Savage Heir by Jagger Cole

18

“OHA!! OHA!!”

The small cottage is packed with students chanting it over and over again. Someone knocks into me, almost spilling the beer in my hand down my shirt. The guy looks back, and when he realizes who I am, his face pales.

“Shit, bruv, I—”

I ignore him and push my way through the crowd towards the back door. My lip curls as I glance around the pathetically small cottage.

Christ, how do the rest of these people live in these things?

The crowd parts for me as I shoulder my way out into the backyard. At least I can breathe air out here. My brow furrows as I glance around at the shenanigans happening around me.

Apparently, OHA won its first home match against who the fuck cares. Misha is the sports guy. I like to work out, but—shocker—I’m not one for team activities.

The party has spilled out into the backyard garden that this quad of cottages—all housing most of the star players on the football team—share. I drain the beer in my hand and push my way through the crowd towards the cluster of kegs.

“Ilya!”

I turn and roll my eyes. Misha is draped across some wicker furniture surrounded by girls vying for a place on his lap and guys vying to… fuck if I know. Be near him, I guess? The motherfucker is completely in his element though—shirtless, drink in hand, and sprawled back looking like a Roman Emperor or the Greek god of wine.

“Come,” he bellows, beckoning like he’s seriously channeling his inner heathen god. As I get closer, I realize the cup in his hand is actually the trophy from the match. That Misha, who is not even on the football team, is drinking beer out of.

I frown down at him, over the groupies draped all over him.

“Enjoying yourself?”

“I am,” he grins. “And you are not, I assume? Sulking as usual?”

“Aww, do you need cheering up?” A brunette I don’t recognize stands and smiles coyly at me. Seeing as how she was on the outer fringes of Misha’s harem pile; I’m guessing she’s spotted me and decided gunning for me instead is an unexpected fast-track to popularity.

She’s wrong. Desperation stinks. And desperation for popularity is repulsive.

“Not from you.”

She looks wounded before she turns and dashes away. Misha just rolls his eyes as he shakes his head at me. “You are such a prick, man.”

I shrug. Tell me something I don’t know.

“Any idea where Lukas is?”

Misha sighs as he untangles himself from his pile of groupies. He gets up and walks over to drape an arm over my shoulder.

“No, but your girlfriend’s boyfriend is here.”

My eyes narrow. “My what?”

He smirks. “You know who the fuck I’m talking about. The redhead tutor. Tenley.” He eyes me. “And don’t try and tell me you’re unaware that she’s with Patrick North.”

“I truly don’t give a shit who she is or is not with.”

“Atta boy.”

My frown. “No, I mean I simply don’t care about any facet of her or her life.”

“Uh-huh,” he drones, sounding bored. “Well, good luck with that.”

He nods past me. I follow his gaze and scowl when my eyes land on Patrick North. The blond-haired little prince is standing by the kegs now, talking animatedly with this guy Yoon from the football team, and some girl I think might be a sausage heiress or something to do with food. Ainsley, I think.

Like I said, people like Misha, Lukas, and I are polarizing in this place. Most people want us, want to be near us, or just want to be us. But the holdouts are twats like these: the “elites.”

In a world where undesirables like we three managed to get into a place like Oxford Hills, Patrick, Ainsley, Carl, and the rest of them would reign supreme as the royalty of this school. They still are, it’s just that they have to share that popularity limelight with us. And they hate it.

“Can’t believe they’re actually going to get married.”

My jaw ticks as I whirl back on Misha.

“What?” I snap coldly.

He nods back at Patrick. “Fuck-face and the redhead. Tenley.”

“They’re a media couple. It’s not real.”

“Yeah, I’m well aware of how that works,” he rolls his eyes. “Remember last year when my dad made me take the daughter of that minister he was trying to woo out to her formal school dance? It’s all fake for the cameras and the gossip blogs.” He shrugs. “I mean, I still hit that. But yeah, totally fake.”

I roll my eyes. “In any case, Tenley and Patrick are not—”

“Here.”

Misha shoves his phone in my face. On the screen, a clip from an American news channel is rolling. A blonde haired woman with a microphone is talking to Patrick and Tenley, sitting side by side, holding hands at the match earlier.

“I want the world to know that I’m in love with this girl!”

My jaw grinds at the triumphant smile on Patrick’s face when he yells it. The clip pans away to the same woman giving a play-by-play from a studio chair. Then it’s back to another clip of Patrick and Tenley. This time, it seems later, after the game.

“Not immediately, of course,” Patrick chuckles. His arm is around Tenley’s stiff shoulders. I have a sudden urge to snap it in two.

“I mean we’ll finish at Oxford Hills, obviously. But someday soon, absolutely.” He turns to beam at an unsmiling Tenley. “We’ve already discussed it, and it just makes sense. Like the joining of two great houses. And Senator and Misses Chambers has such a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?”

The blonde interviewer laughs. Patrick laughs. Tenley smiles thinly and weakly. My grip on Misha’s phone tightens so much I feel like it might crack.

“Just saying,” Misha shrugs, yanking his phone out of my iron grip. “If you were planning on making moves there…”

“What exactly are we planning?”

