by Hart, Stella
Twisted Empire
Dark Dynasty Book 3
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.
Contents
1. Elias
2. Tatum
3. Elias
4. Elias
5. Tatum
6. Elias
7. Tatum
8. Elias
9. Tatum
10. Tatum
11. Elias
12. Tatum
13. Tatum
14. Tatum
15. Elias
16. Tatum
17. Elias
18. Tatum
19. Elias
20. Tatum
21. Elias
Also by Stella Hart
1
Elias
The last vestiges of the setting sun dipped below the horizon, the golden orange hues giving way to a dusky purple scattered with a few glittering stars. The forest stood silhouetted against the twilight sky, rising tall and dark, not a sound from within.
“Go and get her, then bring her here!” A deep, authoritative voice called out from somewhere to my right. Davenport, maybe. “Members, head into the maple grove!”
All around me stood the other members of the third level, dressed in black robes. A few had bronze masks covering their faces. The masks had thick bull horns sprouting from the top, designed to make them look as formidable and terrifying as possible to the prey.
Deep, rhythmic drumbeats echoed throughout the circular grove as we all trudged into it. Some of the mansion staff were dragging an enormous golden gong out to the center. When it was in place, the members began to gather around it. Another couple of workers appeared with golden hunting horns, taking their places by the gloomy entrance to the thick forest at the north end of the grove.
“How long did the last girl make it?” a member to my right said to another in a low voice. “I had to skip that hunt. Fucking market was crashing.”
“You didn’t miss much. She only lasted fifteen minutes,” his friend said with a chuckle. “Longest a girl has ever lasted in that forest is six hours. She climbed all the way to the top of a tree and hid there.”
“Jesus, who got her?”
“King. Shot her right off the branch she was huddled on.”
“Nice. I saw him shooting on the range here the other day. Never misses a shot.”
“Yup. It makes it pretty shitty for the rest of us, though. He gets most of the girls. I’ve never caught a single fucking one. Probably because I’ve always preferred the idea of knives over guns.”
“I bet he’ll hold back on this one. His son will want to make this kill to prove himself and all. Plus it’s his slave we’re hunting.”
The second guy nudged the first one and nodded over at me, realizing I was right next to them. They kept their mouths zipped after that.
I put my mask on and moved off to the left so no one would know exactly where I was standing.
The heavy drumbeats kept going, steady and throbbing in the dim grove. As the light ebbed further away, so did the warmth of the early spring day, until all that was left was the chill of dusk and the promise of a freezing night in the forest.
Someone lit a circle of burning torches around the grove. At the same time, a muffled screech echoed from somewhere behind me. I turned to see two guards struggling to keep their grip on tonight’s prey.
“This fucking bitch,” one of them muttered, putting a hand around her throat, presumably to frighten her so she’d stop trying to move. She’d just kicked out at him and narrowly missed his groin. “Bet they can’t wait to be done with you, stupid cunt. Nothing but trouble.”
She was dressed in a flowing white gown, material so thin it was almost see-through. On her feet were flimsy brown sandals. An ivy wreath sat upon her head and a golden mask covered her face. Beneath it, I knew she was gagged with a white silk scarf, wrapped around the back of her head. Her dark hair was tangled and messy and her skin was pale and peppered with goosebumps. Fear radiated off her like cold from ice.
“Ah, Tatum.” My father stepped forward, lips curling into a dark smile as he stared down at her. “Looking forward to having one last chance to run from us?”
She moaned and shook her head. Then she tried to say something, but it was unintelligible with the gag. A tear rolled out from under the mask, running down her neck and into her cleavage.
“Oh, that’s right. You can’t talk back anymore, can you?” My father chuckled. “Don’t worry. We’ll untie you right before it begins and you can take that gag right out. We want to hear you scream, after all.”
A sour taste appeared in my mouth. I looked away, peering at the main forest entrance. The branches spiked out into the darkening sky from the top of it, looking like skeletal hands reaching for us. Only a few feet in, it was so dark that no one would be able to see where they were going if they didn’t have a flashlight or burning torch in hand.
This part of the woods was vast, treacherous. I had no idea what would happen once I stepped foot in there tonight. All I knew was that it wasn’t going to be a peaceful journey. Not for me and especially not for the terrified girl behind me.
I looked back at her. She seemed to know it was me despite the bull mask, and she tried to surge forward, moaning my name. It came out like ‘Elish’ but I could still tell she was crying for me. Trying to tell me it was her, trying to make me stop this from happening.
The guards kept hold of her. Through the holes of the mask, I could see the desperation in her blue eyes as she tried once more to extricate herself from their grip.
“Careful, Tatum,” I heard my father say. “You’ll wear yourself out with all that kicking and screaming. I’m sure you’d rather use that energy to run and hide.”
