Heartless Prince: A Dark Captive Romance (Dark Dynasty Book 1)

by Stella Hart

  The linchpin in the case was a witness who gave testimony in my favor. We were never made aware of their name (the court was evidently concerned that Ben’s parents might try to pay them off to lie or stay away, and so their identity was suppressed) but we knew it was the person who’d been down on the beach when Ben fell. He or she testified that they’d seen Ben fall of his own accord with me standing several feet away, and that there was no way I could’ve pushed him.

  Whoever the witness was, they were credible enough to get the case dismissed. I’d never know who it was, but I owed him or her my life. The Wellingtons had been out for my blood, so if it wasn’t for that witness, I might very well have lost the case and ended up in prison for murder, or manslaughter at the very least.

  “I’m not guilty. Ben attacked me,” I said in a ragged voice. “He was going to rape me.”

  “Bullshit,” Elias snarled. “I’ve seen the footage from the wildlife cameras. The other footage they wouldn’t allow during the trial.” He lashed at me again, using the ends of the whip tassels.

  “What footage?” I squeaked, more tears springing to my eyes.

  “The footage that shows you pushing Ben right over that cliff,” he said, voice dripping with scorn. “I know the real story, Doll. You went out there hoping Ben would want more than a hookup. When you realized he didn’t want anything but that, you changed your mind and kicked him off you. He went after you, trying to calm you down, and you snapped and pushed him right off the edge.”

  “That’s not true!”

  “That’s what the footage shows. You pushed him off the cliff. Killed him in cold blood because you couldn’t handle the rejection. I’m betting you even ripped your own skirt and smeared your makeup to back up your assault story when the police arrived.”

  “No. Ben drugged me. They proved it at the hospital,” I said in a pleading tone.

  Elias scoffed. “You took those drugs yourself. It’s not like you’d be the first teenage girl to experiment with GHB at a party. And like I said, that footage doesn’t fucking lie.”

  I moaned and dropped my gaze to the floor. I’d never heard anything about any other footage, and I certainly hadn’t seen it. On top of that, I knew I didn’t push Ben off the cliff. I only pushed him off me, which caused him to stumble back several feet and trip over the edge moments later. Not my fault, my mind chanted, though some other distant part of my brain told me it was, just like it had for the last year and a half.

  Of course it was my fault, at least partially…

  I could’ve helped Ben. I could’ve run over and yanked him forward. But I froze instead and let him plummet to an awful death. Apparently his entire skull had been caved in by the rocks below.

  I pushed the horrible image out of my head and returned my focus to Elias. He had to be lying about the existence of this footage which proved I killed Ben. But if he was, then what reason did he have to be so angry at me? If he knew I was telling the truth, he might be mad at me for not helping Ben regain his footing, but he wouldn’t blame me entirely for his death, saying over and over that I did it on purpose. And yet he did blame me entirely, as if he’d seen something that I hadn’t. Something that proved I was guilty after all.

  An awful thought suddenly occurred to me.

  After that harrowing night, I’d felt a horrible, crushing, soul-destroying guilt over what happened. But maybe something else happened instead. Something truly deplorable. Maybe my brain tried to protect me from the awful truth by inventing another story to cover what really happened, and maybe the secret witness on the beach was mistaken about what they saw in the dark.

  Maybe I really did push Ben over the edge....

  Snap out of it! You didn’t do that, I tried to tell myself, but already, I was twisting and twirling into the darkness, letting the dark new suspicions flood through me.

  Elias let the tassels of the whip fall on me again and again, alternating between hard and soft, thrashing me and teasing me at the same time until I was a trembling, whimpering mess. I couldn’t tell if I wanted to cry or come.

  “That’s it, Doll,” Elias said soothingly, using his free hand to caress my neck. I moaned, leaning into his cruel kindness. “Take it all.”

  My brain and body seemed to have reached a point of surrender, scooping up all my guilt and shame and letting it out with each stroke of the whip. It hurt, but it felt extraordinarily good at the same time because it seemed like divine penance.

