Savage Lessons: A Reverse Harem High School Bully Romance (Vicious Boys of Marter High Book 1) Read online

  “What?” I ask in disbelief.

  “Clean it.” He repeats in a deadly tone. It’s a command from a guy who’s never had someone disobey his commands before.

  I can’t believe what he’s asking me to do. I look around the room for support—but I don’t know why, because all I find are eager eyes hungry for blood and violence. Hungry for the snotty rich girl to finally get what she deserves.

  I’m about to tell him to fuck off, but the look in his eyes is pure dominant power. I realize that I’m in a hostile room that’s about to turn on me and this guy could make my life HELL if I don’t do what he says. For my own safety, I need to suck up my pride and do it.

  But I make a promise to myself that I’m going to get back at him—even if I have to wait until graduation to do it.

  I pick up the napkin I was carrying from the floor and slowly walk over to him.

  I can’t believe I’m doing this.

  My whole being is screaming at me to stop. This isn’t me. I’m not someone who bows down to other people.

  I grit my teeth as I kneel down. It’s taking all my strength not to knock him over and walk out—but I know if I do that I will get beaten up for sure. That group of girls will finally get their chance.

  I reach out and brush the napkin across the drops of liquid on the worn leather of his shoes. I can’t suppress the curl of my lip in disgust. The act itself isn’t disgusting, I’m disgusted more with myself than anything else. This is how low I’ve come that I’m literally kneeling in front of some asshole—some very hot asshole—and cleaning his boots. I’m pathetic.

  I finish quickly and stand up. I can’t look at him as I dash out of the cafeteria, but I can feel his eyes burning into me. That was one of the most humiliating experiences of my life and I’ll never forgive him for it. I hate him.

  3

  By the time I make it back to my foster home, I’m so drained from an awful day that I drag my feet up the rotten wooden steps like a ninety-year-old. They are cracked and creak violently under my feet, but they match the rest of the house. I’m happy that the day is over, but depressed to be home.

  My foster home reminds me of Marter High. It looks like it might have been a nice—modest, but nice—home once upon a time, but now it’s a dump. There are shingles missing from the roof and the front porch is sagging on one side. The lawn is overgrown and there are random car parts scattered around it. The sight of the house makes me even more miserable than I already am—and the inside isn’t any better.

  Olivia didn’t want to walk home with me because she had already made friends. She desperately waved me away when I started approaching her after school. She’d already changed her clothes from the expensive designer ones that she usually wore, to black and revealing ones. I have no idea where she got them.

  I wearily walk up the stairs to my room on the second floor. I keep my shoes on because I don’t want my feet touching the dirty carpets. At the top of the stairs is the washroom. I reach for the handle when suddenly the door opens and I jump back, startled. I didn’t realize anyone else was home.

  My jaw hits the floor. Out walks the hottest guy, completely naked. He’s toweling off his dyed silver-gray hair and I can clearly see the entire length of his muscular, tattooed body—including his very large cock.

  “Whoa!” I say before covering my eyes. “What the hell!?”

  He just laughs and it’s a dark rumble.

  “Like what you see?” he purrs.

  “No.” But I’m lying. “Cover up!”

  Behind me, I hear the door open and my sister calls out to me before starting up the stairs.

  “Olivia, wait! Don’t come up. There’s a naked jackass up here,” I say, but it’s too late. Olivia asks, “What?” in confusion, but she’s already up the stairs.

  “Whoa,” she mimics what I said earlier. Despite what I sometimes think, it’s obvious we are sisters.

  “Hey, Olivia,” the guy says.

  “Hey, Brax,” she says in a clearly flirty tone. Dammit.

  “You two know each other??”

  “Yeah, we met at school, Addison,” my sister says sarcastically. “I actually try to make friends at school. You should try it sometime too.”

  I just roll my eyes. It’s not a good sign that my sister already knows this loser. It’s going to be a full-time job keeping her out of trouble in this new town and I’m not looking forward to it.

