Savage Heir by Jagger Cole

10

The doorto the cottage slams shut behind me. I tremble, panting as I lean against it. Once again, I’ve just run like a crazy girl from Ilya’s manor with the feeling that a wild animal is almost literally nipping at my heels.

My eyes close. My heart thuds as I remember the soft heat of his lips brushing my ear. His breath on my neck. His grip on me, making my pulse roar and my skin tingle.

A wild animal was almost nipping at me.

“Hey!”

I scream, almost jumping out of my skin as Charlotte walks around the corner.

“Whoa!” She gasps, jumping back herself at my outburst. She looks at me curiously. “Are you okay?”

I nod. I’m too out of breath to talk. Or maybe it’s that I don’t trust the words that will come out if I try to.

Charlotte is still looking at me curiously. Her eyes lower, and she frowns.

“Uh, what happened to your shoes?”

I look down and groan at my stocking-clad feet, stained brown, black, and green from my escape across campus. Shit.

My brow wrinkles as I shake my head. “I—they, uh…”

“Where were you?”

I close my eyes and take a deep breath before I look up at her.

“Ilya Volkov’s house.”

“Sit.”

In a daze, I’ve let Charlotte pull me into the kitchen and sit me at the table. She rattles around by the stove, putting water on for tea. I usually joke with her about me being a strictly coffee girl. But tea sounds oddly comforting right now.

I close my eyes, sucking in a breath of air. When I open them, Charlotte is leaning against the kitchen counter, looking at me with a frown. I start to laugh.

“I’m sorry, what exactly is funny about—”

“Nice hat.”

Her hand flies up to touch the wire-thin silver and diamond crown perched on top of her dark locks. Her face goes crimson as she quickly yanks it off.

“Forgot it was there,” she mumbles.

“Was her majesty practicing her royal wave while I was—”

Charlotte throws a dishtowel at me, immediately brightening my mood even more.

“No. I was on a Zoom call with Gemma,” she mutters.

Gemma is Charlotte’s “Royal Educational Liaison.” Basically, her job is to teach Char how to actually be a princess.

“Hey, dress for the job you want—”

“Okay, I have to wear the stupid crown during our lessons, remember?” She grumbles.

I grin. “Just teasing.”

“Yeah? And how’s that glass house, miss no-shoes?”

My face reddens.

Charlotte shakes her head. “Tenley, why on earth would you go back to Ilya—”

I’m saved by the whistling of the kettle. Char eyes me like the water boiling is diversion of my own making. She turns to take it off the heat and pour it into the two waiting teacups. Then she brings them over to the table to sit across from me.

“Nice saucers, Princ—”

“Uh-uh,” she shakes her head. “No more deflecting. Tenley, why the hell were you at Ilya’s place?! I thought you got out of that stupid tutoring thing with him?”

I groan and slump my head into my hands. Yeah, I haven’t actually found a way to tell her about that yet.

“There’s some, uh… issues, with me getting out of the tutoring thing.”

I tell Charlotte about the bylines in the student handbook, and the rules surrounding the tutoring program. Her jaw drops in outrage when I mention the wolf necklace around Claudette’s neck.

“He can’t do that!”

I roll my eyes. “Okay, I’m new here, and even I can tell you ‘of course he can.’” I scowl. “They can do anything.”

“The Dark Princes,” she mumbles quietly. Ilya, Misha, and Lukas.

I nod.

“It’s completely ridiculous that he can do that!”

“No arguments here,” I grumble.

“Tenley, you know I hate invoking this, but my step-dad is an actual King. Your dad is going to be the fucking Vice President.” She frowns. “Surely we can stop this nonsense with Ilya keeping you hostage like this.”

I smile thinly. “And yet, here we are.”

We both know it’s useless. This isn’t the son of some pretentious billionaire. This is the heir apparent to one of the most brutal, notorious crime families on the planet. It’s not that the King of Luxlordia or the damn United States Secretary of State couldn’t go toe-to-toe with Yuri Volkov. It’s more like why on earth would they over what is essentially a stupid school squabble.

This isn’t an international incident. This is schoolyard bullying.

“What about another student? Can’t you just switch?”

I groan. “Technically, yes, but it’s this big process before a committee. And both tutor and student have to be in agreement that they aren’t the right fit. But it doesn’t matter,” I say glumly. “There are no other students in the tutoring program.”

Charlotte’s mouth twists. “Want me to fail my next test and request you?”

I grin. “Tempting, and you’re the best for even suggesting it. But no. I’d never ask anyone to tank their grades for me. Besides, Ilya would still have to agree that we aren’t the right fit.”

