Against the Rules

Prologue

I loved chaos.

The excitement, the impending danger, the unknown of how it would end. There was something so thrilling about disorder. I'd reveled in it since the first prank I played during a state dinner when I was eight.

Which was probably why my personal bodyguard since the age of five didn't look the least bit phased as he watched the bar fight occurring before us. Two decades of dealing with my shenanigans meant he knew when I was actually in trouble versus when I was the one who caused it.

"Amazing," my cousin, Tristan, remarked with awe as he watched Johnny's complete lack of response to the brawl. "He hasn't even flinched. Tucker would have had me out the door and on my way home by now."

To his credit, Tucker did look extremely tense in the booth beside us, only refraining from pulling the King of Astoria out the door because Johnny was so calm.

I caught Johnny's sharp dark eyed gaze and grinned. He shook his head and I let out small laugh before turning my attention back to Tristan. "That's because you're a good kid. Johnny boy is used to me causing trouble."

Sometimes I found it hard to believe that Tristan and I were related. The only physical feature we shared were our eyes – clear jade – passed down through the bloodline our mothers shared. In terms of literally everything else, we were polar opposites.

Except for the whole royalty thing of course.

Tristan's coronation had occurred three weeks after his twenty first birthday, as dictated by Astorian law. Landsburian laws stretched the age of ascension to the throne to twenty-five, which gave me a few extra years of being a lowly crown prince, despite being the same age as Tristan. Unfortunately, three of those years have flown by and my twenty-fifth birthday was bearing down on me at an uncomfortable rate.

"You caused this fight?" Tristan asked, hiding his amusement poorly behind his half full pint glass.

I shrugged, draining the last of my beer. "I may have told one guy that the other guy was hitting on his girl behind his back."

"Went the love triangle route, did you?"

"You know how I love those," I said nonchalantly, winking at Juliana Bradford as she approached the table with a tray full of refills. In her ripped jeans, crop top, and combat boots, she definitely wasn't what Astorians envisioned as a Queen Consort, but that didn't mean she wasn't going to be amazing at it.

There were a few misguided months during which I fell in love with her. It was just my luck that her heart had always belonged to Tristan. The sting of longing had diminished ages ago and now I liked to think we were friends.

She rolled her eyes as she slipped into the booth beside Tristan, immediately melting into his side when he slipped his arm around her shoulders. They'd become bolder with the public displays of affection in the year since the announcement of their engagement, which was fantastic. And heart aching for reasons I had no desire to dig into.

Pinning me with a glare, she asked, "What have you done now, Dalton?"

"It was getting a little boring in here and it's Johnny's last night," I explained rationally. "I needed to provide him with some sort of entertainment."

Johnny wanted to spend more time with his wife and kids and I couldn't blame him. I imagined having to follow me around all day was bound to get boring at some point. Still, I'd miss his reassuring, steadying presence and the fact that he had no qualms about calling me on my bullshit.

"How generous of you," she replied drily, the corners of her mouth tugging up slightly as she absentmindedly played with Tristan's hair.

She was probably enjoying the hell out of the excitement. She'd worked in this bar for years and was on her way to becoming the manager. However, Astorian laws forbade the royal family from having regular jobs, which meant that when she married Tristan in two days, she'd have to say goodbye to the bar.