A Beautiful Nightmare: A Novel Read online

  COPYRIGHT Shana Vanterpool © 2016

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced whatsoever in any manner, including electronic or mechanical, photocopying, or by an information and retrieval system, without written permission from the Author/Publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, character, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s overactive imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to the actual persons, alive or deceased, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Cover stock image © ShutterStock

  Edited, formatted, and illustrated by Shana Vanterpool

  Shana Vanterpool © 2016

  Other titles by Shana Vanterpool

  The Demise Series:

  My Sweet Demise

  My Vicious Demise

  The Crystal Gulf Series:

  Destroy Me

  Damage Me

  Dedication

  For those who want more than they feel,

  and those who hide from all that they can’t have.

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Copyright

  Other Titles

  Dedication

  Authors Note

  Blurb

  Preface

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Authors Note

  A Beautiful Nightmare is equal parts dark and sexy. It pushes the boundaries of lust and toys with you psychologically. Not everything is as it seems, but you won’t know that until you do. There are aspects of this story that may at first seem overwhelming and dark, but there are aspects that are unbearably beautiful and heartbreaking as well. In order to enjoy them you have to deal with the darkness. You can’t appreciate beauty until it isn’t there. And you can’t appreciate the truth until it’s all gone.

  So you’ve been warned. This is a dark novel. It’s twisted, it’s heartbreaking, and it’s beautiful. If you’re uncomfortable with mature themes, both sexually and psychologically, then I would stop now. But I do ask that you read to the end. All that you feared, won’t be scary anymore. And all that we thought was possible, will be missed. But that’s the thing about perception. It sometimes plays the biggest role of them all …

  A Beautiful Nightmare Blurb

  In chess, the king is the most important piece. But the queen is the most powerful. Sometimes to win, she is sacrificed.

  Lies melt, and this queen has plenty. She should have seen him coming, she should have known. He took her long before these walls let her know. He won’t let her go. Won’t listen to reason. For a love that doesn’t exist, or has her heart committed treason? Lust won’t be ignored, doesn’t care for these wall of lies. And for every one she’s ever told, she’s always had another in mind. But he is truth—he is king. And the longer he is all she sees … and tastes … she can’t help but think, some nightmares are beautiful, and some are dreams.

  In this dark and thrilling romance, the lines of lust and truth are blurred. Life seemingly ends the moment 27-year-old Kinley Hashawaye awakes to find herself inside of a nightmare. Fear and lies are covered in gold and darkness, and her heart won’t let her be when the truth comes back to haunt her. But perception is everything in this kingdom, and danger exists even in our dreams.

  And this king will stop at nothing to have his queen.

  A Beautiful Nightmare is a full-length contemporary dark/suspense romance with no cliffhanger. It is intended for readers 18+ due to mature situations.

  A BEAUTIFUL NIGHTMARE

  By SHANA VANTERPOOL

  “All of my life I’d been a solitary force floating away on my own. There was never anyone who’s fire burned as hot as mine. Whose hunger was just as starved. Until I met the man on top of me.

  Then I knew true hunger.

  Because he felt it too.”

  - Kinley Hashawaye

  Preface

  Lies.

  They were terrifying.

  Not because of the betrayal they left behind, but how easy they were to tell. Lies rolled off the tongue and hid so much from the surface.

  The truth was fragile and rarely appreciated. It shattered more often than not and existed as long as we wanted it to.

  Lies were painful and lasting. We rarely remembered how deeply they went until the roots began to take form, and they’d wrapped around everything … everyone … around us.

  They grew together, these lies and these truths, until they were both the same.

  But perception was a lie as well, and not everything we saw, felt, and loved was real. Sometimes what we hungered for told us far more than anything else.

  1.

  I Should've Seen This Coming

  The last thing I remembered was running.

  Sprinting with my head down. Sweat poured from my face. My muscles burned from the exertion of my efforts, and everything I fought to forget couldn’t catch up.

  Which was usually the way I wanted it.

  Running was my time to be nothing but one step in front of the other. With a schedule as hectic as the Chicago weather, I had no time to myself but a one-hour slot in the morning. From 5 A.M. to 6 A.M. it was just me, my Nikes, and my boyfriend’s oversized sweatshirt with the ripped pocket.

  But this run had been different. I woke up, and did what I always did. I kissed my boyfriend goodbye on the cheek, and then slipped out from the sheets unnoticed. I dressed in the dark in my running gear, and tiptoed down the hall to the kitchen. I downed a protein bar as I slipped my headphones in, taking off for my favorite route. The trail that traced the edge of Lake Michigan, an 18-mile trek that made the rest of my day easier to handle. I’d never managed to complete the entire thing, but I tried every morning. Somehow it wasn’t the same as failing when I knew I’d never win. Exhausting myself had always made things clearer. It made things easier to accept. When human beings are tired, they make choices closer to their inner desires.

