Hearts of Darkness: A Valentine's Day Bully Romance Collection

by Joanna Mazurkiewicz

  Several people nearby watched her closely as she appeared to lose her composure, finally breathing, “I don’t want to talk about where I’ve been.” She made sure fear and shadows lingered in her eyes even as she tried to smile. “I just want to focus on the future, on the friends I’m going to make here.”

  Merin and everyone eavesdropping seemed to deflate in disappointment, losing interest in her. “Well,” Merin said, her wrinkled face attempting to smile. “Quite right; the future is what matters. Excuse me, my friend is hailing me from across the room.”

  “It was nice to meet you,” Celeste said quietly, still pretending to be haunted by her trauma as the woman flounced off in a blur of green silk and white hair.

  “She looks crestfallen,” a male voice remarked to her left, and Celeste spun, meeting the baby blue eyes of a model handsome man a few years older than her, twenty-six maybe. Unlike most of the men here who were dressed in sharp suits, he was wearing skinny jeans, a navy blue tailored shirt, and a grey cardigan. His rich brown hair was pulled back into a ponytail and he wore round, wire-frame glasses. Everything about him screamed hipster and Celeste raised an eyebrow almost without meaning to. “Merin Harte,” he clarified, thinking her raised eyebrow was more confusion than judgement. “My aunt.”

  “Oh,” Celeste said, not entirely sure what to make of a hipster siren. She’d been expecting them all to be noble, dignified, and stuck up. Although the latter adjective certainly fit this man, too.

  He dipped closer, his blue eyes alight with interest. “I’m Kaius Kalloway, Prince of Sirendale and twelfth in line for the throne. I’m also a novelist; you may have heard of my novel Blearwater.”

  “Um,” Celeste said, blinking. How the hell would a princess handle this? Celeste would snort in his face and walk off. Or maybe take him for all his money; he’d made a very nice, gullible mark. His ego was clearly as big as the moon; all she had to do was flatter him... It was something to bear in mind if she needed someone on side here. “Nice to meet you, sir.”

  “Kaius,” he insisted, locking their elbows and steering her away. Celeste was too stunned at his audacity in touching her to do much more than follow. “I too arrived as a guest to Windermere Palace, several years ago when my mother’s passing made us homeless. I emerged stronger for the loss, of course.”

  “Of course,” Celeste input dryly, trying to dampen her smirk as he led her in a turn around the vast ballroom, teal and gold mouldings everywhere, with waves and siren tails as recurring motifs in the designs. Kaius either didn’t note her sarcasm or ignored it altogether.

  “People are going to press you for answers about your whereabouts all these years,” Kaius said quietly, drawing her focus to his blue eyes and sombre expression, his mouth in a thin line beneath a scruff of facial hair. “If it’s too hard to talk about, don’t feel you have to tell them.”

  Celeste blinked, not sure where this compassion had come from. “Thanks,” she replied, trying to work out if Kaius was a pretentious asshole or a decent guy. Maybe both? It was quite frankly annoying that she couldn’t pin him down, and it made him more dangerous that she couldn’t figure him out. The more unpredictable the mark, the more risky the con. “Wait,” she breathed, his words from a few minutes ago repeating inside her mind and sending a pulse of cold through her, satisfaction and victory on its heels. “Did you say you’re one of the princes?”

  “I am,” he agreed, puffing up with pride. “Twelfth in line for the throne, though I’d never wish any harm on my king and family, of course.”

  Celeste swallowed, her throat dry even as she told herself this was what she wanted, she’d have needed to find the royals eventually—Kimber had specifically mentioned the royals during her heartbroken pleading. She subtly lifted her free hand to touch the bump beneath her dress, reassuring herself that the resistance charm was still there. Kaius might have been one of the high sirens, the most powerful people in this palace, but she was immune to his lure. And he hadn’t tried to use it on her. Yet.

  But if he found out she was human... The elbow locked around hers changed from an annoyance to something that spread fear through her body until she could barely control her breathing, the urge to flee pricking at her heels. Shit, she needed to get control of herself, maintain her Aloisia cover.

