Savage by Caitlyn Dare
Wes
"Well, well, well, look what the cat dragged in," Evan drawls as he watches Sadie with Kellan, a guy who graduated from SFH last year. "Can't believe he'd stoop so low as to dip his end in that piece of trash."
"Just leave it," I growl, really not interested in getting my ass beat twice in one day if her new bodyguards decide to turn up here tonight.
Evan turns his dark eyes on me, although his fierceness lacks a little something with the purple bruising and swelling around them. He might think he looks badass after having two rounds with the scum of Savage Falls, but to everyone else, he just looks a bit pathetic. It wasn't missed by any of the team—or at least, certainly not by me—that not only did he stand zero chance against them, he also never really tried. Mind you, the cheerleaders who have continued to be all over him like a rash don't seem to care that he couldn't even protect himself, let alone them.
"I'm not fucking scared of them," he snaps, as if that's what I'm trying to get at. Mostly, I just want a chilled night without any drama. Our day has already been too full of it.
"Whatever, man. Here." I pass him one of the beers Beckworth is handing out from the cooler in the trunk of his car in the hope it'll distract him from his vendetta against Sadie.
He knocks the top off, but his eyes never leave Sadie as she joins Quinn and the new girl over by the start line.
"Who knew baby Savage would turn out that hot," Evan mutters.
"Have you got a fucking death wish?" I mutter, already fed up with his bullshit.
I have no idea what game he's playing, or who he's trying to beat or impress, but it's bullshit.
"Hundred bucks on her being a virgin."
"Fucking hell, man," Beckworth barks, his eyes also finding River. "There's no fucking question. The bet should be who can pop her cherry first."
"Hell, yes, Beckworth, my man," Evan barks, fist-bumping our linebacker before falling into a debate about the details of the impending bet.
"You're in, right, Noble?" Evan asks a few minutes later.
"Fuck no. I’m not going near a club whore."
"She's not just any club whore though, man. The only one better to tap would be Sadie."
Without instruction from my brain, my eyes lift, and I find the girl in question. She's wearing a short-as-fuck leather skirt with her standard fishnets and biker boots, and she's paired it with a cropped top that looks more like a piece of underwear than an actual shirt. Her hair is all piled on top of her head in a mess that I'm sure took way longer to achieve than it looks like. Her make-up is even heavier than it is at school, making her look even more dangerous than I'm sure she is. No daughter of the notorious Ray Dalton is going to be all sweet and innocent like River Savage seems to be.
I know River hasn’t grown up in Savage Falls, but how she's at the polar opposite end of the spectrum when it comes to Sadie and Rhett, fuck only knows. She looks like an innocent little angel compared to Sadie and Quinn, even with the obvious makeover.
It's really no surprise that Evan's immediate reaction is to turn her into a bet. I really should have seen it coming.
"Come on then, let's go and welcome our new girl. I didn't get a chance to properly talk to her at school today," Evan announces, instantly taking off in the direction of Sadie and River.
He may not have answered my question earlier, but it seems the motherfucker really does have a death wish.
Our approach doesn't go unnoticed. Quinn spots us first and elbows Sadie in the ribs, whose expression immediately changes into one of undiluted anger as she watches us descend.
It's no secret that there's no love lost between the club whores and the football team. Hell, most of us have grown up listening to our parents complain about the criminals from the compound. But prior to Sadie and Quinn's arrival at SFH, they mostly stayed on their side of town, all their kids attending County High.
Ray Dalton decided to change the rules when he enrolled his princess into our territory. There was even a petition to keep them out of Savage Falls High for fear that they were going to corrupt our sweet and innocent little minds. I'm embarrassed to admit that my own father was the one who instigated the whole thing. And, thanks to that, he put me right in the firing line when it went unnoticed, and she started that next school year.
Both Sadie and Quinn take a step forward before we get too close to River. A smirk curls at my lips. She really must be innocent if they don't even want us talking to her.
"What do you what?" Sadie snaps before Evan gets a chance to say anything. Her hands land on her hips and her brows shoot up as she waits for a response.
"Calm down, Sadie Ray," Evan purrs in a voice that makes even my skin crawl, let alone a girl's. "We just came over to officially welcome River to SFH."
"Well, consider her officially welcomed and fuck back off to whatever hole you crawled out of."
"Sades, baby. It's not even like that."
"Fuck off, Evan. I know exactly what it's like, and if you want to add a few more bruises to those already marring your ugly-ass face, then please, feel free to continue," she sasses.
"Damn, girl. Your wicked mouth gets me all kinds of hard." He takes a step closer to her and her lips twist in disgust.
"Great, why don't you get it out," she says, reaching behind her, "so I can cut it off?" Evan moves faster than I think I've ever seen when she pulls a knife on him.
"And to think, I came over here to be nice."
"You're never nice," Sadie seethes as Kellan comes up behind her and wraps his hand around her forearm.
"Stand down, Sades. You don't want this prick’s blood on your knife.'"
