by Stella Hart
Heartless Prince
Dark Dynasty Book 1
Stella Hart
Copyright © 2018 by Stella Hart
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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Contents
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Prologue
1. Tatum
2. Tatum
3. Tatum
4. Elias
5. Tatum
6. Elias
7. Tatum
8. Tatum
9. Tatum
10. Tatum
11. Tatum
12. Elias
13. Tatum
14. Elias
15. Tatum
16. Tatum
17. Tatum
18. Elias
19. Tatum
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Prologue
Tatum
November 28th, 2018
I opened one eye as something creaked near me. Couldn’t quite manage the other; it was too heavy with sleep.
The room before me was a gray haze, a jumble of blurry outlines hanging in the air around me. I didn’t know if it was day or night. Nausea crashed through me, flooding me in endless waves, and I sluggishly rolled to my right, not wanting to choke if I ended up retching and vomiting. That was when I saw it.
There was a person standing a few feet away.
I managed to open my other eye from the pure shock of realizing I wasn’t alone, and the room seemed to swim around me as I tried to focus on the man. All I could see was brown hair, a towering body, and cold blue-green eyes. The rest was a blur, swept away on the ferocious ebb tide of my watery, hazy vision.
I knew I must’ve been drugged. Otherwise I would know where I was and who this man was. There was something familiar about those eyes and that reptilian gaze, but every time I tried to grasp the memory, it slipped away like dust through my fingertips. I felt as if I were in a tormented dream state, but I could tell from the aching in my head and the roiling in my guts that this was very real.
A moan escaped my lips. “Where… where am I?” I tried to say. It came out in a croaky, barely-recognizable slur. This wasn’t my voice. This wasn’t my room. This wasn’t my life.
The man spoke. “Sit up. It’ll wear off soon. You know these things are necessary. I think they may have given you too high of a dose last night, though, if you’re this bad.” His voice was cold, dangerous. I couldn’t remember who he was, but I knew I should be afraid of him. I could feel it in my bones.
I tried to do what he said, lethargically pulling myself up to a seated position. I was on a small bed with white sheets. I swung my legs over one edge and rubbed my eyes before looking around again.
I could see properly now. I was in a small room with smooth white walls, except for the wall to my left which was made of dark gray stone. The floor was solid gray concrete. A toilet with no lid sat in one corner with a large grate next to it. I still had no idea where I was at all.
Letting out another soft groan, I swallowed hard. Then, with great difficulty, I lifted my head to sweep my eyes around again. The room had no windows, but there was a glass pane on the door which gave me a view of more gray and white outside. Under the door, a flag of light fell in from the corridor. The door itself had some sort of keypad and electronic lock which required the swipe of a keycard.
Had I lost my mind? Was I in prison, or some sort of drab mental health facility designed to scare me straight? What had I done to wind up here?
I repeated my earlier question. “Where am I?”
The man glared down at me. “Tatum, you’ve been here for weeks. You know where you are. Think.”
I rubbed my eyes again, straining to remember what had happened to me. All I had were shards of senseless wreckage in my brain. I was trying my best to piece them together and lift my memories out of the cruel darkness, but it seemed impossible.
A name suddenly popped into my head, clear as day. “King,” I whispered. “That’s… that’s you.”
“Good girl. You’re starting to remember.”
Another lick of fear crept up my spine. “Why am I here?”
“Because you asked for it.”
I shook my head. “No.”
A vicious smile. “Oh, yes.”
A picture was starting to form in my head now. Then it was solid, complete, clear. A nighttime ceremony in the deep woods, a coffin, flaming torches, robed men with horned masks and golden rings. A woman in white, tied to a stone altar.
I gulped. Every piece of the memory brought with it gruesome forecasts of the consequences of my actions and dark visions of my future. I was still trying to force away the blackest thought of all; the mere suggestion of it sent panic skittering up my spine. But there it was, cold and stark and fully-formed in my memories.
“I made this happen,” I whispered, reaching around to feel the brand on my lower back.
The man cracked another nasty smile. “So it’s all coming back to you. Thank god it’s wearing off. We need you ready for tonight, don’t we?”
“Tonight?” I choked out the word, so normal and yet so ominous in these circumstances.
“The Bonding is tonight. Surely you remember that part.”
I shook my head. “I don’t.”
“It means it’s finally time for you to lose your virginity.”
I felt stripped of oxygen all of a sudden, as if the man’s words had burned it all away, left the room hollow and dry. More memories flooded back as I thought about how all of this began, piecing things together like a jigsaw puzzle. What an ugly, twisted picture it made.
“I can’t believe I did this,” I repeated miserably. What the hell was I thinking?
“You did it because you belong here.” Another nasty smile. “Don’t you?”