  I look back at Brax and finally he’s wrapped a towel around his waist. I’m almost disappointed—I must be out of my mind. But now I can safely get a better look at him.

  I recognize him from school. I saw him with a couple other equally hot guys and they were hanging out with the douchebag who made me clean off his shoes. The company you keep is a direct reflection of you, so I know this guy is going to be trouble.

  He’s tall and lean with an explosion of tattoos covering his well-muscled arms, chest and legs. The only place clear of ink is his, admittedly, handsome face. He has angular features and intense eyes. His dyed hair is sticking up at weird angles from the shower.

  “Do you just break into people’s houses to take a shower?” I ask as I cross my arms.

  He laughs, and it’s a slightly raspy, rumbling sound. I can tell he’s someone who’s quick to laugh.

  “He lives here, Addison,” my sister says and I can hear the eye-roll in her words. “This is his mom’s place.”

  “Great,” I mumble.

  We only arrived here two days ago and the person who was here to greet us was Ms. Diane Decker, this guy’s mom. She seemed nice and friendly, but the second the social worker left she turned into her true self. Her smile turned into a frown. She pulled out a pack of cigarettes and made herself a drink.

  She told us we could do whatever we wanted, just not to damage the house—I couldn’t help but snort at that and she gave me a sharp look—or get her in trouble with the foster care system by missing school or getting into fights. She also said that if we got pregnant, we were out. She didn’t want to deal with any babies in the house. That was our welcome speech and then we were left alone.

  Brax hadn’t been home for the last two days, and after meeting his mom, I can’t say I’m surprised.

  I turn away from my new foster “brother” and my sister, and head down the dirty hallway to my room at the end. Behind me I can hear giggling and I turn back to see a practically naked Brax leaning over my sister, arm on the wall above her head. A mischievous smile is on his face and my sister is twirling her hair. Fuck.

  I enter my room with a deep sigh and slam the door harder than I mean to. Despite what most people assume about me, my life hasn’t been all privilege and decadence. I’ve had some very low moments, but standing in this bare room with a view out the window of the concrete slab where the house next door used to be before it burned down, my future ruined, my sister about to join a gang, and my parents having abandoned us—oh, and also my boyfriend just broke up with me a couple days ago—this is my lowest moment.

  I put it off as long as possible, but by eight o’clock that evening I’m starving and I need to find something to eat. I walk into the kitchen and stop short.

  There’s an absolute beast of a man in there. He’s probably six five and built like a tank. His back is to me and I can see that his whole body is covered in massive muscles. His arms are like tree trunks and covered in unusual tattoos which are made up of very thick black blocks that stretch in lines all over both arms.

  He hears me and turns around like he’s ready for a fight. I put up my hands to show that I mean no harm. He sees me and seems to calm down, slightly.

  “Hi, I’m Addison, I… live here now.”

  “Theo,” he says brusquely, before turning back to the joint he was rolling on the counter.

  I recognize him too from school. I remember his shaved head and the light scar over his eyebrow. He was one of the guys hanging out with Brax in the halls.

  I edge around him cautiously and head tow
ards the fridge. I look inside, even though I know what I’ll find. It’s the same as what was in there the last two days. There’s a half empty ketchup bottle, a rotten lemon, and about a dozen bottles of beer with a sticky note that says “DO NOT TOUCH.”

  I slam the door in frustration. Theo cocks a brow at me but doesn’t turn away from what he’s doing.

  “There’s never anything to eat around here and I’m starving,” I say.

  “Yeah, you’re on your own as far as that goes. Brax’s house is a food wasteland. His mom doesn’t want to waste those precious foster kid dollars on stupid things like food, when she could spend it on cheap vodka.”

  I sigh in frustration. Just then my sister bounds into the room.

  “Hey, Theo!” she says enthusiastically, and my eyes bulge at what she’s wearing. A tube top and short gym shorts pulled up her crack.