  Even if I didn’t directly cause Ben’s death as Elias claimed, I was still partially responsible for what happened to him. I deserved to feel the effects of that. I’d put up with these horrible feelings of culpability for far too long, and it was time to let it all out, no matter what it took….

  “Oh!” I moaned as bliss and burning agony spiraled within me, that same twisted cocktail of shame and guilty longing that made me love the pain and hate myself all at the same time.

  “Say it,” Elias suddenly said, putting the tail of the whip under my chin, forcing me to look up at him again. Then he lashed me again, across the stomach.

  He didn’t need to tell me what he wanted me to say. I already knew. “I… I deserve this,” I choked out. “I need you to punish me.”

  Just saying the words made the painful sensations on my abdomen turn to arousal instead of agony. I squirmed, desperate for more. I felt as if I’d been dead for the last two years and was suddenly coming alive again, my eyes wide open, my blood rocket fuel.

  “Feels good to admit it, doesn’t it, Doll?” Elias said, trailing the tassels over my skin.

  I nodded. “Yes,” I said breathlessly. “Give me more.”

  “Yes what?” His eyes glinted with a mixture of malice and lust. “Say it properly, and thank me for punishing you.”

  “Yes, Master,” I whispered. “Thank you for punishing me. Please, I want more….”

  14

  Elias

  Tatum’s head lolled forward, her body slumping against the restraints. After half an hour in the playroom, she was finally exhausted.

  Dried mascara caked her cheeks from where she’d cried and begged me earlier, claiming she never lied. I almost felt sorry for her. Almost. Then I remembered what a fucking liar she was. What a liar she’d always been.

  I put the whip away and headed back over to her, my eyes traveling over her stomach and then to her back as I stepped around her. She wasn’t bleeding. I didn’t hit her hard enough for that, only enough to raise pink welts on her pale skin.

  She was still having an odd effect on me. I wanted to be far crueler to her, wanted her bleeding and screaming in agony, but something kept stopping me in the heat of the moment. Some treacherous voice in my head kept whispering that I would be better off humiliating her by making her want me instead.

  I couldn’t deny that I’d enjoyed making her come in her cell last night. I loved the look of horrified guilt in her eyes afterwards, when the pleasure began to fade, and I loved the way her body quivered and clenched as she curled up and cried. The thought made me hard all over again. Unfortunately, she was too drained to blow me right now, and I couldn’t fuck her yet, even though she was dangling right in front of me, soaking through her panties with arousal.

  My father was hell-bent on maintaining old Crown and Dagger traditions, and one of them was the Bonding ceremony. Once all the new girls had been given masters, they would lose their respective virginities to them during this ceremony. That included me and Tatum. So as much as I wanted to fuck my little doll’s brains out right now, make her scream and beg for me again, I couldn’t.

  The ceremony was only a couple of days away, though. I could hold out that long.

  Barely….

  The sight of her shivering, nearly-naked body trussed up on the beam in front of me was almost enough to make me give into temptation and slide right into her slick pussy here and now. The only thing stopping me was the prospect of Crown and Dagger’s third level dangling in front of me like a carrot on a stick.


  Part of the process of getting elected to the third level entailed gaining the complete trust of the other higher-up members. Breaking one of their favorite traditions and taking Tatum’s virginity tonight would anger them enough to never consider me. I wanted to know what the fuck the final level was all about, so I intended to obtain their consideration. That meant keeping my dick in my pants for now, as much as it pained me to do so.

  Tatum suddenly let out a moan and mumbled the word ‘no!’ as she slumped below the beam. She was sleep-talking.

  I stiffened, wondering if she was having a nightmare about the man who attacked her on the balcony earlier. That slimy fucking prick made me want to vomit. As much as I hated Tatum, I couldn’t stand the thought of her being hurt and fucked up the ass by some seventy-year-old sleazebag who refused to follow the rules.