“What a sadistic pyscho.”

I scowl. But inside, my core is churning and clenching. My hands grip the teacup tightly, so they won’t shake.

My pulse has never really stopped thumping since I ran from him.

“Wait so why the hell aren’t you wearing shoes again?”

I tense, hesitating. I don’t want to tell Charlotte about Ilya’s house rules. And I don’t know which is worse, that those rules about losing an article of clothing for every ten minutes I’m late even exist at all? Or that I actually followed them, even if it was just a shoe.

Either way, I know for sure I don’t want to tell Char about it.

“Oh, just a house rule, I guess. No shoes inside. And when I ran off—”

“Hang on,” she says tensely, looking serious. “You ran off?” Her face darkens. “What the hell did that sadistic prick do to you!”

I blush, but I shake my head quickly. “No, nothing like that.”

Like having me drink with him. Like wading into extremely personal questions. Like pinning me to the wall and brushing those infuriatingly perfect lips against my ear.

Like making me… excited, in the worse, worst way.

I shrug casually. “Just Ilya being the asshole he typically is.”

“More like an idiot. Getting on academic probation at this place is dumb enough. You’d have to be a moron to be a dick to your tutor on top of that. That’s like setting your life-raft on fire.”

My brow knits. “He’s not, actually.”

“Not what?”

“An idiot.”

She shrugs. “Okay, I’ll grant that wasn’t fair. But still, academic probation at a place like Oxford Hills? I mean, I’d hate to sound like the rest of the elitist little pricks here, but… maybe Russian mob money isn’t enough to get someone through four years of this place, know what I mean?”

I shake my head. “Yeah, but that’s the thing, he’s really smart.”

“Sociopaths are conniving, not necessarily intelligent.”

“No, but…” I frown. “For all that ‘bad boy’ reputation of his, he’s actually an incredible student. I mean seriously gifted.”

Char’s face scrunches up. “You’re joking.”

“I caught a peek at his file at the student services office. He seriously is.” I frown. “How the hell do you end up on probation when you’re like the top of the class?”

Charlotte shrugs. “He and those other assholes do party pretty hard.”

I think of the first time I went to Lordship Manor, and the utter debauchery and craziness I saw. My mind flashes back to Ilya—shirtless and drink in hand, joint hanging off his lips as those piercing green eyes peeled away every single layer of my…

I blush and quickly lock that up.

“Yeah, seriously.”

“You haven’t seen the half of it,” she mutters. “They were out of control last term. I mean it was like having the Rolling Stones living across campus. Drugs, booze, loud music, groupies and all.”

My gut clenches at the mention of groupies. I think again to the tall, gorgeous blonde with her tits half hanging out who answered the door that first day.

Just remember, you had the chance to run, and didn’t.

I swallow thickly. But then I go right back to wanting to slap myself for getting… what, jealous? About Ilya?

Gross. No.

“Yeah, this second year almost died at one of their parties last year. Like severe alcohol poisoning.”

I’m frowning into my tea when there’s a knock at the door.

“If that’s him,” Char grunts. “I don’t care who his scary uncle is, I’m stabbing him.”

I giggle as she storms out of the kitchen. I know I don’t have to be worried about her actually murdering Ilya Volkov on our front stoop. Because I know it’s not him out there.

There’s no way Ilya would bother knocking. He’d just walk in.

I hear Charlotte open the door, and then a muffled, quiet conversation. She walks back in with a roll of her eyes.

“You have a… messenger here to see you?”

I’m confused what she means until Lain trots in, looking sheepish. I groan.

“Apologies, Miss Chambers, but Mr. North—”

“Lain,” I sigh. “He’s eighteen years old, and you’re not on a payroll. You can just call him Patrick.”

Lain frowns. “He, uh, he wanted to request your presence for dinner.”

Fuck. For the second time today, I’m late for something. This time, it’s dinner with Patrick and his snooty friends. I blush. Something tells me, being late for Patrick wouldn’t come with the same “house rules” as being late for Ilya. But then I realize I’m comparing and contrasting the two of them, and my brain is going to short-circuit if I do that.

I frown at the floor. The idea of having dinner with Patrick, after what happened at Ilya’s, sounds…daunting. But then I want to slap myself again. “After what happened?” Really? Nothing happened. I had a drink—and yeah, maybe it was basically my first aside from a half glass of wine at the inauguration dinner at the freaking White House, where my dad was with me.

I had one drink, and Ilya asked me some prying questions. So what?