  I see Theo eyeing her up and I feel like I’m going to be sick.

  I dash over and grab her hand.

  “Come on.” I pull her out of the room.

  “Where are we going?” she whines.

  Saving you from teen pregnancy, I think as I start searching around the house.

  “Yes!” I exclaim as I find a crumpled twenty-dollar bill fallen beneath a dresser. “We are getting food.”

  I pull her outside on to the sagging porch, but then I take a minute to really look around and think about what I’m doing. In the daytime this place is scary, but in the night it’s about a hundred times worse. There're no streetlights for several blocks because they’ve all been smashed. The only light is coming from the few houses that are still occupied. In the distance, there’s a lone car slowly driving down the street like it’s stalking the neighborhood.

  There’s a sudden loud bang and I throw myself back inside, taking Olivia with me, and slam the door closed.

  “Was that a gunshot?” she asks in disbelief.

  “I don’t know. It sounded like one,” I say, a bit shaken up.

  Ok, we are not leaving this house tonight. We’ll have to order in.

  It takes me half an hour to find a pizza place that’ll deliver to this neighborhood. Olivia keeps trying to leave, but I keep her with me locked in my room. Even though she doesn’t really like me, she’ll still kind of do what I say—maybe it’s ingrained in some younger sibling hard-wiring or something. I don’t want to analyze it too much but I’m just happy she respects me at least a little.

  The pizza comes about an hour later and we head down. The delivery driver looks terrified and like he can’t wait to get out of here—I can’t blame him. He doesn’t even wait around for his tip. I give him the cash and he throws the change at me before sprinting back to his car and peeling out of the driveway in a shriek of tire squeals.

  I’m about to take the pizza back up to my room, when Olivia suggests sharing it with the guys out back.

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” I ask.

  “Oh, cooooome on.” She rolls her eyes at me dramatically. “Can you try not to be such a freak? We need to fit in. We need to make friends—and those guys are super hot. Come on!”

  She pulls on my arm insistently, but I jerk it back.

  “Those guys are trouble, Olivia. We need to stay as far away from them as possible.”

  She rolls her eyes, and I have the briefest flash of desire to slap some sense into her.

  “They are dangerous,” I almost plead with her.

  “Whatever. If you want to spend your life being a loser locked in your room, then that’s your business. But Mom and Dad abandoned us and now we are stuck here so we have to deal with it. They left us with nothing and didn’t even bother to tell us they were leaving. We are on our own. Get over it.” And with that, she turns away from me and heads towards the back of the house. I hear the backdoor slam.

  I’m left standing there, holding a full pizza in my hands.

  She’s right too. One day we came home to find the house empty and our parents gone. It looked like they packed and left in a hurry. We had no idea why they left—still don’t. Both of our parents are only children and all our grandparents are dead so we have no close extended family that we could have called. Our housekeeper eventually found us and took us to the authorities to help us sort out what happened.

  All of our parent’s bank accounts had been emptied, even the house had been recently sold, and that money was gone too. With nowhere else to go, Olivia and I went into the foster care system. Our housekeeper offered to take us in, but the state said that it didn’t work like that, you can’t just take in a couple of orphaned kids. So that’s how we found ourselves in this terrible house in Marter.

  Our parents were not good parents, but it’s the not knowing what happened that kills me the most. I’ve lost everything I have ever known, and now I feel like I’m losing my sister too.

  I walk sadly to the kitchen. I take a few slices and put the rest in the fridge, hoping Olivia will get it. Before I can head up the stairs though, this sleazy-looking older guy in a stained white wife beater comes into the kitchen. He’s leering at me with a mouth full of slightly discolored teeth.

  “You must be the new girl that Diane took in,” he says while licking his lips.

  “Yeah. Who are you?”

  “I’m her boyfriend.”

  “Nice to meet you,” I say without any enthusiasm and try to head out of the room, but he walks over to block me.

  “I’m glad we’ll get the chance to get to know each other better.” He grins down at me in a way he must think is suave.

