Broken Princess: Ruthless Rulers Book 3

by Hart, Stella

  “Your masks are great too. But you don’t have to wear them all night, obviously,” Willa said, leading us to the double doors. “Most people have already taken theirs off. It was a fun idea, though,” she went on, sighing with a regretful air. “Anyway, I heard from your mom that you’re going to France next year?”

  Katie nodded. “I’m taking a gap year in France as soon as senior year is over. The Gagne side of my family is from Metz, so that’s where I’ll be staying.”

  “That’s so exciting! You’ll love France, especially in the summer,” Willa said as we stepped into the main party room. It stretched all the way to the back of the house and featured enormous windows which looked out over a shimmering, moonlit lake.

  Throngs of beautifully-dressed people stood around in suits and gowns which probably cost more than my dad’s car. Some guests were masked and some were bare-faced. Everyone seemed impossibly gorgeous and chic, as if being born into wealth made them naturally more attractive than someone from a lower-middle class background like me. I knew a lot of that perception stemmed from my own insecurities, but still, it was hard to dismiss that sinking sensation of not being good enough.

  I felt far too young and out of place, even though it was Willa’s party, which meant the guests ranged from eighteen—our age—to their mid-twenties. Everyone here just seemed so much more worldly and mature than that, despite their youthfully glowing skin and lithe bodies. I guess all the travel and other opportunities they were afforded from a young age helped with that.

  Willa grabbed two glasses of champagne from a nearby tray and handed them to us. “Here you go,” she said before taking a sip of her own. “And what about you, Tatum? What are your plans after senior year?”

  Before I could reply, Katie jumped in. “She got early acceptance to Roden!” she squealed. “With a full scholarship!”

  Willa’s eyebrows rose. “Holy shit. Roden?”

  I nodded, a blush warming my cheeks. Roden University was one of the oldest and most prestigious colleges in the States, and it was also a top member of the Ivy League. It beat out Harvard and Princeton in the rankings almost every year, along with all the other Ivies. Situated in New Marwick, right here on the Gold Coast of Connecticut, it was simultaneously known as the best college in the country and a seething hive of old-money WASP snobbery.

  I wasn’t looking forward to the snobbery—if those rumors were even true—but I was looking forward to the amazing education I would receive. Even after all the hardships I’d faced, especially over the last year or so, I’d put my nose to the grindstone and worked my ass off in school, and now I was finally reaping the benefits.

  “Yes. I’m going there for a campus tour next week,” I said.

  Willa’s eyes were still wide. “That’s so cool! I don’t know anyone who got early acceptance there, and I know a lot of people try. Me included, and I’m a freaking legacy.” She clinked her glass against mine. “Good job! You deserve it.”

  I smiled warmly. “Thank you. I’m sure you’ll get in too.”

  “Thanks! I hope so.” She craned her neck and peered back through the doors we’d just come through. “Shit. My brother’s stupid friends just showed up. I told him I don’t want them here tonight!” she huffed.

  For the first time, she actually seemed like a teenager, and Katie caught my eye and grinned as if to say: See? They really are just like us.

  “Ugh… sorry, you’ll have to excuse me,” Willa went on, rolling her eyes.

  She strode away. Katie looked at me again. “How are you feeling?”

  I nodded slowly and lifted my mask onto my head so I could scratch my face. The lacy details were making the skin around my eyes itch like mad. “Good. It’s such a nice place.”

  “I know, right? I’d chew off my own arm to live somewhere like this.” Katie sighed. “Who knows, maybe I’ll meet some super rich guy tonight, and he’ll fall in love with me and whisk me away.”

  I giggled. “That’d be nice, although I have a feeling guys our age are more interested in trying to whisk us into bed, not marriage and a mansion.”

  “Hey, let me fantasize,” she said, her eyes glimmering with amusement. She suddenly looked over my shoulder. “Speaking of guys trying to get us into bed, I think you’ve caught someone’s eye.”

  I turned around and followed her gaze. She was right. Not far from us, leaning against a wood-paneled wall, was a man in a suit that fit his tall, muscular frame as if he were born wearing one. He was also wearing a black mask, but it didn’t cover much, and I could easily make out his chiseled, devilishly-handsome features and blue-green eyes, one half-hidden behind a spill of tousled light brown hair.

  He was staring right at me.

  As handsome as he was, there was something almost reptilian about his gaze, and I quickly snapped my attention back to Katie. “Do you know who he is?”

  She shook her head. “He looks familiar, but I can’t remember where I know him from. He seems super into you, though.”

  I glanced back over my shoulder. The guy was talking to someone who’d approached him now, but his gaze fell back to me the second I turned to look at him again.

  “I don’t know,” I said, turning back to Katie. “He looks kinda mad.”

