Royally Pucked (The Copper Valley Thrusters Book 2)

As soon as the last guest has left—carrying a case of mead, because his Instagram profile has half a million followers who love seeing what he’s drinking every day, and free publicity is golden—I take myself down the hall to the guest chambers and knock at Elin’s door.

No, I don’t bloody well care that she retired two hours ago, that I’m due for morning skate in six hours, or that her monkey is making faces at me as he follows me along.

I care that we find a solution to the mess our parents have gotten us into.

And we shan’t find that solution if we don’t talk.

Her conversation finally penetrated my brain somewhere between Panther’s impromptu concert in my living room sometime after I returned from making love to Gracie and before Viktor murmuring that the monkey had gotten stuck inside the penis costume.

Elin has a boyfriend.

She’s trying to get me to call off.

I knock again, and this time I hear her voice. “Go the fuck away.”

Such a winning personality. I open the door and stick my head in, finding her not in bed, but bent over a laptop in the stiff round chair in the corner. “Thank you, I’d love to come in,” I say with a smile.

She snaps the laptop shut. “Go. The fuck. Away.”

“You don’t wish to marry me.”

A ruddy hue creeps unevenly into her cheeks. “Of course I do,” she says flatly and without any feeling. “You’re so strong and studly and gorgeous and important.”

I tighten my biceps, and the lady makes a face as though she’s attempting to keep her dinner down.

“You forgot my winning personality.”

“So bloody irresistible.”

Can’t be comfortable walking around with her face pinched like that all the time. She must constantly battle headaches. “Nothing’s stopping you from calling off.”

Her blood-red lips purse, and unless I’m quite off the mark—and I’ve had more alcohol spilled on me than I’ve consumed this evening, so I very much doubt I’m off the mark—that’s panic making her eyes widen. “Obviously something is,” she mutters.

“It strikes me that a common goal would make us better allies than enemies.”

Ah, yes, the old the Prince of Morons has entered the building eye roll. My favorite.

“’So your beloved is an inappropriate match for a lady?” I surmise.

Her eyes flare wider, her flush deepens, and she grips the edges of her laptop so tight I fear she might crush the device. I briefly wonder if she’s ever tried to do damage with a hockey stick, because with a grip like that—right.

We were discussing our betrothal and her boyfriend. Not Elin’s potential prowess on the ice. Though I do think she could be bloody terrifying. Pity she wasn’t born a man.

More the pity we don’t live in a time when she could play hockey as a woman.

“No shame in having feelings for a person,” I tell her. “Merely a shame our relatives saw fit to remove the opportunity for the two of us to allow our hearts to lead us.”

“Just because you found yourself a whore—”

“Tsk, tsk, my lady. Your instructors at princess school would be horrified to know you’ve resorted to name-calling.”

There’s a decent chance I won’t leave this room alive if that temper spouting is any indication.

“Go. The fuck. Away.”

“Merely wanted to make the gentlemanly offer of giving you a path out of our arrangement before I’m forced to go about this another way. For your sake, of course. My apologies if looking out for your best interest offends you.”

I truly have nothing against Elin, aside from her generally being a disagreeable wench who invokes my father’s name and her terrible training to get her way. I hear she’s done some brilliant research on dementia and the aging process in brains. Progress there can hardly be bad for the world. But appreciating her profession is a far cry from appreciating her as a woman.

She doesn’t respond as I nod and reach for the door handle. “Let me know if I may be of assistance in any way,” I tell her. “I’d hate to be the cause of your ladyship’s suffering.”

I daresay she’d like to be the cause of much of my suffering. Which could be quite the turn-on, had I even the barest spark of interest in her.

But the thought of shagging her appeals as much as jerking off with a cold, wet dishrag in a room of rotting sheep flesh. I do wonder at the personality of the man who’s caught her fancy.

I close the door behind me and glance at the matching door across the hall.

The monkey screeches at me. Ares opens the door to let it in, and I spot a Gracie-sized lump huddled on one side of the bed.

Ares frowns at me.

I smile, because I bloody well know how irritating it is.

He folds his arms over his chest.

Heaven above, I haven’t the stamina for this tonight. “Touch her, and you’ll be viewing the world through your arsehole,” I say pleasantly.

That should be me sleeping in her bed.

Or rather, her sleeping in my bed.

But she’s correct.

I need to solve my betrothal problem.

And I will.

Because I’m not the only one of the two of us who would rather be involved with someone else.

No wonder she was uninterested in my guests tonight.

Ares smirks at my threat. Probably because his size alone makes him more than capable of twisting me into every shape of pretzel known to man.

“And thank you for watching out for her,” I add.

He nods.

And then he shuts the door in my face.

Just as well.

I have an email to send, and it’s not an email I’ll enjoy.

But as I‘ve just told Elin, far better to work together with those who share common goals than it is to fight along the way.