  He smells like old beer and slightly like mildew. I just grunt noncommittally and try to walk around him but he moves to block me again.

  “I’m just right down that hall. Diane usually passes out pretty early so we have the whole evenings to ourselves.”

  “Not interested,” I say flatly and push past him. My body physically recoils at the brief contact.

  Being hit on by some gross old man who lives in my foster home is the perfect end to a perfect day.

  At the top of the stairs I hear laughing from outside. I walk into the bathroom and look out the open window which looks down into the backyard.

  There’s a fire and I can see figures sitting in lawn chairs around it. I don’t think you’re allowed to have fires in residential areas, but it’s not like anyone in this neighborhood is going to call the cops. There’s two large figures and one smaller one which I assume is Olivia. I hear her fake giggling and it makes my stomach clench in fear.

  I need to save my sister from these guys—and also from herself.

  4

  I hold my head high the next day at school. I’m trying not to look like all the other students are getting to me, but they are. My second day at Marter High and I almost get into two fights before lunch. I avoid the lunchroom and find an empty staircase to eat my cold pizza in.

  As I’m on my way to my next class after lunch, I run into the asshole from yesterday—actually, I’ll have to be more specific, because I met a lot of assholes yesterday. The one who made me clean off his shoes. I’ve come to learn that his name is Daire, because some students whispered it as he walked past in the morning.

  He’s blocking my way and I look up into his face. It is an unreadable mask. He’s with his friends, Theo, Brax, and a fourth guy whose name I don’t know. They are all lined up and blocking the entire hall.

  All the other students seem scared of these guys—and the students at this school are all terrifying so these guys must be monsters.

  I move to go around Daire’s large frame but he steps to block me.

  I try to go around the other side but Theo blocks me. What the hell?

  “Go the other way,” Daire commands.

  “What? Why? My class is over there.” I point uselessly.

  He just shrugs.

  I look to the other guys, but they all look at me like I’m worthless. They seem kind of pissed off and I wonder what I ever did to them to deserve this.

  I make another
move to go around but Brax blocks it.

  “Go.” Daire repeats in a deadly voice that leaves no room for disobedience.

  I glare at him, but I recognize when I’ve been beat. I spin on my heel and stomp off down the other way.

  I end up having to go down to the creepy, deserted basement and then come up the stairs on the other side of the school so that I can finally get into my classroom. What the fuck is his problem? I wonder.

  When I’m sitting in class, fuming over what happened in the hallway, the girl from yesterday, the one with the greasy hair who tried to fight me, comes up to my desk. I groan. I do not want to deal with her. She has a big smile on her face—but it’s not a nice smile.

  “You fucked up, girl,” she says gleefully. “You did something to piss off the Vicious Crew.”

  I make an educated guess that she’s talking about the four guys in the hallway.

  “I’d run as far away from Marter as fast as I could if I were you.” And with that warning she heads back to her desk.

  Great, just great. Another thing I have to deal with. I don’t know what I did to piss them off but maybe just the same thing I did to piss everyone else off, be born into a wealthy family.

  The rest of the students here are intimidating enough, but the Vicious Crew are scary. Every day that I set foot in this school, I’m stepping into enemy territory, but if those guys have it out for me, then my situation could really become dangerous—and I live with one of them. I can’t escape.

  I try to avoid them for the rest of the day. When I see any of them coming down the halls, I duck into an empty classroom or quickly walk the other way. I hate that I’m hiding, scurrying around like a frightened animal, but it’s what I have to do to survive. It’s only for another couple months and then I graduate and I’ll be free—free to do what? I’m not sure. I can’t afford college anymore, and I can’t afford to live in New York, so all my plans for my future are out the window.

  I’m not paying close enough attention though because near the end of the day I round a corner and run straight into a hard chest. I bounce off him comically, but manage to regain my footing. I look up to see what I’ve hit when suddenly my arms are empty and there're pieces of paper and books flying through the air.