Page 1 of Heartless Prince

Prologue

Tatum

November 28th, 2018

I openedone 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 glass 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 thatpart.”

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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