  Jealousy flared inside me at the mere thought of that man trying to take what wasn’t his. In fact, the idea of anyone else’s hands or dick going anywhere near my girl made angry red dots appear on the edge of my vision. Yes, I loathed Tatum, and I ultimately wanted to destroy her, but that task was for me and me alone. No one else could ever have her or touch her.

  I released her wrists from the beam and picked her up, throwing her over my shoulder. She was light and easy to carry, and she stayed asleep as I carried her all the way back down to her cell in the underground section of the mansion.

  She moaned, sleep-talking again as I put her down on the bed a few minutes later. “Ben…”

  Hot anger flared in my chest. She wasn’t dreaming about the old guy, at least not anymore. She was dreaming about what she fucking did to him—Ben Wellington, my second cousin and best friend.

  Even though we weren’t all that closely related (compared to a sibling or first cousin, anyway), my father was close to Ben’s father, so we practically grew up together, attending the same schools and vacationing with each other on my father’s private island just south of Martha’s Vineyard every summer. We were thick as thieves, and even when he went off to college on the other side of the country, we still caught up as often as we could. Private jet access certainly made it easier.

  When I heard that he’d suddenly died at a party—a party I’d been invited to as well but couldn’t attend for some reason—it felt like my heart had detonated inside my body. Pure agony. My best friend, gone forever. Just like that.

  The first discernible emotion I felt was torturous guilt, as if I could’ve somehow prevented it from happening if I’d gone to the party after all. Then the full story surrounding his demise came out, and the guilt dissipated until all I felt was boiling anger. The girl he’d been with that night was claiming he tried to sexually assault her, and in the ensuing struggle, he’d tripped and fallen over the edge.

  My father and I knew it was bullshit from the second the Wellingtons called to tell us.

  For one, Ben wasn’t a fucking rapist. He was wealthy and good-looking, and women constantly flocked to him. In our teen days, we’d have competitions to see who could score with the highest number of girls in one night, and he won just as often as I did. A guy like that didn’t need to drug girls to get laid, and if someone happened to reject him, he’d take it in his stride and move on. I’d seen it happen before; sometimes he struck out. He never attacked the girls who said no. He accepted they weren’t interested and moved on.

  Secondly, there was footage from the wildlife cameras farther up the trail which proved what really happened. For some reason—some fucking bullshit to do with the discovery process of the trial—the footage was deemed inadmissible as evidence, and that smug little bitch Tatum continued to get away with her evil lies.

  Unfortunately, there was also the issue of the secret witness who’d testified on her behalf, stating that he or she clearly saw Ben trip and fall of his own volition. That solidified Tatum’s innocence in the eyes of the justice system, and she got off scot-free. Given that she was a nobody and Ben was related to one of the most powerful men in the country, that was a huge deal. Whoever this secret witness was, it had to be someone very fucking credible. Someone whose word couldn’t be disputed or disbelieved under any circumstances.

  Obviously, it wasn’t a friend or family member of Tatum, because any one of them would have a good reason to lie on her behalf. So whoever it was, they were probably a stranger to her. I still wanted to know who the fuck it was, though, because they were just as much of a filthy liar as Tatum.

  I glared down at her as she dozed on the narrow-framed bed. She was still moaning softly in her sleep, calling out for Ben again. My hands curled into fists by my side.

  I wanted to grab her and choke her until her face turned purple.

  The fact that she spread such vicious lies about Ben made his death so much fucking harder to swallow. If it was truly an accident, I could’ve moved on. I could’ve grieved and eventually let go. But she made sure I couldn’t do that. She smeared him, made everyone believe he was a would-be rapist, when all the while, she was the corrupt one.

  When the case was dismissed despite the fact he was purposefully pushed off that cliff, my whole world turned black. My feet kept moving and the Earth kept spinning on its axis, but I felt frozen in time, trapped in dark amber until I could have some sort of vengeance. I wanted to make Tatum confess her sins, wanted to make her feel the same sort of pain she made me feel when she killed Ben.

