Page 10 of Heartless Prince

The recruits shuffled closer to the ring of fire around Tobias. He smiled and spoke up again. “I see you survived the initiation ceremony on Tuesday. Congratulations. I’m sure you’ve heard the legends, and now, you are part of the legend yourselves.”

He paused to look at all the recruits in turn, then went on, his voice crisp and clear.

“Election to our brotherhood is a golden ticket into a life beyond your wildest dreams, even with all your privileged backgrounds. Success becomes your birthright as soon as you are reborn into your new lives as members of our society. Anything you want is within your reach, and anything your enemy wants can be taken away from them at your whim. The brotherhood will see to your every need. You will never want for anything, and in return, your loyalty will supersede everything else in your lives.”

The masked men on the other side of the altar stamped their feet and cheered at this.

“Neophyte DuPont, step forward and kneel!” Tobias commanded, holding up the dagger.

One of the recruits shuffled farther forward and knelt, bowing his head. Tobias gently tapped him on the top of the head with the dagger, and then a red-robed man stepped forward with a golden goblet and held it out. The recruit took the goblet and gulped down its contents.

The process continued with the other recruits, one by one.

I almost laughed as I watched the surreal events unfold before me. It all seemed so… silly. Tacky. Like something from a cheesy thriller movie.

Then I remembered what Willa told me. First-level Crown and Dagger stuff was basically a joke, from what she’d said. The second level was harder to reach and far more secretive (she barely knew anything about it), and the third level was so clandestine that she knew absolutely nothing about it. Even her brothers, who’d apparently made it to the second level, had zero idea of what the third level entailed. They hadn’t made it that far and never would.

Despite that, I already had at least a vague idea of the different levels from what I’d seen tonight. Brand new recruits wore brown robes during initiation, and first-level members wore navy blue (as evidenced by the guard outside the door complaining about wanting to reach the second level so he didn’t get scut-work anymore). From that, I could assume that the red-robed men were in the second level of the brotherhood, and black was reserved for the highest level.

Tobias King was the only one wearing black here, so this was definitely a lower-level event, designed to appeal to the new recruits and younger members. Not counting Tobias, who obviously had to be here to oversee the event, the third-level members weren’t here and probably had far better things to do with their time.

A shiver ran through me as I imagined what those things might be.

“Now,” Tobias called out in a booming voice when the last recruit had finished whatever was in his goblet. “Enjoy the fruits of your success!”

The gong sounded again, and the drumbeats immediately started back up along with loud music. Whoops and cheers echoed throughout the grotto.

I settled further down into my hiding spot and pulled out my cell phone to surreptitiously film what was happening. Now that the silly dagger ritual was out of the way, the party seemed to be beginning.

Beautiful women were slinking out from the dark little doorways on the edges of the main chamber, holding trays of drinks along with fat lines of white powder. Some were dressed in gauzy white Grecian-style dresses, others were topless with black thongs and golden spray-paint on every bare inch of their skin, and others were simply stark naked save for black collars around their necks.

“Holy shit,” I heard one of the recruits mutter. His voice was slurring slightly; whatever was in the goblets must’ve been potent.

Within the next twenty minutes, a scene I could only describe as a wild orgy began to take place. Women were on their hands and knees with masked men filling them rough and hard, grunting and groaning. Others were on their knees with their hands bound behind them, sucking cocks and moaning in pleasure as someone else stroked their pussies. The new recruits all shared expressions which suggested their dreams had come true as they joined in.

It was rough, raw, Bacchanal.

I was frozen with a mixture of fear and excitement as I took it all in, my pulse pounding hard and fast. I pictured myself as one of those women, being used and abused, taken in every hole for the pleasure of rich men. It made me scared, the thrilling kind of scared that got me all hot and bothered. My chest rose and fell, heat slipping down my neck, and my nipples tightened as the fiery desire moved across my stomach and pooled between my legs.

I let out an involuntary squeak of surprise as I saw a red-robed man slap a woman’s tanned, oiled ass before he spread her cheeks wide and shoved himself inside. Right in her ass, no warning given. She let out a guttural moan, her head falling forward as the man roughly violated her tightest hole. Then she began to moan and gasp with bliss, succumbing to the heady mixture of pain and pleasure.

I clapped a hand over my mouth. Luckily the party was so loud that no one seemed to have heard my squeak. Thank god. I looked around anyway, just to make sure.

Along one wall of the grotto, a few red-robed men stood watching the wild sex, sipping at goblets instead of joining in. I couldn’t see their faces, seeing as the masks covered everything, but I got the impression they were bored. They’d probably participated in this sort of activity many times, and now, what once seemed wild and dangerous had turned old and stale.

One of them suddenly turned his head slightly to the left. There was something familiar about the way he held himself.

I bit my lip and ducked down lower, hoping he hadn’t spotted me in the darkness behind the gravestone. Peeking out a moment later, I saw that he was watching the orgy again. False alarm. I was safe.

Still, I needed to think about getting out of here before it was too late. As long as I stayed in the shadows, I could slip out amongst all this primal writhing and moaning easily enough. Or so I hoped.

Sticking as closely to the cold stone wall as I possibly could, I found my way back to the tunnel and slid into the blackness beyond. Then I dashed back up the winding path, dizzy and buzzing from everything I’d just witnessed.

When I realized I was nearing the doorway which led back into the above-ground section of the tomb, I halted and got down on my hands and knees before slowly inching my way forward. The guard would probably still be out here, so I would have to figure out where he was, then dash around him to the back door and fly through the cemetery as fast as possible to evade him.

He wasn’t right at the entrance, thank god. Neither was anyone else. I guess the guy who promised to replace him never bothered to show up. It really was my lucky night.

I poked my head out slowly, then breathed a sigh of relief when I saw the guard passed out against a wall, snoring loudly with his now-extinguished torch across his lap. Obviously, guard duty in the tomb was just as boring and shitty as he claimed earlier. No wonder his friend didn’t bother coming to help.

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