  “Are you alright?” Kaius asked, drawing her to the side, away from the crowd, his brow pinched with worry. “You look ill all of a sudden.”

  “I’m fine,” Celeste breathed, trying to pull herself together. Play the game, she hissed at herself. All she had to do was play the game, keep her cover, and bring them down. This man peering at her in what seemed like concern was one of the princes. He could be one of the them who broke Kimber’s mind. He might not seem like a predator, with his novel writing and cardigan wearing, but he was one.

  Kaius let go of her elbow to squeeze her shoulders and Celeste’s stomach roiled. His hands were so close to her neck; they could so quickly wrap around her throat and squeeze the air from her lungs. And she was collapsing, right there, a mere twenty minutes after she’d entered the den of vipers. Fuck, she was bad at this. And she was going to get herself killed.

  “You’re clearly not,” Kaius said with a quirk of a smile, his baby blue eyes full of sympathy. “Do you need some air?”

  The thought of this siren prince taking her off alone made her stomach cramp. “No,” she said quickly, breathless, desperately trying to pull herself back together again. “No, I’m alright here.”

  Where had all her bravado gone? Her vow to march in here and ruin the lot of them? She realised very suddenly that she’d made a stupid mistake. If the police couldn’t stop the siren royals, how did she think she could? What a naive, reckless, suicidal idiot she’d been.

  “Tea,” Kaius said suddenly, striding purposefully back into the bustle of the ballroom and leaving Celeste no choice but to hurry after him, confused as hell, nausea rippling through her. He marched right to the buffet table, hunted down a teapot, and poured her a cup, presenting it with a flourish and a soft smile. “I find it makes me steadier,” he said softly, “when the world conspires to defeat me.”

  “Uh,” Celeste said, accepting the cup and saucer, too freaked out to figure out how a siren princess would react. “Thank you.”

  Kaius nodded, that sympathetic smile still on his face as he watched her, his eyes full of worry and understanding behind his wire-frame glasses. Celeste wanted to pry into what the world used to defeat him, thinking she could use his weakness to destroy him, but guilt spun through her belly. And it was too soon to begin pushing salt into sensitive wounds. She needed to gain his trust first. Instead, she sipped the peppermint and green tea he’d poured her and smiled back at him, thinking if nothing else, he was a way into the royal family. He might know who’d wrecked Kimber. She’d be a fool not to keep him on side.

  Plus, there was that whole him being powerful enough to compel her brains to mush thing. And the tea did settle her nerve-wracked stomach, so he deserved the smile. Maybe not every siren here was a psychopath who shattered humans for fun. Or maybe he could be both psycho and compassionate at the same time. It was a sobering thought.

  Kaius opened his mouth to say something, his sky blue eyes soft, but their attention was drawn to the front of the ballroom, to a stage that had been covered with thick teal curtains, as the velvet slid apart to reveal painted wooden backdrops and a company of performers in frozen marionette positions. The quartet in the corner who’d been playing soft music changed to a grandiose opening theme, the players launching into jerky movement.

  “What is it?” Celeste asked Kaius, her curiosity rising. What plays did sirens watch? It probably wasn’t Shakespeare, the only plays Celeste had ever seen.

  “It’s Dante’s Inferno,” Kaius said with delight, a broad smile on his face. “I’m going to get a better view. Are you coming?”

  Celeste debated it; at this point Kaius was a known quantity unlike everyone else in this ballroom. But it
was draining, keeping up the act, and she needed a few minutes to herself to regroup. “No,” she said, with a smile that was getting easier to fake every time she plastered it on her face. “I think I’ll stay here.”

  “As you wish.” Kaius swept a low bow, earning a few sneers and snickers from the people around them—either he didn’t notice or didn’t care that they clearly thought he was an idiot—and disappeared into the crowd of tulle, silk, and tuxes.

  Celeste let a long breath out, her heart rate slowing fractionally. That hadn’t been so bad. She could get through this.