I nodded bleakly. He was right. I brought this upon myself.
My fault.
1
Tatum
Three months earlier
The blazing fall leaves swirled around my feet, a heavy wind firing them into the air seconds later. The morning light gave them a gorgeous orange glow, and I smiled and let out a long, satisfied breath as I stepped into Bamford College.
Home.
Bamford was one of ten residential colleges here at Roden University. Set up like something out of the pages of Harry Potter, all students were assigned to a ‘house’ known as a college when they were granted acceptance. Every student was convinced that their college was the best and this promoted some rivalry between them, but it was all in good fun, never taken too seriously.
Like many other buildings on the prestigious Ivy League campus, Bamford was a great hulking place that swept upwards with awe-inspiring architecture. A grand Collegiate Gothic design made of light gray stone with intricate carvings, it was covered with creeping ivy and ornate gargoyles which watched stonily over the outside world.
As was the case with every other residential college, Bamford had its own spacious private courtyard outside with an enormous marble fountain, stunning gardens and thick green hedges. On the inside, it had enormous private suites for every student, an expansive dining hall, a late night buttery, gym with heated indoor pool, movie theater, library and activity a
reas. Every little luxury you could possibly imagine.
As a friend of mine once commented, eighty grand a year in tuition had to pay for something, and that was why Roden’s housing was so extravagant. I was fortunate enough to be on a full-ride scholarship, though, never paying a dime for any of it, so being surrounded by all this lavishness still made my head spin on occasion even after all this time. I’d never experienced anything like it in my life, and when I first arrived on campus three months ago, the giddiness hadn’t subsided for weeks.
“Hey! We’re over here!” Mellie Davenport waved at me from the middle of the dining hall.
I smiled and hurried over to my friends, weaving my way through the tables and chairs. The hall was enormous with towering vaulted ceilings, decorated leaded windows and carved pointed arches over the doors. It was only seven in the morning, but the place was already bustling with activity.
That was one of the things I loved about Roden. No matter how early it was, nearly everyone here was eager to get started on their days so they could learn as much as possible. I knew I wasn’t some sort of genius by any stretch of the imagination, but I’d always loved studying and learning, so it was nice to be surrounded by so many like-minded people. The intense class schedules and heavy focus on academics over sports was very likely the reason Roden topped every other college in the country on the academic rankings most years. Even the other Ivies and super-competitive places like MIT struggled to keep up.
“I got you some scrambled eggs and a giant latte,” Mellie said when I reached the table and sat down, whipping off my jacket and wiping the sweat from my forehead with a napkin.
“Ooh, thanks!” I smiled and took a grateful gulp of coffee. Then I groaned with satisfaction. “God, I needed that.”
“You know, you could just get up an hour later and come here first thing like the rest of us,” Mellie said with a snicker. She was the Dean’s daughter. We met when I came to New Marwick for a tour after getting early acceptance to Roden last year. Seeing as we lived on the same floor of Bamford, we’d become fast friends once we started classes.
We’d both started in the summer, preferring to forego our summer breaks and dive into things head-on. That was possible because rather than the usual fall and spring semesters that other colleges offered, Roden had three study periods—a summer, fall, and spring trimester schedule. Because of that, we’d already completed a few courses even though it was only the beginning of fall.
“I’d still need coffee to function this early anyway, whether I go jogging or not,” I said with a grin, digging into my eggs.
“True.”
“How was your run, anyway?” another friend inquired—Willa. I’d met her a couple of years ago through my best friend Katie (who was now on a gap year trip in France). I always got along with her well enough, but now that we were at the same college together, we’d become closer by sheer proximity. Like Mellie, she came from a filthy rich family, but the two of them were sweet as pie, unlike a lot of other students here who couldn’t get their heads out of their over-privileged asses.
“Good. It’s so beautiful out there. I love fall mornings,” I said dreamily.
“Wish I had your dedication. I’m way too fucking tired to exercise most of the time,” chimed in another friend, Greer, who’d only just managed to lift her head off the table. Her eyes were red-rimmed and bleary with heavy bags under them.
“Sleep badly again?” I said, my brows knitting with concern.
She shook her head. “I barely even slept. I was up all night writing my article.”
“Did you finish it?” Willa asked. Her hands were wrapped around a large mug of green tea.
Greer nodded. “Yeah. Thank god.” She groaned. “Why do I always do this to myself?” she added miserably. Then she shook her head and laughed self-deprecatingly.
The rest of us joined in with mischievous giggles. Greer was a creative writing major, and she and I worked together at one of Roden’s student-run newspapers—the Roden Daily News. While Greer was talented at writing and creative as hell, she also had a habit of flaking out and leaving her newspaper assignments to the last minute, preferring to spend her time reading about fantasy worlds and wild conspiracy theories. Out of our little group, she was the most flighty and irresponsible. A true artistic type.