He sniffed derisively, then ordered the guards to take her up to the dark mouth of the forest. She wouldn’t stop moaning and crying with desperation, but she didn’t try to lash out or run again. One of the guards cut the ties on her hands while the other held her in place.
My father waved a hand, and the men with golden horns lifted them to their lips and blew. The sound was a startling challenge, and in moments the large crowd of excited men stood silent. Waiting.
“Tatum, you’ll get a ten minute head start,” my father called out as a staff member began to hand out mini burning torches to every member. “That time will begin on the sound of the gong. Are you ready?”
No reply. Just petrified moaning and quivering.
He turned back to face the members again. “I know you’re all ready,” he said with a chuckle. “Deliciae dolor!”
A roar went up. “Deliciae dolor!” the members shouted in unison.
There were a few cheers before a quiet stillness reigned in the grove once more. The men around me emanated excitement like heat, awaiting the signal with bated breath.
I gnawed at the inside of my cheek. Soon the taste of blood filled my mouth. My breathing turned shallow and rapid, and I could feel my pulse pounding in my temples. The moment I’d been dreading was almost here. There was nothing I could do to halt it.
The drums were still reverberating throughout the grove, steady as a clock and as loud as rolls of thunder. The music seemed to echo into my very soul, and I knew I would remember this evening forever. The sounds, the tension, the manic anticipation filling the air.
I took a long, deep breath. Everything hinged on what happene
d tonight. Once it was done, it could never be undone.
The drumbeats abruptly ceased. My heart seemed to stop along with them. Then someone hit the gong. The sound was blaring, unceasing, crippling my thoughts as it assaulted my ears.
It was time.
“Go, Tatum!” my father shouted, glee and malice filling his tone. “Run as fast as you can, little girl!”
And so the hunt began.
2
Tatum
2 days earlier
I was to die in forty-eight hours.
Fifty-something, perhaps, if I managed to survive a while in the woods before one of the members found me. Either way, at some point within the next few days, I would be dead and buried. Or more specifically, cremated and made into a trophy doll to remind whoever killed me of their hunting success.
My heart thudded painfully fast as I looked out the barred window of my room. All I could see from this side of the mansion was an expansive green lawn with a large beige stone fountain and a path leading up to the forest. The very same forest I would soon be hunted in by a pack of evil predators.
I saw Pri walk by on the lawn with a member a couple of times. I tried to call down to her to warn her about the true nature of the Artemis Festival so that she could tell all the other girls here. That was when I discovered the windows were soundproofed, something I should’ve already realized by now.
I swallowed the lump of defeat in my throat and flopped down on the bed, a wave of exhaustion overcoming me. It had only been a couple of hours since Tobias forced me back in here and told me I wouldn’t be allowed out again until the hunt (they couldn’t risk me telling the other girls what was really going on here) but it already felt like an eternity had passed. Like I’d aged twenty years in just a few minutes when I learned the truth. I knew if I looked in the mirror, I would see something had settled into my face. Something that wasn’t there before.
The minutes seemed endless as they slowly ticked by. I eventually realized I should be grateful for that. It made it feel like I had more time until my own murder, when really, I had barely any time at all.
Just two days.
When I remembered once more that my life was rapidly ticking down to nothing, the gloom and panic set in all over again. It started out with a quiet sorrow, a tired acceptance of my fate. There was nothing I could do about it, after all. That melancholy morphed into a discomfort in my chest, a feeling in my brain like too much caffeine, and then it set in deeper. I felt the urge to run, hide, escape. Shivering, quaking, cold. The constricted feeling grew like a jungle vine and soon the very air seemed to suffocate me. It started to feel as if I could simply lie back, close my eyes and wait for my life to ebb away.
I could only wish that I would die so easily…
But that wouldn’t happen. I wouldn’t be allowed to go quietly, slip away in the night in my own room. The twisted men of Crown and Dagger wanted to see me run, wanted to witness my abject terror, wanted to torture and brutally kill me. They wouldn’t settle for anything less.
I glanced over at the door, wishing for the millionth time that I could slip out under an invisibility cloak like a character from a magical fantasy novel. There were guards stationed outside to make sure I didn’t bother trying to leave and the security cameras in the room flashed with warning red lights, reminding me I was caged and observed at all times like a zoo animal.
It was just like my first few weeks at the Finishing School, when I’d been trapped in that tiny cell with no human contact aside from whomever pushed my meager meals into the room for me. The loneliness, the boredom, the sheer dread of waiting and wondering what horrors would soon befall me… it all felt so terribly familiar.
At least I had a few luxuries here at the Lodge, I suppose. Space. A comfortable bed. A real bathroom. Clothes and shoes. Books and TV if I needed some sort of mental stimulation. I didn’t need that right now, though. I already had all the stimulation I could ever need with my own crazy, jumbled thoughts.