  All she had to do was keep up the act.

  Konstantin Morozov

  Celeste was painfully aware of the siren court all around her as the lights dimmed, casting the ballroom in darkness but for the lit-up stage at the other end of the room. As the play began for real, the actors moving, the voice of the male lead rang out, shockingly loud, and Celeste jumped.

  She made to return to the buffet table in search of another cup of tea—her last one collected by a server when she’d finished it—but a body pressed against hers from behind and Celeste gasped. Rage and fear poured through her, and she made to turn, already bringing up a dozen defensive moves that Benji had taught her as a teenager, but iron arms locked around her.

  A low voice at her ear said, “Don’t struggle.”

  Celeste went deadly still. Not because she was terrified—although she was—but because his voice was low and commanding. Compelling. She wanted to tear out of his grip, her breathing spiralling. But she couldn’t. She was supposed to be a lesser siren. Not as susceptible as a human, but still able to be compelled. And the high sirens were known for using their lure on lesser sirens as well as humans.

  If she disobeyed, he’d know about the resistance charm. And if she was right about just who had his arms around her ... no, she absolutely could not let him find out about the charm.

  “What do you want?” she whispered. Barely loud enough to be heard over the troupe on stage, but he seemed to hear her just fine.

  “Just a little fun, Aloisia White. And to introduce myself.”

  “I know who you are,” she breathed, sickness rising in her stomach. She turned her head, catching her breath at the visual confirmation. There’d been a chance, just a tiny chance, that the man trying to compel her wasn’t the second most powerful siren in the court. But of course it was him. Of course it was Konstantin Morozov with his arms like a cage around her middle, his breath fanning over her ear and his compulsion pressing against her skin like cushioned silk, encouraging her to give in to his will.

  His small, dark eyes were intently focussed on her, and she quickly glanced away, her heart slamming against her ribs. Had she ever been in this much danger before? Kimber’s vacant expression flashed behind her eyes; that could be Celeste if Konstantin found out she was human. He could shatter her mind completely.

  She had to make sure he never found out about the charm beneath her dress.

  “Ah, but we haven’t had a proper introduction, have we?” Konstantin said, his voice rough and his words clipped by a strong accent. Goosebumps rose on her neck and shoulder at the delicate brush of his mouth there as he spoke.

  Celeste exhaled in relief as his arms began to slacken, thinking he was done, but one arm remained locked around her middle while another put pressure on the back of her tulle skirt. What the fuck? Celeste inhaled a sharp breath, horror drenching her body like a bucket of ice water as she twisted to see what he was doing. She was so afraid that it went beyond terrified into something brittle and frostbitten with no name.

  “Please,” she gasped at the sight of a little knife in his hand. But Konstantin wasn’t threatening her, wasn’t even setting the blade to her skin; as she trembled, a millisecond away from blowing everything by pummeling her fists into his face, he used it to cut a slit in her skirt. It was the shock that stopped her, that kept her fists at her sides. It was the shock that stopped him finding out she was immune to his lure.

  Konstantin’s sharp face split in a grin, alarmingly striking and handsome. “Easy, Princess, I won’t hurt you.” He flicked away the blade and tugged her even closer. Celeste was forced to turn back around, breathing hard with her back to his chest, her panicked eyes racing around the dark ballroom as if she’d find someone to save her. Nobody had even noticed.

  She wanted to fight, her body so tightly wound that it was an effort to rein in the urge. It went against every instinct she had, standing still like this. She wanted to step on his instep, spin and knee him in the balls—

  And then what? A whole court full of sirens would know she wasn’t one of them. She might be able to explain it away with vague, terrified references to her fictional trauma but ... it could fail. Probably would fail. And then the whole court would figure out that she was human. A hundred sirens could compel her to do fuck knows what, could make her their entertainment for however long she lasted. And when they were done, they’d send her away with a ruptured mind and a damaging, insatiable need to return to her abusers.

  She didn’t have a choice.

