Page 53 of Heartless Prince

Whoever the witness was, they were credible enough to get the case dismissed. I’d never know who it was, but I owed him or her my life. The Wellingtons had been out for my blood, so if it wasn’t for that witness, I might very well have lost the case and ended up in prison for murder, or manslaughter at the very least.

“I’m not guilty. Ben attacked me,” I said in a ragged voice. “He was going to rape me.”

“Bullshit,” Elias snarled. “I’ve seen the footage from the wildlife cameras. The other footage they wouldn’t allow during the trial.” He lashed at me again, using the ends of the whip tassels.

“What footage?” I squeaked, more tears springing to my eyes.

“The footage that shows you pushing Ben right over that cliff,” he said, voice dripping with scorn. “I know the real story, Doll. You went out there hoping Ben would want more than a hookup. When you realized he didn’t want anything but that, you changed your mind and kicked him off you. He went after you, trying to calm you down, and you snapped and pushed him right off the edge.”

“That’s not true!”

“That’s what the footage shows. You pushed him off the cliff. Killed him in cold blood because you couldn’t handle the rejection. I’m betting you even ripped your own skirt and smeared your makeup to back up your assault story when the police arrived.”

“No. Ben drugged me. They proved it at the hospital,” I said in a pleading tone.

Elias scoffed. “You took those drugs yourself. It’s not like you’d be the first teenage girl to experiment with GHB at a party. And like I said, that footage doesn’t fucking lie.”

I moaned and dropped my gaze to the floor. I’d never heard anything about any other footage, and I certainly hadn’t seen it. On top of that, I knew I didn’t push Ben off the cliff. I only pushed him off me, which caused him to stumble back several feet and trip over the edge moments later. Not my fault,my mind chanted, though some other distant part of my brain told me it was, just like it had for the last year and a half.

Of course it was my fault, at least partially…

I could’ve helped Ben. I could’ve run over and yanked him forward. But I froze instead and let him plummet to an awful death. Apparently his entire skull had been caved in by the rocks below.

I pushed the horrible image out of my head and returned my focus to Elias. He had to be lying about the existence of this footage which proved I killed Ben. But if he was, then what reason did he have to be so angry at me? If he knew I was telling the truth, he might be mad at me for not helping Ben regain his footing, but he wouldn’t blame me entirely for his death, saying over and over that I did it on purpose. And yet he did blame me entirely, as if he’d seen something that I hadn’t. Something that proved I was guilty after all.

An awful thought suddenly occurred to me.

After that harrowing night, I’d felt a horrible, crushing, soul-destroying guilt over what happened. But maybe something else happened instead. Something truly deplorable. Maybe my brain tried to protect me from the awful truth by inventing another story to cover what really happened, and maybe the secret witness on the beach was mistaken about what they saw in the dark.

Maybe I really did push Ben over the edge....

Snap out of it!You didn’t do that, I tried to tell myself, but already, I was twisting and twirling into the darkness, letting the dark new suspicions flood through me.

Elias let the tassels of the whip fall on me again and again, alternating between hard and soft, thrashing me and teasing me at the same time until I was a trembling, whimpering mess. I couldn’t tell if I wanted to cry or come.

“That’s it, Doll,” Elias said soothingly, using his free hand to caress my neck. I moaned, leaning into his cruel kindness. “Take it all.”

My brain and body seemed to have reached a point of surrender, scooping up all my guilt and shame and letting it out with each stroke of the whip. It hurt, but it felt extraordinarily good at the same time because it seemed like divine penance.

Even if I didn’t directly cause Ben’s death as Elias claimed, I was still partially responsible for what happened to him. I deserved to feel the effects of that. I’d put up with these horrible feelings of culpability for far too long, and it was time to let it all out, no matter what it took….

“Oh!” I moaned as bliss and burning agony spiraled within me, that same twisted cocktail of shame and guilty longing that made me love the pain and hate myself all at the same time.

“Say it,” Elias suddenly said, putting the tail of the whip under my chin, forcing me to look up at him again. Then he lashed me again, across the stomach.

He didn’t need to tell me what he wanted me to say. I already knew. “I… I deserve this,” I choked out. “I need you to punish me.”

Just saying the words made the painful sensations on my abdomen turn to arousal instead of agony. I squirmed, desperate for more. I felt as if I’d been dead for the last two years and was suddenly coming alive again, my eyes wide open, my blood rocket fuel.

“Feels good to admit it, doesn’t it, Doll?” Elias said, trailing the tassels over my skin.

I nodded. “Yes,” I said breathlessly. “Give me more.”

“Yes what?” His eyes glinted with a mixture of malice and lust. “Say it properly, and thank me for punishing you.”

“Yes, Master,” I whispered. “Thank you for punishing me. Please, I want more….”

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