Page 17 of Vicious King

I pulled my hood up and dashed back outside. No point searching inside. I had a pretty good idea that Tatum was out here, given what the dark-haired girl said, and conditions were far more dangerous outside than inside. I couldn’t risk wasting valuable time looking through the mansion first.

Shielding my eyes from the rain with one hand, I frantically looked around, trying to figure out what direction she might’ve gone in. I didn’t have to look too far. I caught a glimpse of white fabric out of the corner of my eye almost immediately, and I turned to see Tatum stepping toward the cliff’s edge a hundred feet ahead.

“Fuck!” I started running as fast as I could in the gale-force winds. They were strong enough to pick up a small animal and fling it right into the briny waves, but I steeled myself and kept going. Every sense was maxed out, every muscle working beyond normal capacity.

“Tatum! What the fuck are you doing?” I shouted, but my voice was lost on the wind. She didn’t turn around, didn’t seem to hear anything at all.

My lungs burned as I sped up, flinging myself into the furiously-pouring rain, and I realized what Tatum’s intentions were with a sickening jolt. Perhaps I was wrong, but it looked like she was going to jump off the cliff. Like she thought she deserved it after what she did to Ben, pushing him off another cliff all those months ago.

The impact of the realization made me feel like someone had sucker-punched me right in the gut. “No!” I shouted. “Tatum, don’t do it!”

She still didn’t seem to hear me, but I kept calling out anyway, hoping at least one word would make it to her.

The tension was unbearable as time stretched on, each millisecond seeming to last a thousand years as I tried to catch up. There was a fist around my heart, squeezing it tight. I couldn’t hate Tatum anymore. Couldn’t let anything happen to her. Couldn’t lose her. For all my claims of not caring about the girl, the thought of her potential death made my world shatter to pieces around me.

Obviously, somewhere deep inside, I fucking cared.

Tatum stopped right by the edge, falling to her knees. Then she stood and turned around, seemingly changing her mind at the last second. Thank fucking Christ.

All of a sudden, she stumbled and fell. My momentary relief vanished, stomach jerking with pure terror. The ground was slippery with ice, and Tatum was sliding backwards, right toward the edge. She let out a piercing scream, and I surged forward and fell to my hands and knees, flinging my right arm out as she slipped over the cliff.

I managed to grab her left sleeve, and she screamed hysterically as I tried my best to pull her up. The fabric quickly began to tear, and I steeled my jaw and moved down onto my belly, reaching my other arm out as far as I could to grab Tatum’s wildly-flailing right arm. “I’ve got you. I’ve fucking got you, okay?” I shouted.

Her face was pale and streaked with raindrops, eyes saucer-wide with shock and fright. “I’m going to fall!” she screamed. “I can’t hold on!”

“You fucking can, and you will!” I shouted back at her, trying my best to pull her up. In all her struggling terror, she was like a dead weight. I needed her to calm the fuck down, but as long as her wet fingers were slipping within my grasp, that wasn’t going to happen.

A terrified cry bubbled up from her throat. “I can’t! I’m slipping!” she screamed.

I was holding on so tight my knuckles were bone-white, but I kept my face arranged into a neutral expression, refusing to let it betray the abject fear I felt. That would only worsen matters. “Tatum, listen to me!” I shouted. “There’s a narrow rock ledge just below you. I can see it. I need you to do your best to hold onto me, but if you lose your grip and fall, you’ll land on the ledge. But only if you stop squirming and struggling, okay? If you aren’t completely still, you’ll miss it.”

She took in a deep, shaky breath and stopped twisting in fear, going rigid instead. That was all I needed. Using all my strength, I began to pull her soaked, shivering body up from the cliff’s edge. When I finally had her all the way up, I dragged her to safety and collapsed onto my knees, my arms tightly wrapped around her. “I’m not losing you like that,” I muttered, voice thick with emotion. “You’re not leaving my sight ever again. No fucking way.”

Tatum was trembling and sobbing like mad, her tears mixing with the heavy rain as she nestled against my chest. She tried to speak, but all that came out was a hysterical blubber.

“It’s okay. It’s okay,” I repeated over and over, pulling her even tighter. I felt like I’d just been through a fucking war. “I’ve got you.”

“I…” she finally choked out. It was the only word she managed before sinking into another bout of gut-wrenching sobs, each one jackknifing her like a punch.

I filled my aching lungs with a deep breath of fresh air before dragging myself to my feet. “Come on. Need to get you inside,” I said as I moved up. I picked Tatum up and carefully threw her over my shoulder, keeping her safe and tight in my grip. I never wanted to let go.

As I trudged back toward the mansion, the image of her dangling off that cliff almost knocked the wind out of me as it flashed repeatedly in my mind’s eye. She was so close to falling, so close to being smashed on the jagged rocks and swept away by the roiling ocean, sucked down into a place she’d never return from. There was no ledge below her; nothing to stop her from plunging a hundred feet if she slipped out of my hold. Just a lie I told to calm her down.

Thank fucking god it worked…

A sudden mental image of her falling through the air and breaking on a craggy pile of rocks made me want to retch violently. I swallowed down the bile I tasted and forced the thoughts aside. It was fine. She was fine. Nothing like this would ever happen again.

I went into the mansion through a side entrance, opened the first guest bedroom door I found, and gently set Tatum down on the floor. She was soaked to the bone, shivering and ghostly-white.

I quickly stripped her of her freezing, sodden clothing and wrapped her in a thick blanket before rummaging through a cupboard to find a towel and dry clothing. My heart was still hammering at what felt like a million miles an hour, and I didn’t see that changing anytime soon.

“Here,” I said softly, returning to Tatum’s side a moment later.

She gratefully accepted the towel and dropped the blanket so she could dry herself off. “Thank you, Mast—”

I put a finger to her lips. “No. Don’t call me that now. Use my name.” It didn’t feel right to let her call me her master anymore. I wanted the old Tatum back, not the blank-faced wreck I’d turned her into these last few weeks.

“Thank you, Elias,” she whispered slowly, looking down at the floor. A pink flush was creeping up her neck. She sniffed back her tears and wiped her face, looking back up at me a second later. “You… you saved my life,” she added, teeth still chattering. “Why?”

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