She lowers her arm, much to Evan's amusement.
"That's it, club whore. Be a good girl and do as you're told."
Kellan has to physically restrain Sadie with his arms around her middle as Evan says this.
"Put me the fuck down," she demands, kicking him in the shins with her boots. "This has been a long time coming. Let me sink this into his stomach."
Spinning her away from us, Kellan says something in her ear and finally releases her before handing her a blunt and lighting it. When he turns back to us, his jaw is set and his fists are curled.
"I'd take you on myself, but you don't exactly look like you could handle it right now," he sneers. "So how about I beat your ass in another way?"
"Name it, asshole," Evan barks, not one to ever refuse a challenge.
"First race of the night, me and you. Winner gets his choice of girl. Loser… Sadie gets to choose the fate of the loser."
Glancing over his shoulder, I take note of his car. Kellan has a rep around Savage Falls, and it's not for being a slow-ass motherfucker around the track. He's claimed the checkered flag here more times than anyone else, and I can count on one hand the number of times he's not won whatever was on offer.
Evan, on the other hand…
"You're on, asshole."
"Great. Get ready to lose." Kellan takes a step away, ready to line up, but he stops when Evan speaks again.
"On one condition." A slow smirk spreads across his face.
"I'm listening."
"New girl's riding shotgun with me."
"Oh, hell no," Quinn snaps, but surprisingly Sadie doesn't seem quite so concerned about it.
"He'll be too busy trying to figure out which pedal to press to do anything," Kellan tells Quinn.
"You're on," Sadie says, a wicked glint in her eye.
I watch her, trying to figure out what kind of game she's playing here. There's no way she'd willingly put River into a car with Evan.
"Sadie," Quinn hisses.
"What? It'll be fun, right, Riv?" We all glance at River, who's lost the color in her face as she stares back at Sadie. "I'll ride with Kellan."
"I…umm…"
"Hell yeah. It'll be great, baby," Evan barks, a little too confident for my liking.
In the distance, someone blows an air horn to signal the first race of the night, and people immediately start moving up the embankment to get a better view.
"Right then, Quarterback. Give me all you got," Kellan says, throwing his arm around Sadie's shoulder and leading her toward his car while whispering in her ear.
"River," Evan announces, walking over to her while she cowers like a little mouse.
"Take me instead," Quinn offers.
"I don't want no club whore dirtying up my leather seats." Evan looks her up and down like she's nothing more than dirt on the bottom of his pristine sneaker.
"This is River's first time here. She'd be better watching and seeing what happens."
"Nah, diving straight in at the deep end is always the best way to go. What do you think, River, baby?" He wraps his arm around her waist, and she startles. Something tells me that it's the most contact she's ever had from a guy, from the way her cheeks burn red.
"I… uh…" She looks at me. The fear is clear in her eyes, but there's fuck all I can do about it. Evan is a law unto himself. If he's got his sights set on this, then it's happening.
In only minutes, both Evan's and Kellan's cars are at the start line, engines revving, making any conversation for the rest of us almost impossible.
"Is he serious with this shit? He has to know he's going to lose against Kellan, right?"
"It's your fault," I shout back at Jamie. "If you didn't take that bet, then…"
He holds his hands up. "I made a bet to break her in, not to fucking kill her."
Jesus fucking Christ. I scrub my hand down my face as I wait for the disaster that's sure to happen any second.
The moment the flag drops, Kellan floors the gas and is gone before Evan even realizes it's happened.
"If he survives this, he's not going to survive Sadie."
"I can't believe she pulled a fucking knife on him. That bitch is even crazier than I thought."
"She's Ray Dalton's daughter. I'm more surprised she didn't just sink it into his balls."
He winces at my words, his hands dropping to cup his junk. "Any motherfucker who lets that crazy ho anywhere near his dick has to be a fucking idiot."
"Oh, come off it,” I snort. “As if you wouldn't."
"The club whore? Nah, man. I wouldn't go there even if you paid me. I don't believe for a second you would either. We all know that if she let you out alive, your old man would cut your balls off for going near the town's trash."
"Yeah," I mutter, because don't I fucking know it.
My father might have plenty of enemies in this town, but there's no one he hates as much as Ray Dalton and his Sinners.
The screams and shouts get louder, and we all wait, expecting Kellan to fly around the final corner. But, much to everyone's surprise, both his and Evan's cars are side by side.
"How the fuck did he pull that off?"
I bark a laugh. "Kellan probably pulled over to give him a fucking chance. Can't be any fun winning when there's zero competition."
It might have looked close at first, but as Kellan flies over the line, it's clear that even though Evan had somehow managed to make up some time, there was never any question as to who was about to take that win.
"Now, the real question is… what's Sadie going to do to the loser?"
Along with all the others, we make our way over to where the two cars have now pulled to a stop, ready to congratulate the winner while witnessing the mortification of what the loser gets to endure.
Make it fucking good, Sadie Ray. Evan might be my friend and captain, but fuck if he doesn't deserve this.