  Ask a tired man what he wants, and he won’t look at you blankly. He will look at you and spill his soul. Ask a tired woman what she wants, and well, you asked for it.

  The moment I stepped into the street for my usual run, I felt … unsettled. I wasn’t alone. At least not in the way I usually was. This didn’t feel like it was coming from inside of me. The hair on my arms had risen. My music was suddenly too loud, a wall between me and whoever lay in the darkness. The moon was still up, and the streets in my suburban neighborhood were sound asleep. I took one of my earbuds out and picked up my pace, something other than escape chasing me.

  The sound of my heaving breathing drowned out any other noises. I struggled to unlock my phone as I ran. If I needed it, I wanted it near. My lungs and brain were screaming. One wanted more air, and the other wanted to know why the sky suddenly looked empty of stars. If I could get out of the neighborhood and to the trail opening, it would clear. The land would open up to the dark lake, and I would know if anyone were following me.

  But I never got that far.

 
The moment I broached the trail opening two men stepped out of the path before it cleared. I had one second to gasp before a hand slammed down over my lips and another wrapped around my body. There was suddenly a cloth over my mouth. A steel grip squeezed around me so tightly I couldn’t pull in another breath. The empty sky cloaked the dark clothes of my attackers. I kicked against the man holding me, but the hand over my mouth pressed harder, forcing more and more of the foul scented odor that clung to the cloth into my lungs. My senses failed almost immediately. The fight in my muscles faded as fast as they had fought. I was able to catch one thing before my eyes closed. A crown tattoo on the neck of the man who didn’t have his hand over my mouth.

  I knew that symbol. Blood the color of rust dripped down the turrets of the golden crown. It was tagged on the brick walls of the building across my office. It was evil within power, and powerful because of that evil. Everything they were.

  Before I collapsed, I felt a tiny shred of guilt in the middle of my horror.

  In my current position, I admitted that was a stretch. To feel guilty for my own abduction. But that was the thing about later. It hardly cared for my position. Maybe I should have anticipated this. There were signs everywhere, but he hadn’t actually come out and said he was going to physically take me. He hadn’t given me a true reason to anticipate … this.

  But he had mentioned on more than one occasion that he didn’t want to leave my office. Or he wanted to see me outside of our sessions. And the last thing he said to me had been: “We will see each other again, Miss Hashawaye.” I had shrugged it off. I’d had no choice. He was always intense and internalized, wanting what he wasn’t supposed to, making more sense to himself than to anyone else. Most of my patients weren’t typical.

  And I could pretend this was someone else. Some other maniacal abductor, with the same ties to the crown symbol, but I hadn’t been tossed in a cement prison with dripping walls and mold.

  No, not at all. In fact, the sheets beneath me were the softest richest sheets I’d ever lain on. The walls were stained the color of weak tea. The floors were ancient hardwood, kept so pristine I could make out the rings from the wooden grains. The windows were sealed shut and covered with white ornate bars, and the door had no handle or lock on my side, but everything in my sight was grand, luxurious, a shiny new gold.

  I was tied to the bed. Though it tried, the luxurious room couldn’t make me forget that part. There was a terror inside of me I had never felt before, but my surroundings were playing tricks on me. How could I be afraid, when a Picasso painting hung from the wall? How could I feel on the edge of throwing up, when there was a bed of gold and white sheets beneath me? What was there to be afraid of, when I knew who had abducted me?

  Or at least suspected?

  Tears fell down the sides of my face. I tugged on my ropes, pulling them so hard my wrists screamed in pain. They were strung above my head, fastened to the silver bedframe. My ankles were as well, bound below my spandex running pants. I was spread apart on this bed like an offering. Thankfully, I was still fully clothed. My workout clothes were the only protection I had from my skin touching my prison.

  I awoke some time ago to find myself stuck in a beautiful nightmare. An illusion on my brain. A lie to my fear.

  I thrashed on my fine sheets, trying with all my might to pull free. Because I knew who locked me in this place.

  Of course I knew.

  After all, I’d been his therapist for the past year.

  I’d seen inside this man’s head. Knew his darkness and his light. I could pick out his deviances and desires with a finesse that would scare most.

  I knew who Dash McKing was. I should’ve seen this coming.

  But I hadn’t. Insanity was derived from unsure moments and gross imbalances, and predicting the movements of the ill were far easier than predicting the actions of the stable.

  Because if I had, if I had seen Dash coming, this nightmare wouldn’t have been so beautiful.

  So gold, so rich, so full of shit.

  2.

  My Name A Memory

  I twisted within the sheets.

  I tried to move my body high enough to get leverage. Once I had it, then maybe I could free my wrists from their bindings.