My face heats. So what if he pinned me to the wall and I genuinely thought he was going to kiss me, or devour me. So what if his lips brushed my ear, and my body reacted like a goddamn traitor?

But I could come up with as many “so whats” as I possibly can. It still doesn’t mean I want to sit down for dinner next to Captain America right now.

“You know what, Lain?” I smile weakly. “Can you please tell Patrick that I’m feeling a little exhausted from my first day? I’m just going to go to bed early.”

“Of course, Miss Chambers.”

Lain bows—like for real bows—and then turns to scurry away.

“I want one,” Charlotte sighs when he’s gone. “I want a lackey.”

I giggle and trudge into the living room to slump onto the sofa. Char follows and slumps down next to me.

“So, you want to tell me why you really don’t want to eat with Patrick?”

Not at all. Not for all the tea in China would I tell even Charlotte that it’s because I can’t get the feeling of Ilya’s lips against my ear out of my memory. That I can’t stop tingling where his hands touched my wrists, or that my heart is still racing, like he still might break down our door and finish what he started.

Whatever that is.

I shrug. “It’s just that whole crew of Patrick’s.”

“What, you don’t want to talk trust funds with Ainsley Hendershire?”

I groan. “She’s the worst.”

“We need a name for them all, like ‘The Brat Pack’.”

I giggle. “Rich Bitches?”

Slowly, she turns to grin at me. “The Snob Mob.”

We’re both howling with laughter for at least another minute before Charlotte wipes the tears from her eyes.

“Well, if you’re not eating out, we could just order in and watch Netflix all night.”

One more absolutely fantastic thing about snooty, rich, elite schools like Oxford? You can literally have dinner delivered to your cottage. Which is exactly what we do.

It’s amazingwhat fish and chips, binge-watching The Good Wife, and the presence of your best friend at school can do for your mood. Two hours later, I’m fed, happy, and whole-heartedly agreeing with Charlotte that Chris Noth is way hotter than Josh Charles. But that Matt Czuchry is obviously the hottest guy on the show.

We clean up and say goodnight before heading to our rooms. I take a long, hot shower, brush my teeth, slip into PJs, and crawl into bed with every intention of forgetting this day entirely.

But the minute I close my eyes, he’s there. And when I try and slow my still-racing heart, I know it’s not going to happen.

All I can think about is those lips brushing my ear. All I can feel is his grip still on me. My mind replays the growly, bossy tone of his voice. His demands. His arrogance. The psychotic way he’s toying with me and keeping me chained to him for… what? For fun?

But the problem is, all those thoughts and swirling emotions blend deep inside of me. They sizzle and throb in my core, making my chest rise and fall. My skin tingles and prickles. My thoughts darken. My legs squeeze together.

I bite my lip to stifle the moan.

My nipples harden and pucker to pink points as my hands slide over my midriff. I push one hand under my t-shirt. My eyes squeeze shut as my hand cups my left breast, fingers brushing the nipple as I gasp quietly.

My other hand pushes lower, down over my bellybutton, and then deeper. Fingers slip under the waist of my sleep shorts, and then under the lace edge of my panties.

This is wrong. This is fucking sadistic and twisted. Ilya’s snarling, bossy tone, and his demands, and his psycho sneering smile shouldn’t get me like this.

But they all do.

My fingers slip through my wetness, and I moan. I drag the pad of a finger through my seam, pulling the sticky slickness up to circle my clit. I squirm, rolling my hips as I pinch a nipple and rub my clit in circles.

I see Russian tattoo ink and rippling muscles. I see piercing green eyes and the flash of white teeth. I feel the power of his grip on me again. But this time, he doesn’t stop. As the fantasy unfolds, Ilya pins me to the wall beside the door to his manor and shreds my clothes off.

It’s his hand between my legs right now. It’s his finger rubbing my clit. It’s his mouth twisting my nipple until I gasp.

My fingers plunge inside. My hips push up, grinding my clit into my palm. I roll over, burying my face and the moans that fall from my mouth into the pillow. My body coils and clenches. My fingers rub and stroke, until suddenly, I’m coming.

I’m coming while fantasizing about Ilya fucking Volkov, The Wolf of Oxford Hills.

When I’m done—when it’s over—I take a second shower. My face is haggard. My brain is short-circuiting, trying to rationalize what I’ve just done.

By the time I’m back in bed, though, my mind is made up.

This has to stop. One way or another, consequences be damned, this shit with Ilya is done. It has to be, before I lose my fucking mind. Unless it’s already too late.

But one way or another… I am through playing games with The Wolf.