  “You think?” Her forehead wrinkled. “Hold on… let’s not make it obvious that we’re staring at him.”

  We waited a few seconds, trying to act natural, and then we shuffled around a bit so we could both look at the guy via our peripheral vision without being obvious. Unfortunately, he could probably tell exactly what we were doing, because his eyes were still locked right on me.

  He lifted his mask off his face and sipped at a glass of amber liquid, upper lip curling slightly as he swallowed the presumably-strong liquor. Now that I could see the entirety of his face, my knees suddenly felt weak. As angry as his watchful gaze was, I couldn’t deny the effect he was having on me. He might very well be the hottest man I’d ever seen in person.

  I gulped as something quickly occurred to me. It was hard to admit to myself, but the wild, furious expression on the stranger’s face was actually one of the sexiest things about him. He was gorgeous no matter what, but that intense, heated stare made shivers race down my spine. Some were laced with excitement and anticipation, but the majority were spiked with fear.

  And strangely, I liked it…

  Something stirred deep within me, a dark, distant craving that made my head spin and my stomach twist with nervous butterflies.

  “You’re right,” Katie murmured, distracting me from my train of thought. “He’s hot as fuck, but he looks really mad at you. You sure you don’t know him?”

  “Never seen him before,” I said, averting my eyes.

  “Weird.”

  My skin tingled. From the edge of my vision, I could see the guy was still watching me, his strong jaw flexing as malice filled his gaze.

  “Maybe you look like an old girlfriend of his who cheated on him? Or something like that,” Katie suggested.

  I nodded. I was certain I’d never met him before, so there had to be some sort of rational explanation along those lines. “Yeah, I guess.”

  “Okay, he’s kinda creeping me out now. No one stares like that unless they’re an ax murderer,” Katie said, grabbing my arm. “Let’s go somewhere else.”

  I followed her, but not without giving the handsome stranger one last look. As we crossed the room and headed for a table filled with sparkling champagne glasses, I could still feel his eyes on my back.

  I could’ve sworn I didn’t know him, but apparently he knew me, and he didn’t like me one bit.

  I tried to put him out of my mind as Katie and I slowly sipped champagne and mingled with other guests. Willa drifted in and out of our vicinity throughout the night as she tended to all her party guests, ever the social butterfly.

  After an hour or so, I began to feel a little lightheaded. It wasn’t from the champagne, because I’d only had one glass. It was the loud music and
the crowds of elegant people, the vibrant gowns, the Venetian masks, the paintings adorning the walls; all colors and faces and voices twirling and twisting together like the inside of a kaleidoscope. I couldn’t escape the feeling that I was an outsider looking into this gilded world of shimmering perfection, and it made me feel dizzy and breathless.

  “I think I need to go splash some cold water on my face,” I said to Katie and Willa, who had just rejoined us. “I’m starting to get a headache.”

  “Oh, no.” Willa’s brows pinched together with concern, and she pointed toward the double doors we’d initially entered through. “Go out there, then head up the left staircase. There’s a bathroom a few doors down the hall on the second floor. It’ll be way quieter than the bathrooms down here, and there’s painkillers in the cupboards.”

  “Thanks.”

  I went the way she said, padding up the beautiful staircase on the left of the entry hall. The second floor was eerily quiet and fairly dim, lit only by a few chandeliers hanging here and there in the wooden-paneled hall. Clearly, Willa’s parents had told her to keep the party restricted to one floor only.

  I tried the first door I came across, but it led into what appeared to be a study. The next one looked like it was entirely for book storage, lined with shelf after shelf but no chairs to sit on. Willa had said the bathroom in this upper wing was a few doors down the hall, so I figured it was probably the next room.

  For a moment, I thought I heard sounds coming from somewhere nearby, but I figured it was just noise drifting up from the party downstairs. When I opened the next door—this one on the right side of the hall, just beyond a large oil painting in a heavy gilded frame—I got the shock of my life.

  This was where the sound was coming from.

  Stretching before me was a huge bedroom with a king-sized four-poster bed on my left, covered in a crimson and gold brocade duvet with matching cushions and pillows strewn over it. Dark wallpaper patterned with thin gold damask lined the room, and there was a roaring fire on one side in the carved stone fireplace. Above the ornate mantel was a large mirror with a strange symbol daubed on it in what appeared to be dark red paint. Somewhere else in the room, something—or someone—was playing a rhythmic chanting ritual song.

  There was a chandelier light dangling from the center of the ceiling, along with other lights on sconces along the walls, but none of them were on. The room was lit entirely by the fire and several large flickering candles.

  I gulped at the scene before me.

  Two nude women were tied to the bed, their legs spread wide. They were blindfolded, so I couldn’t see who they were, but they were both moaning in bliss and writhing in pleasure, as much as their bonds would allow them to move. Three men in dark robes and black and gold bauta masks were with them on the bed.

