Page 50 of Vicious King

I kept my head down. Goosebumps broke out across my arms.

Elias tilted my chin up, forcing me to look right into his eyes. “Are you really here willingly?” he asked. He looked stricken as he spoke. I almost believed it wasn’t part of an act to break me further. Almost. “Did you really sell yourself here?”

I shook my head in disbelief. “How stupid do you think I am?” I said softly. All I could think of was the time he pretended to be surprised when I told him I was a captive. Back then, I thought I had a chance at help, but it was just a game to him. He went and laughed about it with his father afterwards, laughed about how dumb I was for thinking he might actually be unaware. That he might actually help me. “You think I’ll fall for that again?”

“Fall for what?”

“Forget it,” I muttered. “Yes, I’m here willingly. I signed the contract. Now just punish me for what I did and let me go back to my room. Please.”

“You’re not getting out of this fucking room until you tell me the truth.”

My head spun. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. He used to shout at me and punish me in order to make me ‘admit’ to one particular thing, and now he was trying to force me in the opposite direction. Trying to force me to say something else entirely.

Such a sick, twisted game. When would it end? Would he keep going until I blindly repeated every single thing he asked me to say, even if one statement completely contradicted the previous statement he demanded from me? Did he want me that broken? That soulless? Or was he simply hoping I would say something that he would consider a lie, just so he could punish me harder than ever?

I gritted my teeth and steeled myself. “That is the truth.”

“No.” He roughly pushed me down to my knees, and I yelped. “You’re mine. That means you need to submit to me. Properly. You need to trust me and tell me the truth. No more fucking lies,” he said, glaring down at me. His pupils were dilated, and his eyes looked more dangerous than ever. “Do it.”

“I did. I’ve already submitted to you,” I whispered. “I’ve told you everything you wanted to hear. I’ve been telling you for weeks. Months.”

He scrubbed a hand across his face. “That’s the fucking problem. I thought what I wanted to hear was actually the truth,” he said. “But it’s not the truth, is it?”

I looked up at him. Looked at his perfect, deceitful face. I was falling for this man, and yet I’d never hated him more. How was that possible? To love and hate someone at the same time? It didn’t make any damn sense, and yet here I was, swinging between the two intoxicating emotions.

I guess that old saying was true: there’s a thin line between love and hate. Both stemmed from passion somewhere along the line, and they were both capable of sending us all downhill again and again.

“It is,” I finally bit out. “I’m not lying.”

He crouched down to my level, eyes flickering with irritation. “I’m asking you to trust me.”

Another warning bell jangled in my mind. Don’t fall for it.

I gave Elias a sweet, shy smile. “I do trust you, Master,” I whispered. “And that’s why I finally told you the truth all those weeks ago. I sold myself here. That’s it. The truth.”

He shook his head and muttered. “Jesus Christ.” He dragged me to my feet. “Come on.”

I thought he was taking me over to an X-framed cross to whip me, but instead, he pulled me toward the door and yanked it open. “Pretend you can’t walk,” he hissed in my ear. “Or my father will make things worse for you.”

Ha. I could believe that, at least…

I feigned a pained expression and a limp. Tobias sneered at me, and Elias scooped me into his arms. “I hope you’ve learned your lesson, little slut,” he snarled down at me. “I doubt you’ll be able to walk properly for a week.”

Tobias looked pleased, and he nodded at his son before striding away.

Elias carried me all the way back to my room on the second floor. When we were inside, he locked the door behind us and deposited me on the bed.

“Get some rest,” he commanded. “You need it. But we aren’t done with this conversation. I don’t care how long it takes; I’m getting the truth out of you one way or another.”

“I already told you the truth,” I repeated.

His eyes narrowed as he shook his head. “No, you didn’t.”

I suddenly felt ill, like I’d been drugged again, although I knew I hadn’t. I clutched my stomach and curled up in a ball on the bed, my head pounding. Shit. I’d probably caught a chill after spending the night out in the forest. Or maybe it was the stress. Either way, I was exhausted. My limbs felt like soggy noodles.

“I know you don’t believe me, Tatum, but I want to take care of you,” Elias said, sitting down.

I closed my eyes and pretended to sleep. He lay down beside me, wrapped me in his arms and kept talking, muttering all sorts of sweet little lies in my ears. He said that he cared for me. That he wanted to protect me. That if I just admitted the truth and placed my faith in him, he’d find some way to help me.

Yeah, right.

I might be falling in love with him, but I would never fall for his games again.

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