Page 3 of Heartless Prince

His solid muscles, perfectly-chiseled features and cold blue-green gaze held the rapt attention of every female student or staff member within twenty feet of him. I couldn’t blame them. I didn’t like the guy, but I had to grudgingly admit he was one of the most handsome men I’d ever seen.

A shadow slid down the curve of his cheekbone when he spotted me watching him from my table. His upper lip curled almost imperceptibly, and he turned to meet my eyes with a stony stare. Ah, there we go. The good old ‘King glare’, aimed directly at me. No surprise. I’d seen it many times over the last year.

Elias and I first met—or had an encounter, I should say—at a party Willa threw last December, when I was still in my senior year of high school. He spent a good portion of the evening staring at me with unbridled malice in his reptilian gaze, despite the fact I’d never done anything to him or even met him before that night. Later, when we actually spoke, he made it quite clear that he considered a girl like me to be far below him and wholly undeserving of sharing space with him.

Since then, I’d seen him on a few more occasions, as we were now at the same college—me as a freshman, and him doing some sort of grad school business course, from what I’d heard through the grapevine. Every single time we ran into each other, he either pretended he didn’t see me or stared at me with cold fury etched into his features, as if I personally offended him by daring to exist within a hundred yards of his privileged ass.

The thing that bothered me the most about him was the effect he always wound up having on me. As much as I hated having someone stare at me as if I’d done something terrible like blow up their car or murder their pet, the wildness and anger in his eyes appealed to something dark and twisted inside me. Something I usually tried to hide. His intense stares made my knees turn weak as cold licks of fear slithered down my spine.

It seemed counterintuitive, but I liked that feeling of fear. It stirred strange cravings deep within, made me want to let him grab me and hurt me and command me. Made me want to give up all control and let him guide every word I spoke, every movement I made.

The need to submit, the need to let another person own me in order to complete me, filled me with an uncontrollable thirst and longing, as much as I tried to hide it from the world. As if all the guilt over my past actions could be assuaged if someone else owned me, because it would all become their responsibility. I would just be their toy, their pet, their living doll.

Seeing the cruel, malevolent way Elias looked at me ignited all those feelings, making them impossible to ignore.

I tried to push them aside anyway and glowered right back at him. I might like and crave those feelings, but at the same time, I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to feel like I could escape all accountability by letting someone else take control of my life, and I didn’t want anyone to own every inch of me. It was just a dark fantasy.

“What’s wrong?” Greer asked, registering my look of exasperation.

“Sorry, it’s not you,” I said, nodding toward Elias. “It’s him. Why is he even here?”

Technically, Elias wasn’t allowed to be in here. This dining hall was for Bamford residents only, and as far as I knew, he didn’t even live on campus. Then again, everyone always bowed to the Kings. If he wanted to be in here, I couldn’t imagine anyone stopping him.

The others all looked in the direction my gaze was fixed on. “Ah, your nemesis,” Mellie said with a tinge of amusement in her voice.

“Who are we talking about?” Greer asked.

“Black t-shirt, tall, looking at Tatum as if she just slashed his tires,” Mellie said.

Elias had just realized we were all looking at him, and he abruptly turned away to talk to three senior guys at a table. I couldn’t help but notice all of them had the same ring as him, thick gold bands on their right middle fingers. It was hard to see from here, but I’d seen the intricate design on Elias’s ring on other occasions when I bumped into him. It was an eight-pointed star.

“Oh, him. Who is he again?” Greer’s brows knitted together in a puzzled expression.

“He’s Elias freakin’ King,” Willa said. “Is that not enough for you to know exactly who he is?”

“Uh. Not really.”

She sighed. “I keep forgetting you aren’t from around here. You have heard of the King family, right?”

“Yes, but it’s seven in the morning and I’m half asleep, so I’m gonna need a refresher.”

Willa began to explain everything to her. In the meantime, I sipped at my coffee and watched Elias out of the corner of my eye, wishing he’d leave. As much as everyone else respected him and his family, I couldn’t respect someone who treated me like trash just because I wasn’t as rich as them.

And god, was his family rich…

The Kings were practically a national institution here. After amassing enormous wealth in the oil and petroleum industries a couple of hundred years ago, they now possessed the largest private fortune in the world, making even the Rockefellers look like peasants. Richer than God, richer than sin.

The fortune was split between all the descendants and branches of the family, and despite nearly everyone being aware of their existence, the majority of them shied away from the media, opting to keep their lives as private as possible.

Of course, this enigmatic behavior only added to their popularity due to the intrigue swirling around them, so they were a household name to most people. Our very own American royalty.

I turned my attention back to Willa, who was still talking about them.

“Honestly, they’re worth so much that they make me feel super poor,” she said. For reference, her family—the Van der Veers—were worth about seven billion dollars. Their main house alone was worth about forty million, not to mention all the other real estate they owned for different seasons and vacations.

Greer looked at me and rolled her eyes heavenward with a good-natured smile. I grinned back. Like me, she was here on a scholarship after being born and raised in a family that always struggled to pay the bills. She knew what it was like to rub shoulders with the elite and come out feeling like she’d stepped into a particularly savage episode of Dynasty, and she liked to tease Willa and Mellie whenever they accidentally said something oblivious, just to balance things out a little.

“Yes, I know how bad that sounds,” Willa added, playfully nudging Greer. “I’m just saying, that’s how filthy rich they are.”

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