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  Still waters really do run deep.

  Heat rushed through me as I stared at the pictures, taking in Tatum’s wide blue eyes and delicate features. She looked so sweet and innocent. However, I knew she was anything but fucking innocent.

  Lurking under that beautiful, sweet-natured façade was a conniving little witch who deserved every single bit of what was coming to her. She didn’t know this yet, didn’t know me, but in under a year, she would be given to me. I would own every inch of that lithe body, and I would do whatever I wanted with it. I would corrupt it, break it, destroy it. Destroy her.

  I raised my eyes to my father. “She doesn’t know it’s me yet, right?”

  He shot me a look of pure incredulity. “Of course not. The girls are never told who they’ll be given to before their arrival. Sometimes it’s not even decided until after they’re broken in. The selection party, remember?”

  “Right. Of course.”

  “Their reactions are far better when they have no idea who their new master will be. The fright and wonder in their eyes is real.”

  I smiled thinly. I already knew what Tatum looked like when she was frightened. I saw it weeks ago at Willa Van der Veer’s stupid masked party, when that crazy woman with the gun showed up to disrupt things. I wasn’t afraid—King men never were—but Tatum was scared witless.

  Picturing the expression on her face gave me a giddy rush, sent it speeding through my veins like a potent drug. The way her eyes came alive, flaring incandescent blue with pure panic, made lust flow through my veins like adrenaline. I’d never been so fucking hard in my life than when I was pressed against her in that tiny staircase cupboard, watching her shake and feeling the fear radiate off her skin.

  Until that evening, I’d never actually met Tatum in person. I still knew everything about her, though, ever since she destroyed a precious aspect of my life nine months ago. It was hard to believe someone so beautiful could inspire such burning rage within me, but she managed it easily. She wouldn’t get away with it, though. Since she came into my life so blissfully unaware, I’d been watching, waiting….

  Fuck, I was so sick of waiting.

  Without her in my possession, I felt as if I were simply drifting through the days, going through the motions with nothing to moor me but thoughts of her tearstained face and the heavy anchor of my loathing for her. Even then, it still wasn’t enough. With the temptation of Tatum, my mind had turned treacherous as black ice on the road. I could barely gather my thoughts; couldn’t concentrate on anything but the thought of her and what it would be like to finally have her crawling before me.

  “Why do we have to wait so much longer?” I asked, narrowing my eyes.

  “We’ve been over this.”

  I waved an impatient hand. “I know, but it’s already been six months since her contracts were signed. Surely that’s long enough.”

  Dad pressed his lips together. “We might have half the damn world in our pocket, but you know there’s always some we can’t get, like those bastards at the SEC or the slimy pricks in the US Attorney’s office. You know they hate the rich, and they’d never bow to even the biggest of bribes or the deadliest of threats. They’re too proud and stoic, and they’re always searching for evidence of impropriety, anything at all, just so they can smugly pat themselves on the fucking back when we’re forced to take their deals and pay their fines to avoid prison,” he said crisply. “Can you imagine their reaction if they figured out what we get up to in Crown and Dagger?”

  I grunted, and he went on.

  “Every transaction we make has to seem legitimate. We can’t just deposit three hundred grand into Tatum’s bank account, or even her parents’ account. It has to be done carefully with a proper trail so that it all looks organic and real. That takes a long time. So be patient, son. In about eight months, she will be yours, and you’ll realize the long wait was well worth it.”

  I knew everything he said made perfect sense. It just pissed me off that I had to wait so fucking long to do what I wanted. In a family like ours, it wasn’t often that we were forced to wait for anything. We had all the money and power that was possible in this world, could buy or take almost anything we wanted at any given time… and yet, in cases like this, we were still reduced to mere mortals.

  I sat down by the fire, squeezing my hands into fists so hard my knuckles went white. All I could see was Tatum in my mind’s eye, her ankles bound so tight she couldn’t walk. Her wrists bound with the same rope so she couldn’t push me away. Me, wrapping the rope tighter around her skin so that it sank into her trembling flesh and made her moan and cry out. She would know any struggle was useless; know that she had to lie there and submit to my demands, my every word and whim. She would exist purely as an object. Naked, exposed, punished. Owned.

  My father mistook the intense expression on my face for reticence. “You know she deserves this, son. Even she knows she deserves punishment for what she did. Why else would she agree to sell herself to our brotherhood? She knows exactly what she’s getting into.”

  I smiled. “I know. I was just thinking about what I’m going to do to her, and the expression on her face when she realizes who I really am.”

  He nodded proudly and swept out of the room to return to the family gathering. I stared into the roaring flames, my mind drifting back to thoughts of punishing Tatum. She would get exactly what was coming to her, brought to her knees like she’d silently begged for all this time.

  Eight more months and she’d be mine.

  All mine.

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  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 gl
ass 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.

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  Heartless Prince

  Vicious King

  Twisted Empire

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