  With the way I was sprawled, I had to wonder if my position was intentional. My arms were spread too far. If I pushed with my ass my legs and feet only slipped in the sheets. My shoulders were in so much pain it was traveling over my neck, making an ache throb in my spine. But I was insistent, ignoring my pain, wanting free of this bed, these walls, of the gold and lies.

  Frustrated tears filled my eyes yet again.

  With a defeated sigh, I collapsed, giving my body a rest.

  My joints relaxed gratefully. I had an overwhelming desire for Denny. My boyfriend of four years, the only man in my life I’d ever been able to trust. He’d save me, like he did before. He’d fix this. I wondered if he knew I was gone. The thought made my heart plummeted.

  Did Denny know I was taken? I hadn’t come back after my run to shower, but he was usually out for work by the time I did make it back home. I always stopped at Starbucks to grab a coffee and a banana raisin muffin if I didn’t have time to at home, and was in my office by eight A.M. exactly. It was Friday, so Jorge was my first session. A kleptomaniac who suffered from compulsive lying and engaged in unprotected sex while his wife pretended his lies were truths wrapped in bows.

  It had to be after eight by now. Maybe even tonight or tomorrow. Having no perception of time made it hard to concentrate. My assistant, Frida, had to alert my absence. I hadn’t missed a day of work since I got the keys to my practice four years ago. That would cause alarm. Denny would call my cell. Which was—I looked around the room for my phone and earphones. There was nothing. In fact, my feet were shoeless. In my panic and confusion, as I attempted to understand why I was chained to a bed, why my abductors had MK Gang symbols on their clothes, I hadn’t noticed my shoes were off. My socks too. My feet were bare. Preventing me from gaining purchase on the sheets.

  My breathing deepened at that realization. It shouldn’t be overtly terrifying. It was just bare feet in a room. But I had been drugged and imprisoned, and it was just one more little thing he had thought of. Things that were thought of had to be planned, known, watched … wanted enough to study.

  My panic deepened. Denny would worry. He wouldn’t know what to do. He’d call the cops. They’d retrace my steps. And the upturned mud, the signs of a struggle. They’d know I was taken. 48 hours would commence. And then what? They’d check my schedule, search for my clients. I racked my brain, trying to figure out when I was scheduled to meet with Dash again. He usually made his appointments the night before, paying premium for an unplanned visit.

  But when your father is Raynard McKing, you can do what you please. A boss of the MK Gang, a notorious terrifying, sometimes mythical gang, that ran the underground of Chicago, and those above ground as well. Dash had access to the things most people never even knew existed. But unfortunately for Dash, he wasn’t like everyone else. He was, how he put it: “inwardly scrambled.” A vague term for his bipolar personality disorder. Everything that went along with his BPD was a “vague term.” He refused to acknowledge that his illness was severe.

  But I was tied to a bed, and I could smell his illness all over it.

  There were no appointments in my schedule book. We hadn’t met since last month, and those schedule books were locked in my safe, where all of my patient information went. Even Denny didn’t have access to it. No one would know Dash was a patient, unless they figured out my code. If it even got that far. I may simply become one more missing person. Denny would move on. I would become a lost woman.

  I struggled against my bindings harder, pulling, yanking, ignoring the pain overtaking me. I began to scream. Screamed so loud and for so long my throat felt like it was splitting. Denny was the only person I had. If he moved on I would be forgotten.

  My mind began to play
through scenarios. My rotting body, my picture on the news. Or worse, my rotting body, my picture not on the news. My story being ignored. My name a memory.

  Kinley Hashawaye was barely important as it was. Who would remember her when there was nothing there to kick up the dust?

  “Let me go!”

  My screams were pitiful, swallowed by the cavernous room. It was so damn big this room alone was larger than my entire house. Everything was plush and warm, a lie within this damage. I sobbed on my back, trying to calm down—I needed to think—but my mind was turning over on itself.

  What if Dash didn’t orchestrate this?

  What if this was someone else and they were far from done with me?

  Was this payback? Was I being punished for finding the darkness in this world interesting? Or was this retribution for creating a bit of my own?

  “I’m sorry!” I thrashed violently.

  I gave up on my arms, and in turn tried to free my ankles. I yanked, pulled, tried to slip my feet through the rope, but they were fastened so tightly blood was smearing from my wounds. My brain was fogging. How long had I been awake?

  “Let me go! Let me go! Let me go! Let me go!”

  I screamed until my throat no longer worked. Salty trails dried on my face. Slobber and drool coated my chin. Somewhere during my struggle, I wet myself. The smell of urine permeated the room. My breaths were too fast, too heavy, not enough for my lungs. My eyes drifted shut, and though I fought them for what felt like even more hours, they won out, fading into a nightmare that wasn’t so real.

  3.

  None Of This Was Real