Page 51 of Vicious King

16

Elias

Tatum dozed fitfully,her hair messily splayed out on the pillow behind her, limbs twitching every moment or so. She looked pale. Exhausted. Scared even in her sleep.

I couldn’t blame her. She should be scared. I wasn’t too proud and insecure in my masculinity to admit that I was too.

After I woke up to all the furor about Tatum going missing, the first thing that struck me was fear. I worried something terrible had happened to her. A kidnapping, or a horrible accident. But then one of the security guards told me she’d actually tried to leave the Lodge by herself and been ‘caught’ in a nearby town.

While I was still passed out, they’d gone and watched the recent surveillance footage from her suite. From what they managed to glean, she’d drugged her wine glass while she was in the closet before dinner—I barely even noticed she took it with her when she got changed—and then switched it with mine when my back was turned.

No wonder I felt so drained. Allergy meds had a way of wiping a person the fuck out if they took too many.

I was supposed to be angry at her for violating the terms of her contract by trying to leave. I was supposed to punish her. But why the fuck would I do that? After this most recent attempt, I could no longer deny that something heinous was happening here.

The first few times she acted out and tried to run, I thought it was because of me. She hated me, after all. Hated my whole family. Besides, it was in her contract that she was supposed to fight me.

Allegedly.

At the time, I didn’t care. I hated her too, and I wanted her to fight me. But now I saw something different. I saw a girl who desperately wanted to leave; not just me, but this whole place. I saw a girl who wasn’t acting or playing along with any contract clauses. She was genuinely terrified. She genuinely thought of herself as a captive.

Because she was. She had to be.

I could feel it in my bones. All the suspicions I had over the last few weeks, all the things I tried to convince myself were just overreactions and conspiracy theories… they weren’t unfounded. Why else would Tatum keep behaving like this?

Acting out and pretending to fight back was one thing. But going to all the effort of obtaining allergy meds and sneakily drugging me with them just so she could steal my keycard and run away was another thing entirely. That wasn’t fucking acting. There was nothing pretend about it. She clearly wanted to escape, and she’d do anything to make it happen.

I reached out and stroked her hair, twisting my lips in fury. The thought of her being here against her will made my guts churn and my blood boil. I hated myself for not seeing it till now. It all made so much sense, especially considering the cliff incident on the island, and yet I’d been so blind to it in the past. I treated her like shit when she tried to tell me the truth. I broke her down so much that she was too scared to even say it anymore.

I knew I wasn’t overthinking things this time. When I asked her if she was here willingly just an hour ago, I saw a momentary flare of fear and indecision in her eyes. The restless panic of a wild bird trapped inside a house. That look alone confirmed everything for me. She was scared and she knew she didn’t belong here, but she didn’t want to tell me the truth because she was afraid I was playing her. Of course she’d think that, after the way I’d treated her in the past. After the way I punished her for telling me what was very likely the actual honest truth.

I drew my hand away from her like it was scalded. I didn’t deserve to touch her.

With a heavy sigh, I put my head in my hands and closed my eyes. So many questions had been thrown up by all this shit. How did Tatum come to be here if it wasn’t willingly? Was it really her parents, like she tried to tell me all those months ago? And my father… what was his role in this?

Obviously he’d fucking lied to me about everything. But why? People didn’t just do things for no reason. There was always some kind of motivation, so something made him do this to Tatum. To me as well. His reasoning might be fucked up and downright evil, but I still wanted to know what the hell it was and how the hell he thought I wouldn’t find out.

There was also the question of the Lodge in general. Was Tatum the only captive? Or were they all captives?

The thought alone made me want to vomit.

I exhaled deeply and shook my head. I knew I couldn’t just wait until I reached the third level of Crown and Dagger to get to the bottom of Tatum’s captivity. I had to do something now. Had to find out once and for all if I was right so that I could form a solid plan to fix things for her.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t going to get the truth out of her again anytime soon. She was far too petrified. That meant taking matters into my own hands and trying to figure out a way to prove she didn’t belong here all by myself. Without that proof in my possession to show her I was genuine, she’d never let me help her. She’d think it was all part of some sick game.

I looked back over at her beautiful face, my lips set in a grim line. How many times had I ignored her? Disregarded her and treated her like she was nothing? Hurt her?

I kept trying to tell myself it wasn’t my fault. I didn’t know. I thought she wanted this, thought she sold herself here for this very reason. To be a slave. To earn money for her family. To punish herself for what she’d done in the past.

At the same time, I knew it was my fault. I should’ve fucking listened to her. Should’ve realized the very first time she acted out and told me she didn’t belong here that something wasn’t right. But I didn’t want to. I wanted to punish her for what she’d done to Ben. I wanted a slave to fulfil my every dark desire. So I ignored her. I refused to listen when it was clear she wasn’t lying, and I tried my best to break her instead.

But she was never really broken. I was.

Monster.

My father was an even fouler monster. There was no way he was innocent in any of this, and it made me wonder what the fuck else he’d lied to me about. Like my biological parentage, for instance. All the shit with Camille Gorham and her disappearance was playing on my mind on an endless loop now. Was she like Tatum too? Was she kidnapped by my father and kept here just like her? Forced to donate her eggs so my parents could have a child?

Something else struck me a second later.

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