  Somewhere along the line, my obsessive hatred for her began to twist into lust and dark desire. As much as I couldn’t stand the girl, I had to admit she was a stunner. Slim yet curvy figure, pretty features, mesmerizing blue eyes, shiny chestnut hair that fell down her back in waves.

  I hated her, but I fucking wanted her. She was a thorn in my side, haunting me with every step I took. I couldn’t stop thinking about her. Couldn’t move past her.

  I could only think of one way to properly deal with my obsession, and that was to take her and force her into submission. Make her admit what she’d done. Make her beg for her life, beg for my forgiveness. At the same time, I could release all that pent-up sexual frustration I felt whenever I looked at her.

  Luckily, my father had the exact same thought process long before me. He anticipated how I would end up feeling about her, so right after she was acquitted of any wrongdoing, he approached her and her parents (without revealing his relation to the Wellingtons). He’d looked into the Marris family, and he’d seen they were struggling financially. Now they also had the stress of Tatum’s legal drama to add to it all. They weren’t far from crumbling.

  He told them that he had a way to end all their financial troubles. He also delicately insinuated that he knew the truth about what Tatum did, and that selling herself into Crown and Dagger’s service might be a good way to alleviate any guilt she might feel. He made it sound like it would be penance for her, a way to wipe the slate clean.

  It didn’t take long to convince her. Her parents desperately needed the money, and she desperately needed to ease her conscience. This was an opportunity to pay her parents back for all the trouble she’d caused, and also a way to punish herself for what she’d done.

  What she didn’t know when she signed the contract was that she’d be given directly to me, Ben’s best friend, and that I would be her worst nightmare.

  She stirred in her sleep, then rubbed her eyes and sat up. “When did I get here?” she asked in a low voice.

  “A few minutes ago. You fell asleep,” I said icily. My eyes fell on the ugly pink welts criss-crossing her bare skin. “Get up.”

  She did as I said, standing on shaky legs.

  “Kneel and bow your head.”

  She bit her lip, then knelt down before me, leaning her head forward and down so that her back was exposed.

  “Stay.”

  I stepped out of her cell and headed back upstairs. I didn’t tell her where I was going; didn’t even tell her if I was coming back. For all she knew, she would have to remain on the floor all night.

  I went into the medi
cal wing of the Finishing School and rummaged through a drawer, searching for some medicated cream. When I found it, I returned to Tatum’s cell to find her exactly where I left her.

  “Good girl,” I muttered. I leaned down and began to rub the cool cream over the welts on her back. Even though I didn’t make her bleed, I still wanted to make sure she was okay.

  It wasn’t because I cared about her. I just wanted to take care of my property, ensure she didn’t get some sort of infection which might deform her appearance. I didn’t want a broken toy.

  I commanded her to get up so I could rub the cream on her tits and stomach. She did as I said immediately, her head still bowed slightly. “Thank you,” she murmured. “It feels much better now.”

  My lips tightened. I couldn’t tell if she was actually forgetting to call me Master when she addressed me, or if it was some purposeful mini-rebellion. Some way of letting me know she still didn’t believe she belonged to me, no matter what I did to her. No matter how much I tried to break her.

  I thought about punishing her for it, but there was no point. She’d had enough tonight, so it wouldn’t achieve anything. Besides, it was probably an innocent mistake. She’d called me Master earlier, while I was punishing her with the whip.

  “Did you mean what you said, Doll?” I asked sharply.

  She looked up at me through puffy, red-rimmed eyes. “When?”

  “In the playroom, when you said you deserve to be punished.”

  She chewed her bottom lip for a second before replying. “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “I’ve done bad things,” she murmured. “It makes me feel good to be punished for them.”

  “I want to hear you say the exact words. I want you to tell me you murdered Ben and lied about the whole thing.”