More perked-up now, Greer started telling us about her article. I listened intently for the first few minutes but began to tune out when a familiar man stepped into my line of vision, several yards away but in line with Greer’s left shoulder.
Oh, hell no.
What was he doing here?
Even with the bright light bursting through the windows, Elias King still managed to fill my morning with gloom. He was wearing jeans and a black t-shirt with a jacket slung over one arm, but nothing about him was casual. He held himself with an intensely regal air, knowing full well what everyone thought of him and the power he held over them. That is, if he chose to acknowledge their existence at all. Arrogant son of a bitch.
His solid muscles, perfectly-chiseled features and cold blue-green gaze held the rapt attention of every female student or staff member within twenty feet of him. I couldn’t blame them. I didn’t like the guy, but I had to grudgingly admit he was one of the most handsome men I’d ever seen.
A shadow slid down the curve of his cheekbone when he spotted me watching him from my table. His upper lip curled almost imperceptibly, and he turned to meet my eyes with a stony stare. Ah, there we go. The good old ‘King glare’, aimed directly at me. No surprise. I’d seen it many times over the last year.
Elias and I first met—or had an encounter, I should say—at a party Willa threw last December, when I was still in my senior year of high school. He spent a good portion of the evening staring at me with unbridled malice in his reptilian gaze, despite the fact I’d never done anything to him or even met him before that night. Later, when we actually spoke, he made it quite clear that he considered a girl like me to be far below him and wholly undeserving of sharing space with him.
Since then, I’d seen him on a few more occasions, as we were now at the same college—me as a freshman, and him doing some sort of grad school business course, from what I’d heard through the grapevine. Every single time we ran into each other, he either pretended he didn’t see me or stared at me with cold fury etched into his features, as if I personally offended him by daring to exist within a hundred yards of his privileged ass.
The thing that bothered me the most about him was the effect he always wound up having on me. As much as I hated having someone stare at me as if I’d done something terrible like blow up their car or murder their pet, the wildness and anger in his eyes appealed to something dark and twisted inside me. Something I usually tried to hide. His intense stares made my knees turn weak as cold licks of fear slithered down my spine.
It seemed counterintuitive, but I liked that feeling of fear. It stirred strange cravings deep within, made me want to let him grab me and hurt me and command me. Made me want to give up all control and let him guide every word I spoke, every movement I made.
The need to submit, the need to let another person own me in order to complete me, filled me with an uncontrollable thirst and longing, as much as I tried to hide it from the world. As if all the guilt over my past actions could be assuaged if someone else owned me, because it would all become their responsibility. I would just be their toy, their pet, their living doll.
Seeing the cruel, malevolent way Elias looked at me ignited all those feelings, making them impossible to ignore.
I tried to push them aside anyway and glowered right back at him. I might like and crave those feelings, but at the same time, I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to feel like I could escape all accountability by letting someone else take control of my life, and I didn’t want anyone to own every inch of me. It was just a dark fantasy.
“What’s wrong?” Greer asked, registering my look of exasperation.
“Sorry, it�
�s not you,” I said, nodding toward Elias. “It’s him. Why is he even here?”
Technically, Elias wasn’t allowed to be in here. This dining hall was for Bamford residents only, and as far as I knew, he didn’t even live on campus. Then again, everyone always bowed to the Kings. If he wanted to be in here, I couldn’t imagine anyone stopping him.
The others all looked in the direction my gaze was fixed on. “Ah, your nemesis,” Mellie said with a tinge of amusement in her voice.
“Who are we talking about?” Greer asked.
“Black t-shirt, tall, looking at Tatum as if she just slashed his tires,” Mellie said.
Elias had just realized we were all looking at him, and he abruptly turned away to talk to three senior guys at a table. I couldn’t help but notice all of them had the same ring as him, thick gold bands on their right middle fingers. It was hard to see from here, but I’d seen the intricate design on Elias’s ring on other occasions when I bumped into him. It was an eight-pointed star.
“Oh, him. Who is he again?” Greer’s brows knitted together in a puzzled expression.
“He’s Elias freakin’ King,” Willa said. “Is that not enough for you to know exactly who he is?”
“Uh. Not really.”
She sighed. “I keep forgetting you aren’t from around here. You have heard of the King family, right?”
“Yes, but it’s seven in the morning and I’m half asleep, so I’m gonna need a refresher.”
Willa began to explain everything to her. In the meantime, I sipped at my coffee and watched Elias out of the corner of my eye, wishing he’d leave. As much as everyone else respected him and his family, I couldn’t respect someone who treated me like trash just because I wasn’t as rich as them.
