Heartless Hero (Crowne Point #1)

by Mary Catherine Gebhard

For the girls who like mean boys.

Theo Hound wasn’t like the other bodyguards in my grandfather’s employ. Once upon a time, he was mine. We were just teenagers then, but I found Theo. I kept Theo. I almost gave him my heart, but like everyone else, he chose my sister.

I was Abigail Crowne, fire starter, scandal maker, the Wicked Bitch of the East Coast. I’d ruined reputations and destroyed lives, but a few minutes of silence with Theo and I was muttering like the schoolgirls had with Grayson.

People think I’m malicious and vindictive and did things because I like causing drama. But have you ever been so hurt and torn open you’d do anything to make the throbbing pain stop?

I was the Wicked Bitch of the East Coast, but I wasn’t the words they called me. Not really. I liked to pretend I was as callous as my brother Grayson, as cunning as my sister Gemma. In reality, I was soft. As they said, there was a reason I’d never fit in. I was a marshmallow. Easy to step on. Easier to squish. So I answered. “Truth.” Theo smiled, easy and slow. “I’m going to break your heart, and you’re going to thank me for it.”

“I’m going to take everything from you,” I said, voice soft. “Until you regret ever making me believe you were different.” Until you regret making me believe I could have something more. “I won’t play your games,” she said, a slight stammer to her words. I bit back my laugh. Abigail Crowne was a master at games, but this time I’d be the one to ruin her, break her to pieces, build a safety net with rotting promises.

“You’re not a player. You’re a pawn.”

“I’m not like your other guards, Reject. You can’t scare me away. Your secrets are mine. Your mind is mine. Your body is mine. How else could I protect you?”

I only ever use found items, because there’s magic in revealing the beauty of what people discarded.

“You really fucked up this time, Reject. No daddy alive to love you. No grandpa to pretend to love you.” Abs shifted at my words but said nothing. “Is that why you’re so angry, Reject? I’ll be your daddy, if you ask nicely.”

“And now you have no one left to love you. No one. Not your daddy. All you have is me.” I licked her ear, tongue caressing along the shell, top to bottom, before biting the lobe. She breathed in a way that sounded suspiciously like a sigh. I tightened my grip on her hair. On her thigh. “Only me.”

I was always thankful for being sent to California; at least I didn’t have to see Abigail every time I looked out the window. The night sky there didn’t glow the same dark-red indigo. Back here… I can’t say the same.

Theo and I are inverse, a dark, twisted version of love. We’re still connected, but not through sweet words, through torment and ache. Theo is still inside me. He’s still in my heart.

In the end, though, Theo only proved what I already knew, love is conditional. Some people were obvious about their strings, but everyone has them. If you love someone, it’s only a matter of time until they take it away.

I was a lot of things—hated, reviled—but I was never pathetic. Theo made me pathetic.

“I remember everything about you, Abigail. I’ve tried to forget you. It’s impossible. You are…” He looked away, bitter fury and contempt swirling in his eyes. “You are stuck.” He clipped the last word, like he wanted to spit it out of his mouth the same way he wanted to spit me out.

In the dark, someone might call out my name, but in the light, everyone always chose her.

A Crowne always learned truth hurt more, was cleaner, more effective. More than that, when you’re as powerful as us, you don’t need to lie. However vicious and razing a lie, you can always be assured you’ll rise above the rubble. A Crowne didn’t lie… to others. To ourselves, well, we were masters.

This was Abigail at her most dangerous. Because when Abigail dropped her walls, mine fell with them. I forgot. I forgot to hate her, forgot why I had to learn to hate her.

“I will always be inside you.” A fear whispered back: She would always be inside me.

How could Abigail Crowne even dream of college? Dream of anything other than the life she was given? Abigail Crowne was less than. Abigail Crowne was second best. Abigail Crowne was worthless.

She was a tempting lie, a promise I wanted to believe wouldn’t break.

“Only I can hurt you, sweet girl. You’re mine to torment. Your tears are mine to free. Your heart is mine to break.”

Wine drenched strands of hair, dripping down onto his full lip, as he smoked with his free hand.

He cant still be wet with all that wine. But ok because it’s hot 😂

Theo Hound was art. Hedonist. Hellish. Art.

So even if we explode into a billion pieces tomorrow, when she puts them back together, I’ll be inside her forever.

Something about fucking Abigail on a mattress I’d ripped open to spill her secrets seemed… inevitable. Our twisted, brutal destiny.

Abigail Crowne had the sharpest thorns and the softest petals. Maybe that’s why I was so addicted to bleeding by her, it made her soft touches, looks, and kisses all the more intoxicating.

He was going to gut me, but I was a junkie searching for her next fix. Even though I knew he would hurt me, I couldn’t not ask for the pain.

“There was no going back. Not with you. I’d rather be kicked to the curb by you than brought home by anyone else. You could leave me over and over again like the fucking dog I was, it didn’t matter. All I could think as she spoke was…” His lips found the side of my neck. “I’m yours forever, Abigail.”

There was still so much debris between us. The longer we went without addressing it, the harder it would be to dig ourselves out,

I’m no saint, either. My hands are bloody, my soul is stained. We’re all stuck in this vicious cycle of hurting and being hurt.

A bully makes a bully

Mom rarely hugged me, and anytime she did, it was usually after she’d emotionally obliterated me. How fucked up was it to live for these moments?

Uneasy is the girl who wears the name Crowne.

you can’t be a Crowne without many sharp points.”

I should run after him and tell him how much I love him. I never stopped loving him. He was as essential to my heart as the blood that made it beat.

It was reminiscent of a medieval tournament, minus the knights. At least the arranged marriages had remained.

“You were my only friend, but you were so much more. You were my best friend. You were my…” I fiddled with his friendship bracelet. “You know the areas of my soul I was too afraid to walk inside. You read the parts of me I thought I erased. You see my darkness, and you fill it with light.”

Because love isn’t a promise, Abigail. It can’t be broken or kept. Real love just is. It exists without consent. It consumes. You’re just like everyone else. Love is something to forget. Love is something to break.”

When I got into Twilight, he finished them before me. He was Team Edward and I was Team Jacob. He said, and I quote, “I knew you were dumb, Abigail, but maybe we should check you for a brain tumor.”

“Sweet girl,” he murmured, a guarded smile on his face. “I would never leave you, not willingly, not unless I had to.”

“You were the most distracting fairy tale, Abigail Crowne, but you were worth every harsh reality.”

Uneasy is the girl who wears the name Crowne. Uneasy, unloved, unnoticed, uncared for.

“Everyone knows it. The story is famous. The reject fell in love with the only thing to ever love her back, a dog who abandoned her for a chance at her sister.”

Tansy Crowne didn’t lie. Truth hurt better than lies. Truth was a better, sharper weapon to wield. Lies were blunt, vulgar weapons used by weaker people, those who didn’t have the power to ascertain truths.

Love is ephemeral, conditional. Love can be withdrawn. Love is a fucking lie.

The worst, most cruel part about this is I still did love him. I wanted to take it away, I wanted to break it, I wanted to forget my love for him ever existed, but I couldn’t. It was throbbing and bruised from what was happening, but it was there.

“Promise you’ll never say ‘I love you,’ promise you’ll never make another goddamn promise to anyone again.”

My chest was ripping open. I thought the first time Theo left was brutal. This… This would end me.

Evil. Theo was evil. What did it make me that I gave in to temptation so easily? Because as much as I knew he would go through with that promise, I knew I would let him. I hated him, I hated myself, but I still craved him.