In just two hours, I’d ridden what was probably the biggest rollercoaster of emotions known to mankind. First there was the stark fear and burning anger when Tobias told me the truth about the festival. How the men of the third level hunted women down like animals, killing them in whatever way they saw fit, all for fun. Fun. As he spoke, I could feel sweat beading over my skin, my head throbbing, silent screams vibrating in my mind, the pounding of my heart against my chest. My fingers curled into fists so tightly that my nails almost pierced my palms as terror and rage tortured my body, churning my stomach in tense cramps. It engulfed my mind, knocking all other thoughts aside, turning my limbs to exhausted jelly.
After that was a strange rush of warmth and hope when Tobias told me I was pregnant. I was only nineteen and I didn’t particularly want children at such a young age, but on the other hand, it felt like a lifeline had been thrown to me. Surely Elias would save me when he found out I was pregnant. He said he loved me the other day, after all, and now we were also connected by this baby, forever bonded by the life we’d created between us. He couldn’t abandon me.
And then, after all that, came the shock, horror and sorrow when I found out that all along, he was playing me. Lying to me. I was still tangled in that web of emotional torment right now. Trapped, beaten, despondent.
Strange as it may seem, the worst part of all this wasn’t actually the thought of my impending torture and death. It was the knowledge that Elias betrayed me. That it was all a game, just like I suspected for all those weeks until he finally broke through my barriers and made me believe him.
There was nothing to believe in anymore. He never loved me.
Somehow, that was what it took to make me see that I loved him. Funny, that.
After all of today’s harrowing discoveries, I’d finally realized with a jolt just how strong my feelings for Elias were. They hadn’t dissipated one bit over the last few hours, either, despite how much I wanted them to vanish. I knew he didn’t return them, of course, but that didn’t mean it was instantly gone for me. No, those feelings for him were flooding through my veins every second, overwhelming me, spilling down my face in hot tears when it all became too much to deal with.
So I guess he got what he wanted in the end. He made me fall for him against all odds. Against all reason and better judgment. Now I was paying the price for being naïve enough to let it happen.
And yet, despite knowing all that, I still couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t flick a mental switch and turn my love off. Couldn’t pretend my heart didn’t skip a beat at the mere thought of Elias, even in the face of his betrayal.
Being with him felt like resting in a warm house while a freezing gale raged outside, like in his presence the whole universe instantly became calmer and safer. I could dream up a million different scenarios or write a million different letters, and each one would wind up exactly the same in sentiment, boiling down to three main things: I loved him, I missed him, and I wanted him here with me.
Too bad, I guess.
My heart was missing a piece now, a part that kept it from working properly. Only Elias could fix it, but he obviously didn’t care. He didn’t feel anything for me but hate and disdain, and he wasn’t coming. So when would I let go of my useless feelings of love and adoration? Would it happen when Crown and Dagger released me into the wild and I turned to see him right there with the rest of them, gun or knife in hand? Or would I hold on to the bitter end, hoping and praying against all odds that he’d change his mind and come to my aid, even when I was choking on my own blood and screaming in pain?
The latter seemed to be where I was heading, because these emotions weren’t letting up. Not even for a second.
I stretched my tired limbs and headed into my walk-in closet, over to the wide vanity at the end. Like a robot, I began to quietly and methodically brush on foundation and blush over my pale skin, liquid lipstick over my dry lips, bronze shadow over my eyelids.
On the surface, there didn’t seem like much of a point
to putting on makeup when I was so close to death, but it made me feel better in a strange, dizzying way. It made me feel like I was transforming into a different girl; a girl who wouldn’t be hunted down like an animal soon. Like I was floating above somewhere, watching a complete stranger, one whose life could be normal and happy.
I dipped a mascara wand into its narrow tube and twisted it from side to side like Mellie once taught me to make sure it didn’t clump. Then I leaned forward and brushed it over my eyelashes. I regretted it instantly, because my eyes suddenly started leaking with tears, leaving black streaks on my cheeks as the mascara ran.
It was hitting me again, all the fear and heartbreak over losing Elias, even though I never really had him. My grief was like a rolling sea, coming in waves, engulfing me in cold darkness and strangling my veins. My heart and head warred with each other, one telling the other to stop right now and the other refusing to believe that things could’ve really gone so wrong for me. There had to be hope… only there wasn’t. I knew that.
Why couldn’t I accept it?
My breathing turned harsh and ragged. I threw down the tube and crumpled to the floor, my hands trembling by my side. I stuffed one in my mouth to stifle my plaintive cries. The walls seemed to be closing in, wrapping me in a cocoon of despair and hopelessness, until finally, my head won the battle over my heart.
Cold reality washed over me. I didn’t belong to Elias. I never did. He wouldn’t change his mind at the last minute and save me just because I was pregnant. He wouldn’t take me away from this lavish hellhole, so beautiful on the outside and so ugly and twisted on the inside.