Wretched: A Reverse Harem Bully Romance (Wicked Brotherhood Book 3)

by Eden Beck

  “Fine,” I say, then hastily point at Heath. “But if we’re splitting up, then you’re coming with me.”

  Jasper looks like he’s going to object, but I just fix him with a stare that shuts him up.

  I, meanwhile, turn back on my heel and storm off down the curving path of white fabric, calling over my shoulder just as I turn the rounded corner, “So, are you coming or not?”

  There’s the sound of scrambling footsteps and hastily whispered words before Heath comes jogging up to my side a few seconds later.

  “What was that all about?” I ask, keeping my eyes on the path ahead and decidedly away from Heath.

  I can still see the way he shakes his head in my peripherals, and how it makes his hair flop down into his eyes so he has to brush it aside.

  I keep one hand to the left side of the panels as we continue on, a trick I picked up somewhere but can’t remember where for the life of me. Heath creeps along beside me, doing his best to keep his footfalls soft so we can listen for any other sounds in the maze. Now that we’ve grown accustomed to the gentle rustle of the fabric walls, I can catch snippets of the crowd gathered in the stands beyond. At some angles when we’re turning corners, I even get a glimpse of them too.

  We soon fall into a pattern of walking, checking down paths, and listening for footsteps that might alert us to anyone headed our way. It isn’t long before Heath seems to start growing restless.

  “Seems a weird competition to gather everyone together for,” he says after we catch another brief glimpse up at a corner of the stands, “when no one can even see what’s going on.”

  I see faces pointed up, away from the maze, and try to look in the same direction … but the walls are too high to see what they’re watching. I stop for a second and look up around us in the sky, catching for just the briefest moment a flash of something hovering overhead.

  “I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” I grumble. “I think they’re watching us with drones or something.”

  Heath suddenly starts fussing with the hair falling into his face again.

  “Stop that,” I snap at him, making him freeze mid-motion.

  “What?”

  “Just …” I stop for a second to close my eyes again—just long enough take a deep breath and overhear the sound of footsteps rushing by up ahead.

  Somewhere on the other side of the wall.

  “Shh!” I make the hushing sound, then repeat it when Heath starts to protest something about how he wasn’t making a sound to begin with.

  I mouth for him to listen and, fixing my eyes on the white walls straight ahead, creep up close to the next linen panel.

  Sure enough, after sitting still long enough, I hear footsteps again.

  “I think they’re headed that way,” I say, pointing to the left path branching on up ahead.

  He and I exchange a look and take off as fast as we can.

  Just when I think we’ve lost them and ended up more lost in this maze than ever, the softest whisper of voices carry over to us from just up ahead.

  “Shit, I swore we were headed in the right direction.”

  It’s a girl’s voice. The sound of it makes my heart beat a bit faster.

  “No. I told you that last turn was a right, not a left,” another girl hisses back. There’s the sound of a slight scuffle as one of them stamps their foot in the grass.

  “Sounds like Jasper was right,” I whisper.

  “And it also sounds like it didn’t do them much good,” Heath whispers back.

  I tilt my head to the side and try to listen for more signs of them—voices, grass crunching underfoot, the hum of an overbearing drone overhead—but am met with only silence.

  “I guess we’re just going to have to hope they’ve at least set us in the right direction,” I say, still keeping my voice low enough to try and make sure they don’t overhear us in turn.

  We creep forward a few steps until we come to a three-way split in the path and immediately halt. It’s not immediately obvious which direction the girls headed down, or even if they weren’t on the other side of one of these walls to begin with.

  Before we have to make a random decision, a slight hum overhead makes me and Heath stumble back a bit as another drone passes overhead. As I look on, I watch the direction it’s headed and notice it hover, unmoving, just for a moment.

  “There!” I whisper to Heath, pointing up at it.

  He moves closer to me to see where I’m pointing, and for just one moment he loses his footing and he falls forward—onto me.

  At first it’s just his hand reaching to steady himself on my shoulder, but I jerk back to get out of his way and he gets a fistful of … something else instead.

  I splutter out a strangled cry, clamping one hand over my mouth as Heath just stares wide eyed at the hand still cupping what’s turned out to be my left breast. Color rises in his cheeks as he finally releases me and falls back onto his backside. Only he doesn’t realize that his cufflinks have caught on the buttons of my shirt.

  Neither of us do. Not until it’s too late.

  The cufflinks tangle badly enough that I’m pulled forward on top of him this time … but not before his wrist finally breaks free, taking most of the buttons from my shirt with him.

  Heath tries to scramble out from underneath me, but my nails dig into his shoulders until he stops. His eyes flicker to meet mine, and seeing the terror there, immediately flicker down to where my breasts press nearly entirely exposed to his chest.

  “Stop it,” I hiss, digging my nails deeper as I motion up to the sky above us.

  The two of us freeze, entangled with each other on the ground, and listen for the sound of a drone passing overhead. I hear nothing at first but wait another couple seconds before I heave myself up off Heath’s prone body and scrabbled back up to my feet.

  Not, of course, before I feel the press of him straining against his uniform pants.