  One was roughly fucking the woman on the left, a gleaming dagger in his left hand, dangling precariously above her throat. Upon first glance, I thought I was witnessing an assault, but the woman was definitely moaning in bliss, her pleasured sounds punctuated by the occasional, ‘Oh, yes, yes!’ and ‘Harder!’

  The second man on the bed was going at the woman on the right, and the third was hovering between them, groping every inch of the women’s skin, slapping their tits, and yanking their hair while he ostensibly waited his turn.

  On the carpeted floor near the fire, another young woman was on her knees, her hands bound behind her back with black rope. She was topless, and the same strange red symbol I saw on the mirror was daubed on her chest. A masked man in a dark cape was standing above her, tipping some dark purple liquid into her mouth from a gold goblet.

  His cock was sticking out of his pants, erect and ready, and when the woman had finished every last drop of whatever had been in the goblet, he roughly shoved his way between her lips, forcing her to suck him. Judging from the lusty expression in her eyes, that was exactly what she wanted to do.

  Five other men were standing around the room, simply watching the proceedings. When I opened the door, only two of them looked up. The others were either too mesmerized by the ritualistic, orgy-like activities going on around them, or they simply didn’t care.

  One of the men who looked over at me made my heart skip a beat. It was the guy from downstairs; the one who seemed to hate the mere sight of me. His mask was back on, but I could still tell it was him in the flickering candlelight.

  I finally found my tongue. “Sorry, I… I was looking for a bathroom,” I stammered. Then I slammed the door shut and fled back down the hall, toward the main staircase. Lock the damn door next time, I wanted to shout back in the direction of the room, but I kept my mouth firmly shut. I didn’t want any of them to get angry and come after me with that dagger.

  I heard footsteps behind me a moment later, and when I turned my head back over my shoulder, I saw the same guy who’d been staring at me earlier. He was following me. Maybe he simply wanted to explain to me what the hell I’d just witnessed, but honestly, I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear it from him. Not when he practically looked like he wanted to kill me.

  I pulled my mask back over my face and hurried down the stairs as fast as I could, then ran back into the main party room, quickly blending into the crowd. I found Katie standing alone near one of the back windows, checking out the view. Willa had presumably left to entertain other guests again, and there was no longer any sight of my mysterious stranger.

  “Hey, how’s your head? Did you find the painkillers?” Katie asked.

  I shook my head hurriedly. “No. I didn’t find the bathroom. I saw the weirdest thing when I was looking for it.”

  Her brows knitted with curiosity. “What?”

  I told her everything I saw, and her eyes grew progressively wider with each word. “Oh my god. That’s like, full-on Eyes Wide Shut stuff.”

  I nodded vigorously. “I know, and it’s happening right now in that room up there,” I said. “Honestly, I can’t believe the door was actually unlocked!”

  “Do you think Willa knows someone is having a wild sex party in her house?” she asked, craning her neck and peering over my shoulder, presumably trying to spot Willa so we could ask her.

  I shrugged. “No idea. But it was really strange. Especially with the red symbols and the weird chanting stuff, not to mention the candles and goblets everywhere. Like… it clearly wasn’t just any old swingers party.”

  “I knew super rich people were all hiding something sinister….” Katie said in a joking tone. Then her voice turned serious again. “Take me up there. I want to see.”

  My brows shot up. “No way! Seriously, Katie, it was really creepy, especially the guy with the dagger. Please don’t go up there.”

  She snickered. “Fine, fine.” She took a sip of champagne, then tilted her head to one side. “Hm. Maybe it was Crown and Dagger. I’ve heard all sorts of weird stuff about them.”

  “Huh? Crown and what now?”

  Katie’s mouth fell open. “You haven’t heard of them?”

  “Er… no.”

  “I swear to god you live under a rock sometimes. I mean, you’re going to Roden next year, and apparently that’s their recruitment ground. I can’t believe you haven’t heard of them.”

  I waved a hand impatiently. “Okay, okay, I get it, I’m kind of a hermit most of the time. But who or what is Crown and Dagger?”

  “Well, I don’t know if they really exist—it’s all just rumors—but apparently they’re some sort of secret soci—”

  Katie’s sentence was abruptly cut off by a shrill scream from somewhere behind us. “She has a gun!”

  Katie and I whirled around to see what the hell was going on. As we did so, we spotted a tall brunette girl slowly crossing the room, holding a black pistol. She was dressed in jeans and a gray hoodie, and her face was pale.

  “I know they’re here somewhere!” she called out to no one in particular. “You’re all gonna pay for what you’ve done!”

  She lifted the gun and aimed it in our direction.


  Then she fired.

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