  Konstantin took her jaw and turned her face to the side. Their eyes met and held, his voice low as he said, “I have no interest in forcing women; I prefer to take the ones who are already aroused by me and turn them into my playthings. So tell me that you want me, Aloisia White.”

  His words were exhaled against her skin, somewhere between a caress and a threat, and Celeste caught her breath in panic. She had to lie. She had to tell the truth. She couldn’t allow herself to do either. She shook with it, the compulsion pressing against her until her bones ached, her tongue tingling in her mouth.

  “Tell the truth,” he said in a low, sensual voice, and Celeste shook all over. The resistance charm was holding, but for how long?

  Around her, the crowd laughed at the play, a sudden shattering of voices, and Celeste flinched hard.

  Konstantin sighed. “Calm, Aloisia. I won’t hurt you.”

  “Liar,” Celeste breathed before she could stop herself. Her heart beat so hard that he must have been able to feel it, pressed against her as he was.

  Konstantin’s breath fanned across her neck as he laughed. “Tell the truth, Princess. Do you want me, or not?” No compulsion this time.

  “Not,” she whispered.

  “If you’re sure,” he replied, a smile in his voice. “But shouldn’t we make sure?”

  Before she could begin to figure out his meaning, Konstantin’s hand had ventured beyond the slit in her skirt, around her hip, and slid beneath the cotton of her underwear.

  “Ah,” he said, while Celeste went still in shock. “You’re getting wet; that’s interesting.”

  Celeste grabbed his hand and ripped it from her underwear, breathing hard and outraged that no one around had noticed, that nobody had done anything. “Stop,” she gasped.

  “Look at me,” Konstantin commanded, and Celeste found her head halfway turning before she caught herself. But the damage was already done; she turned her head the rest of the way and met his gaze, her breath catching at his dark, hypnotic eyes. “You want me. Yes?”

  Celeste swallowed. He was wrong. He had to be wrong. But his fingers had slid beneath her underwear again, circling her clit, and he was right; she was getting wet. “There are people around us,” she breathed.

  “Yes,” he said, nipping her ear. “Or no?”

  “Yes,” she exhaled, and her clit throbbed under his fingers.

  She was terrified, her body screaming at her to run, but the darkest part of her psyche, the part she fought to keep buried, had cracked open an eye in interest. She hated this. She was terrified. She didn’t want this.

  Liar, that deep-buried part whispered. This is what your sick little mind has fantasised about, it purred.

  No. No, it was wrong. Those were thoughts—just thoughts. And they were sick; they were twisted and wrong. They were shameful. Not something she wanted to happen. This was ... this was a violation.

  A
nd you like it.

  “So wet,” Konstantin murmured, his tongue darting out to taste her throat.

  Celeste shook her head but he was right; she was dripping all over his fingers. She’d never been so ashamed of her body so much in her life.

  “Do you know who runs this palace, Princess?” Konstantin asked against her skin as his fingers explored further, tracing her folds and sending tingling sparks through her pussy.

  You have no choice; you can’t fight or he’ll find out you’re human flit through her mind, a desperate justification closely followed by, it feels so good.

  “The king?” Celeste answered breathlessly, jolting at a loud clang of drums in response to a darker section of the play.

  “The king sits on his throne; the king is the face of Windermere and Sirendale.” Konstantin pressed a kiss to her throat at the same moment he thrust a finger inside her, and Celeste curled her fingers into tighter fists, her fingernails biting into her palms at the sensation of his finger in her pussy.

  “You, then?” she gasped, her heart racing and her face on fire. Courtiers stood all around them, but if anyone knew what their prince was doing beneath her skirt, they didn’t let on. And Celeste ... Celeste just stood there. Let him do whatever he wanted. He’d get bored soon enough—right?

  “Me,” he agreed, nipping the delicate place where her neck met her shoulder and sending faint pain through her pleasure.

  “So this is ... a power play?” Celeste whispered, her toes curling inside her shoes as his thumb found her clit, applying enough pressure that her stomach hollowed out, a tiny sound trapped between her tight lips.