  So much for keeping my distance from him, too.

  I scramble to cover myself, my eyes averting from Heath’s as I curse myself for not insisting on a properly fitted bra over Christmas break. I spent so much time last year pretending to be a boy that I might have forgotten what it is to be a proper girl.

  Something it seems Heath hasn’t forgotten, however, from how long he has to turn away from me, hands clenching and unclenching at the tops of this thighs before he’s able to turn back to face me again.

  “Alex, I’m so—”

  I hold up a hand to stop him, the other still clenched to my chest to keep my boobs from betraying me again. “Let’s never talk of this again,” I say.

  Heath gratefully nods his head in agreement, but he still can’t stop himself from glancing at my chest just long enough again to make the color rush to his cheeks.

  We’re thankfully saved by the very same sound I was dreading momentarily before.

  It’s a drone, but it’s not hovering over us.

  “Quick!” I say, pointing at where it’s hovering just further down the path furthest to the right. “Before it disappears again.”

  Grateful for the excuse to leave this corner behind us, we race down the path without concern for how much noise we’re making.

  But as soon as we turn the corner, we realize it’s all been for nothing.

  We’ve found the center of the maze. But someone else got here first.

  “Hello, Alex,” a familiar voice drawls. “Didn’t expect to see me, did you?”

  It’s Olive.

  And she’s holding an open puzzle box in her hands.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  So much for Jasper’s excuse to make us work together. We didn’t even get a good look at the puzzle aside from the fact that it, like the maze, was probably another way for the girl’s school to cheat in front of the mass of teachers, investigators, and college recruiters who’ve found their way up to the Swiss mountains for the first event.

  I’d probably have been better off running through the maze myself. At th
e very least, I wouldn’t have ended up with Heath getting a handful and an eyeful.

  Now I find myself being shuffled up into the VIP spectator’s box behind a girl who makes me look more like a boy than I ever could have attempted on my own. Next to her, blouse ripped or not, I look like a poor caricature of a female.

  I’ve never really noticed how ill-fitting my boys’ uniform was until I found myself standing next to Olive again, and this time, as myself. My unfortunately, frustrated self.

  And I’m not the only one.

  As soon as Heath and I set foot in the upper-level box, Dean Withers comes puffing up to us entirely too red in the face.

  “What happened out there?” he hisses, then glances over our shoulders, face darkening as he spots Jasper and Beck arriving shortly after us. They look almost as flustered as he does.

  I can see their faces reflected in the glass. Neither of them looks like they’re particularly used to losing.

  But neither of them looks as unhappy as the dean.

  “Do you have any idea what’s actually riding on this event?” he starts, but then hastily whirls around and plasters a fake smile on his sweaty face as a man appears at his side.

  He looks like the rest of the onlookers gathered here, sophisticated if a little stuffy, with short cropped hair and a face that’s been so pampered with creams and money that it’s difficult to tell exactly how old he is.

  But from the look on his face, he’s not exactly impressed with the way the event panned out, either.

  “Withers!” he booms, in a voice far too jovial for the emotion reflected in his eyes. “I thought you said that Bleakwood was just the same as it was in the good old days,” he says. “But I don’t ever remember losing to a girls’ school. Not once.”

  The dean splutters for a moment, and the man now standing in front of us takes the opportunity to turn to us. I notice how his eyes linger on Olive for a moment, and how she in turn, becomes the simpering, overly complimentary version of herself.

  “Oh, Barrister O’Brien, I didn’t recognize you at first!” she squeals, much to the annoyance of most people standing within earshot. If there was a set of eyes that weren’t on us before, they are now. Olive practically bounces on the balls of her feet as she sticks out her hand enthusiastically. “My mother said she invited you to dinner ages ago, but she never heard back. I’m sure you’re just busy reviewing applications, but I was so disappointed that I didn’t get to see you again over break.”

  Beck leans in close, his hot breath making my neck tingle as he whispers in my ear. “He’s a kind of inside recruiter for most of the top schools in the UK,” he says. “Not official, of course.”

  I glance up at him in surprise, continuing his meaning. “But also more than official?”

  Beck nods slightly, his eyes flickering back up to the man standing in front of us. His mouth barely moves as he adds, “Great time to be facing the one man standing between us and Oxford now, isn’t it?”

  I feel my stomach sink.

  Does Beck know I applied … or is he only talking about himself?

  I didn’t tell the boys I’d put in my application to Oxford alongside them. With early admission you can only apply to one school … a decision I’ve regretted ever since the day I came back from break and realized what I’d really signed up for.

  Four more years with The Brotherhood.

  If I end up lucky.

  Luck that, as it currently stands, I don’t seem to have any of.

  Fortunately for me, Olive doesn’t seem to have any more of it than I do.

  “Ah yes, well, you’re right about being busy,” O’Brien responds, his eyes flickering away from her with a bored expression. “Bleakwood has certainly been taking up a bit more attention than usual as of late, given the circumstances.”

  His eyes come to rest on me, and a certain, unsettling light appears within.

  “Ah, actually, just the girl I was hoping to see.”