I grit my teeth at the sound of Patrick’s fucking voice. I turn to level my gaze at the blond-haired, blue-eyed little shit standing there smirking at me with a cup of beer in his hand.

“An orgy,” Misha grunts at him. “Sorry, Pat, we’d have sent you an invite, but your dick must be at least this big…” Misha holds up a hand with two fingers spread an inch apart. “In order to attend. You know how it is.”

Patrick sneers at him. “I’m afraid I don’t, since I’m not a criminal degenerate like you, Tsavakov.” He smiles thinly. “You know, word has it that my father is about to start putting men like your father, and your uncle,” he turns to me. “Out of business.”

I shrug, smiling thinly at him. “Is that so?”

“Oh, it is,” he snaps, getting close to me. Misha moves in, but Patrick seems to ignore him. He drops the hand holding his cup of beer to his side and stabs at my chest with his other hand.

“People like you don’t belong here, Volkov. And men like me and my father are going to—”

“Hey, Pat,” Misha is still standing almost right against Patrick as he clears his throat. “Thanks for the cold drink. My balls were getting a little heated.”

My eyes drop: Misha’s dick and balls are in Patrick’s beer cup.

“What the fuck!?” Patrick sputters, dropping the cup as he springs away. “Fucking degenerates!” he snarls.

Misha shrugs, shaking the beer off his dick and tucking it away. I just smile thinly at Patrick, eying him coldly as I pull out my case of pre-rolls and stick a joint between my lips. He glares at me.

“I don’t like you, Volkov.”

“I’ll try not to cry myself to sleep tonight, North.” I spark the end of the joint, puffing as smoke curls around my face.

Patrick’s lips curl. “And I don’t like you sniffing around Tenley. I know you two are done with that absurd tutoring thing—”

My brow arches. So Patrick thinks Tenley is no longer meeting with me. Color me curious.

“But if I catch any hint of you eying my girl, we’re going to throw down, Volkov. You get me? I’m not fucking scared of you, you little shit.”

Then you’re a bigger buffoon that I imagined you were.

I suck in a lungful of the sweet smoke and step closer to Patrick. The way he stiffens and grits his jaw, and the way his whole frame seems poised to sprint away screams pretty much the opposite of his blowhard comment about not being scared of me.

When I’m right in front of him, eye-to-eye, I exhale a stream of smoke into his face. Patrick hisses, sputtering as he steps back to fan his hand in front of his face.

“Dude! What the—”

“Don’t worry, North,” I growl. “I’ll tell them you didn’t inhale.”

He glares at me. “She’s mine, Volkov.”

I say nothing.

“I’m marrying that girl. So keep your fucking eyes to yourself. Understand me?”

“Oy! North!” Misha yells from behind me. “Get us another beer, would you? My balls are almost dry over here!”

I smile thinly at Patrick. His lips curl into a sneer. “Crossing me is a mistake, Volkov. I’m not scared of—”

I bark suddenly, like a dog. Patrick looks like he nearly shits his own pants as he jumps back, whirls, and disappears into the crowd.

It should amuse me. It doesn’t.

“She’s mine… I’m marrying that girl.”

“Think I’ll be getting that beer anytime soon?”

I smirk as I turn to Misha. “I wouldn’t hold my breath. Have mine. I’m out of here.”

He frowns. “C’mon, man.” He gestures around us. “This is our element, Ilya. You know you don’t always have to be the scowling prick with a chip on your shoulder.”

He’s right. I don’t have to “be” anything. But who I am is who I am. It’s not something I strive for. It’s not a switch that I have to keep in the right position. It’s just me; perpetual chip on the shoulder and all. Sometimes, Misha gets that. Other times, he doesn’t.

“I’m going home.” I clap him on the shoulder and nod. “Try not to have too much fun.”

I pass him my beer, turn, and wander out of the back garden. I meander in a non-linear path across campus back to Lordship Manor, confusion swirling around me.

I don’t do feelings. I don’t get hung up on a girl. And I don’t ever put one on a fucking pedestal. Not ever. The idea of love is silly—either you learn the truth about someone and realize you hate them, or else life will find some way to tear you apart.

Or a drunk driver will ram your car off the road, killing the both of you, slowly, in front of your five-year-old son trapped upside down in the backseat. My parents were perfect. They were the one in a million where it’s real. And look where that got them.

I light a second spliff off the cherry of the first as I move like a shadowed wraith across the dark Oxford Hills campus.

So why the fuck am I still thinking of Tenley Chambers at all? Why does hearing Patrick North blathering on about marrying her make me want to roar like a demon and break shit? Why does the thought of him with his arm around her, or kissing her, make me want to kill?

I glare at the dark footpath under my feet as I bluster through the night back home.

I need to channel my inner Misha. Or reclaim the old me, before whatever the hell fucked me up got to me. I need to dive into random sex with random girls and fuck the red hair and freckled nose out of my goddamn head.

I need to stop playing these games with her. I need to walk away. I need to surgically remove Tenley Chambers from my life—

I stop short with a frown. My muscles tense, and my eyes narrow.

Sitting on my front step, hugging her knees with the moon glinting off her red hair, is Tenley.