Savage Heir by Jagger Cole
3
It’s even darkerwhen I get home that it was when I left. It’s not even like it’s grown that much later in the day. I’ve been gone for twenty minutes, tops.
But still, the rain pelts harder. The sky is a darker shade of gray. The storm rumbles overhead, like furious gods stomping their feet in anger.
Like The Wolf, pounding at the door.
I lean back against the front door when it’s shut behind me. But it’s more like I’m gripping it tight, as if I might need to add to its strength to make sure he doesn’t barge in behind me. Water pools at my feet, drip-dripping in the stillness of the cottage.
My heart pounds. It thuds like war drums, chasing me. Like the beast himself is hot on my heels, ready to strike. I squeeze my eyes shut. My arms extend until my fingers are gripping the edges of the doorframe. Again, like the force of nature that’s been nipping at my heels the whole way home might charge as hard as he can at the door to smash it in.
Run, little red. Before I eat you up.
Seconds tick by. Then minutes.
“Uh, are you okay?”
I almost scream at the sound of Charlotte’s voice breaking the stillness. My eyes fly open to see my roommate poking her head around the corner from the living room, giving me a strange look.
“Tenley?”
“Fine!” I blurt. I swallow thickly. “Fine. I’m fine. Fine.”
Charlotte’s mouth curls in amusement. “So, fine, then?”
“Perfectly.”
“You’re sure? I mean you only just said it four times in one sentence, so… just want to make sure—”
“I’m fine.”
I crunch up my face, realizing I’ve just said it a fifth time in under thirty seconds.
Charlotte keeps looking at me with amusement. But then her brow furrows slightly. “Wait, what happened?”
“Nothing!” I fumble out.
“You left like twenty minutes ago.” She frowns. “What happened with tutoring, and why are you soaking wet?”
The sarcastic answer would be “because it’s raining outside.” But the sarcasm has left me. Along with my wits, my clear thinking, and my breath.
Run, little red. Before I eat you up.
I tremble as I shrug off my sopping wet raincoat. Except I’m just as soaked underneath. I suddenly realize I just ran—sprinted—home with my hood down and the zipper undone about a third of the way down—probably wrenched there from Ilya grabbing the neck of it.
My body shivers, skin prickling with fear and another surge of adrenaline as the memory plays out again.
“I was running to get out of that rain, and I guess I just…” I shrug. My brain has shut off. I can’t even come up with decent bullshit right now.
Charlotte leans against the doorframe to the living room, sipping tea. “Well, the coat works better when the hood is up.”
I smirk. “Gee, thanks.”
“In case you forget to read the instruction manual.”
Her sarcasm that I can usually match tit-for-tat is calming me. So is her familiar, infectious and warming smile.
“You know, that must be it. I’m used to American rain jackets.”
“Ahh, yes, there’s the problem. You see our’s have hoods over here. Our books read left to right, and our soda has bubbles in it.”
“Bet your cars have wheels, too, don’t they?” I grin back.
She shrugs with a smirk on her face. “I can see how that might be confusing for a colonist like yourself.”
I giggle. “Calm down, your majesty.”
Charlotte rolls her eyes at my favorite teasing nickname for her. I exhale. My heart is beating at a normal pace. And my brain is doing a fantastic job of slowly pushing any memory of his cold, gorgeous, haunting face out of my—
“Wait so what happened with tutoring Ilya?”
I wince, like I’ve been slapped. Like he’s right back in front of me, snarling into my face as he grabs my coat by the neck.
“Oh, he…” I turn to hang my dripping coat on a hook. I swallow thickly as the tremor shivers through my body.
“He stood me up.”
Lies. Lies-lies-lies. He stood in front of me. He stood towering above me, snarling like the savage animal he is as he shook me to my very core.
I breath shakily and turn to Charlotte again. “Stood me up.”
She exhales with visible relief. “Thank God.”
I nod.
“Tenley, you really need to understand. Ilya Volkov is not someone you want to be around. For real. He’s a psychopath. There’s even rumors that he’s literally killed people before.”
I swallow. “He what?” I croak. My mind flashes back to the surge of fury in his face. The snarling lips and bright white teeth. The savagery.
“Yeah, for his uncle and the bratva.” She hugs herself as she sips her tea. “You need to get out of this tutoring thing. Or just go find someone else.”
I bite my lip. Despite the fact that it’s filled with snobby, entitled rich kids with silver spoons jammed up their butts, Oxford Hills does have extremely competitive entrance standards in terms of grades and competency. The kids here might be spoiled brats, but they’re really freaking smart spoiled brats.
It’s not like the place has students who need tutoring lining up out the door.
Changing to someone else would be one thing. But quitting the tutoring program would look really bad on my record. I’ve never quit anything, ever. And I will not let Ilya Volkov and his psycho growling intimidation shit make me start now.
But Char is right. There’s no way I’m tutoring that asshole.
“I’ll go to the student services offices tomorrow and get it changed.”
She breathes again with relief. “Good, that’s smart.” She shivers. “I am so glad he stood you up.”
I smile weakly.
“Oh! Since you’re back early. One of Patrick’s lackeys came by.”
I roll my eyes. Patrick, my “boyfriend” for media and image purposes, has what he likes to frequently describe as his “brand” on campus. It’s not all posturing and bravado. I mean his father is most likely going to be the President of the Unites States. And for all the eye rolls I throw his way, Patrick is every bit as driven by A Plan as I am.
But to that end, when he’s at school, he has “interns”—underclassmen who do his bidding and run his errands. They even compete to get this thankless, non-paying job. It’s a little ridiculous. But then, Patrick is the golden boy of Oxford Hills.
The guy walks around like he’s JFK. He’s the head of a dozen student organizations. He runs three charities. He even gets special privileges to leave our closed campus in order to go volunteer at a soup kitchen and women’s shelter in Manchester.
If there were babies in the hallways of Oxford Hills Academy, Patrick North would be kissing them.
“Which lackey, exactly?”
“Oh, the small, frightened, subservient one?”
I smirk. Charlotte grins.
“Doesn’t narrow it down much, does it? Ian? Lain?” She nods. “That was it. Lain. The ginger-haired boy with the glasses?”
“Aww, I like Lain.” Hey, we gingers have to stick together. “And what was the message?”
Patrick seriously uses his interns to run messages back and forth across campus. As if text messaging isn’t a thing. Patrick says spoken words delivered in person carry more weight. I mean, he’s not wrong, it’s just… well, it’s a little elite to have lackeys deliver messages for you, as if you’re a king.
“Dinner invitation.”
I roll my eyes. Seriously. It’s a text message that would have taken half a second to tap out. And yet, poor little Lain had to run through the thunderstorm outside to deliver it aurally.
“For when, exactly?”
Charlotte glances past me at the clock on the wall. “Ten minutes?”
I groan. “Okay, I’m going to go change and then take off.”
I kick my boots off and start to walk up the stairs, leaving a trail of water dripping in my wake.
“Don’t be late! You know how Mr. North feels about tardiness!” Charlotte calls after me in a sing-song sarcastic voice.
“Send his highness a carrier pigeon letting him know I’ll be there when I can,” I snicker back.
“Lackeys!” She yells as I step into my room. “We need lackeys!”
I smile as I close the door. But the second it’s shut, I find myself doing the same thing I did when I came through the one downstairs. I lean back into it, gripping the doorframe as if Ilya is seconds away from kicking it down.
To eat me up.
I shiver.
It turns out I was wrong. Supreme Court Justice and Time Magazine Person of the Year Tenley Chambers is very, very much afraid of the Big Bad Wolf.