  He doesn’t reach out a hand to shake mine, only shifts his posture so he can give me a thoroughly disconcerting once-over. It’s made even worse by the fact that I’m still struggling to keep my chest from being entirely exposed in my now ruined uniform shirt.

  Fuck me for not thinking to bring my jacket.

  Behind me, I feel several nudges, and glance back just for a quarter of a second to see all three sets of eyes—Jasper, Beck, and Heath—waiting expectantly.

  I quickly turn back to the barrister and stammer out my own reply.

  “Sorry,” I add, after a hasty introduction. “I think I’m still a little lost.”

  He blinks at me for a second before suddenly bursting out into a single syllable laugh. “Ah yes, it was quite the setup, that maze,” he says, clapping one hand onto my shoulder so hard that I nearly lose my breath. Rather than immediately unhand me, however, he uses the opportunity to pull me a step closer to him.

  I feel the boys stiffen behind me, and beside me, Olive’s face takes on a pout.

  I, meanwhile, am more concerned with the man’s face drawing closer to mine, his eyes once again looking over me in a way that makes me feel far more exposed than I ever did down in that maze—buttons on my shirt or not.

  “Between you and me,” he whispers, “Harrows was no competition for Bleakwood. Never was. It’s just a shame that this whole scandal is threatening to ruin such a prestigious legacy. If Bleakwood remains as it is, there’s a good chance your application would get passed along to the right people over at, where was it again …”

  He trails off a moment, waiting for the light of recognition to flash in my eyes.

  Is he … is he blackmailing me? Does he know about Headmistress Robin, about the investigators and what they’ve been trying to get me to say?

  Welcome to the blackmail club. Might as well add another member.

  I swallow, hard, and he grins.

  “Let’s just wait and see how Harrows does when the playing field is leveled, shall we? I’m sure Bleakwood will find a way back on top.”

  His hand stays on my shoulder a moment longer after that, just long enough for me to get a good whiff of the cigar on his breath before Dean Withers’ throat clearing forces him to finally let me go.

  For the first time in ages, I don’t flinch back when the three boys step up to press themselves protectively behind me.

  Especially because this time, Withers is not alone.

  “And they better,” Dean Withers mutters, adding onto O’Brien’s last comment which I guess he overheard.

  I wonder how much else was overheard. Did Jasper and the others hear the threat, or was that just me?

  Headmistress Robin smiles smugly at his side. Much too smugly for her smile to just be the result of her school having won the obviously rigged competition.

  Fortunately, we’re not left wondering why for long.

  “So it seems that Harrows has won the honor of selecting the next challenge,” Headmistress Robin says, unable to hide the glee from her voice. “Olive, would you do the honors?”

  Olive’s face lights up as she walks off towards a board on the wall where a blank space has been left for the next event to be filled in. I note how Jasper’s eyes follow her and feel more than a hint of annoyance.

  I should have focused more on how to get these boys expelled rather than playing along. Maybe the drone did catch Heath and I after all. I could say he did it on purpose.

  But then what would that do to Jasper? To Beck?

  The way Jasper’s eyes linger on Olivia just renews my passion to get rid of them for good.

  These good-for-nothing …

  And yet, I’m not able to even finish my thought.

  Because what Dean Withers says next, changes everything.

  While Olive slowly, deliberately starts looking through the possibilities for the next challenge—as if she hasn’t already decided ahead of time what it should be, of course—Dean Withers draws close enough to me, Jasper, Heath, and Beck so that he won’t be ove
rheard.

  “That out there in the maze,” he starts, “that was a disgrace. We’ll have no more of that. We at Bleakwood simply do not lose.”

  “Well, I hate to disappoint you,” Beck whispers back, far too lazily for Withers’ liking, “but that’s what we just did.”

  “And you won’t do it again,” the dean hisses back.

  His eyes leave us to scan the room for a moment, and something changes about his face. Unless I’m mistaken, I see fear there.

  “What is it?” I blurt out, my gaze fixated on him. I scowl. “What is it you’re not telling us? This is supposed to be just a game, but there’s something else, isn’t there?”

  Dean Withers’ tongue makes a brief appearance darting between his lips.

  “Yes,” he admits, quieter than ever. “Bleakwood must win the games, because I’ve made a bet.”

  The look on the boys faces changes even before he has the chance to tell us what this bet is. And I know why. I too have guessed what he means by that before the words are out of his mouth.

  “I made the mistake of agreeing on a bet with Headmistress Robin,” the dean says through gritted teeth. “This is no longer just a game. Bleakwood, your futures, everything hangs in the balance now.”

  “Please don’t tell me …” Jasper starts, but Withers just cuts him back off.

  “If Bleakwood loses, we close the school. For good.”

  All three of us let out an audible, collective groan.

  Dean Withers, meanwhile, just quickly shushes us. “Stop it. There’s not going to be a problem so long as you win the next two events.”

  “Only, there might be a small problem,” I say, drawing all four pairs of eyes to me instead.

  I, in turn, am looking up at the board. At what Olive has chosen for the next event.

  Equestrian.

  “It might be a little difficult for us to win, because I don’t know how to ride.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven