need that many servants. Dudley’s castle was apparently bigger than Landon’s, so people should treat Dudley with a little more respect, he thought. Or at least, that was the way that Dudley made it sound when he was explaining his land and holdings, very obviously looking at Ashley as he did so, making little to no secret of the fact that he was trying to explain to her that he would be a far better match for her than whoever the fuck the Diamond Dragon was.
Well, if the Diamond Dragon didn’t happen to look at women like they were fucking sausages with legs, then Ashley felt likeshe was far more welcome in his home than she likely would have been in Dudley’s. But, you know, Dudley never asked her whether or not she would have wanted to live with him. Instead, he commented repeatedly about her being single and about that mate mark being something they could transfer.
Ashley murmured a few choice swear words under her breath as she turned her attention to her food, sawing into a large, far too rare piece of steak with a knife. As she noted to herself, obviously, mate marks, while a rarity, weren’t transferable, and therefore, she shouldn’t be too worried about it. Unless, you know, she ended up being forced into an engagement with someone who she didn’t exactly like, in which case it seemed like her brother wouldn’t let her change her mate mark.
Then again, Ashley felt like she couldn’t complain too much as long as the man she ended up with was not like the few dipshits sitting near her because it could be far worse. She could have unappealing, pig-nosed children like the ones that would likely come from the twins who were about a foot shorter than her. The same men both had cleft chins that were so deeply defined that they looked like butt cheeks. In the end, they were the stupidest. They were short and had decided to just chew their steak apart with their teeth, as opposed to dining like civilized people using knives.
Ashley was pretty certain that if she had to compare those men to a small-town archetype, she would say that the twins were like football players, but in the off-season, when they were wrestling, they carried around a giant jug of milk to make a weigh-in. Yeah, when they were in the dumbass part of their life. The tall one she would likely compare to a creepy teacher, and Dudley? Dudley was obviously that rich kid who always thought they were better than they were. The same kind of guy who made passes at Ashley growing up.
But again, no one asked Ashley’s opinion. Instead, what was asked of Ashley was that she sit quietly and eat her food, chopping it up into small pieces and acting like it was the greatest meal that she had ever been given, even if the steak was far too bloody.
