Kings of Quarantine: A Dark High School Bully Romance (Brutal Boys of Everlake Prep Book 1)

by Caroline Peckham

  No, Tatum, you’ve gotta stay out of your head for once and make friends.

  I turned back to Blake in resilience, finding him looking down at his phone as we walked. His hair had fallen forward over his brow and his jaw was tight as he read some message.

  “I’ve gotta make a call.” He parked up my suitcase and walked off into the trees at the side of the path without another word. Oh.

  I turned back to face the view, hugging my arms around myself and soaking in the atmosphere. At least this place was pretty damn awesome. If I had to be shipped off to boarding school then it sure as hell couldn’t get better than this one.

  The pounding of footfalls caught my ear and I glanced back down the brick path we’d taken and spotted a guy running towards me. He was tall and shirtless, sweat rolling down his muscular body toward the low-hanging black gym shorts he wore. He was tanned and gleaming. The dark blonde hair which was tucked behind his ears, the stubble, and the fierce look on his strong features and the ferocious tattoos lining his muscular chest made him look like some sort of Viking warrior as he ran my way. His ocean blue eyes flicked in my direction and a blush burst into my cheeks. I couldn’t control the reaction at all. Did every guy in this place look like a freaking fitness model?

  He suddenly collided with my suitcase in the middle of the path and crashed over it, rolling onto his back as he hit the ground.

  “Motherfucker!” he roared so loud that the mountain echoed it back at him.

  I gazed at the floored god in absolute shock for a full second before I ran forward to help him up.

  “Shit, are you alright?” I reached for him and he smacked my hands away, getting to his feet and gazing down at his smashed headphones on the ground.

  “Who leaves their fucking suitcase in the middle of a pathway?” he demanded, pointing at it and I suddenly felt like a little girl being told off by my dad.

  “I di-” I started but he cut over me.

  “What’s your name? I don’t recognise you.” He narrowed his eyes, letting them travel down me like an X-ray.

  “Tatum. I’m new.”

  He tsked. “Are you stupid too?”

  “I didn’t leave it there,” I said sharply, anger rising in my veins. “It’s not like I was standing here laying suitcase traps for students. It was an accident.”

  His eyebrows raised then he smirked like he held a dark secret. He stepped closer, folding his arms across that heavenly chest of his while I fought to look up from it and stop picturing it pressed against my naked flesh. “Do you know what happens to mouthy girls in this school?”

  Woah, asshole alert.

  I gritted my jaw and stepped forward to show him I wasn’t going to be intimidated. It was my dad’s golden rule. Never show your opponents that you’re rattled. It gives them power. And when they have the power, they win.

  “No, but I have a feeling you’re about to tell me.” I cocked my head to one side and he scowled hard enough to break glass.

  “They make enemies out of the wrong people.” He stepped closer so the scent of sweat and something impossibly inviting slid under my nose. “And in case you haven’t noticed, I’m the wrong people.”

  My heart thumped harder and I didn’t know if it was from fear or excitement. Sure, he was a dickwad with a superiority complex. But those types were the best in the sack. Not that I was going to let him know that some wild part of me was panting on the floor for him, stripping her clothes off. That bitch had no game.

  “Lemme guess…” I tapped my lips. “You run with boys like Blake Bowman and are one of the bros. You’re on the football team and think you’re some kind of king around here because you won the genetic lottery. Most of the girls in this school spread their legs for you when you offer them nothing more than a glance in their direction and oh, I’m missing the most crucial part, you’ve never worked for anything in your life.”

  He blew out a breath of amusement that somehow held no laughter in it. “Firstly, I don’t run with boys like Blake Bowman. I rule them. I’m not on the football team, I am the fucking team. And I don’t care if every girl in this school would bend over and let me fuck them every which way ‘til Sunday, I still wouldn’t. And you got the most crucial part wrong, princess.” He lifted his hand and flicked me between my eyes, making me jerk backwards at the pinch of pain. What the fuck? “I’ve worked for everything in my life. In fact, I like working for it. Working for it means I earned it. So the next time you wanna throw around judgements about people, I suggest you take off your shiny tiara and take a long, hard look at your reflection. Because you may look like a barbie doll brought to life, but I’m willing to bet you’ve got dirty little secrets too.” He turned his back on me, picking up his broken headphones and running on, leaving me in the wake of his words.

  My heart thundered as I watched him leave, his back muscles flexing as he pounded along the pavement. That was the second guy I’d pegged wrong since I’d arrived and I’d only met two. I was gonna reserve judgement from now on. But I’d sure as shit got one thing right about that guy. He was an asshole. And I was happy to stay far, far away from him.

  Blake soon reappeared from the trees, tucking his cellphone into his pocket and giving me a bright smile. “Sorry Tate, had to take that.”

  “No worries.” I moved forward to collect my suitcase but he beat me to it, his fingers brushing mine as he grabbed the handle.

  Tingles rushed under my skin from his touch and I glanced up at him from beneath my lashes with a smile. “Thanks.”

  “Any time.” His eyes roamed over my face before he led the way forward with confident strides.

  We soon turned down a path away from the lake, heading deeper into the trees until we reached a huge building with large, arching stone windows. Birdsong hung around me in the air and the sound of chatter carried from the housing building.

  “This is Beech House, the girls’ dormitories. Here.” Blake tossed me a key and I snatched it out of the air. He gave me an appraising look then walked up to the wooden door to the right of the building and parked my suitcase beside him.

  “I’m not allowed inside - which is a fucking travesty,” he said, his eyes dancing with light and I moved forward, but he threw an arm across the door to stop me from heading in. “But sometimes I break the rules for the right girl.” He shoved the door open, towing my bag inside and I laughed.

  “What will happen if you’re caught here?” I teased as I followed him into the stairwell. Stone steps led up to the next level and lanterns hung from the walls, lighting the way in a soft amber light.

  “I’ll get detention for being a bad boy. And if I get caught twice, I could get suspended.” He threw a grin over his shoulder as he started carrying my bag upstairs. “The trick is not to get caught.”

  “Or ratted out,” I added.

  “You wouldn’t dare,” he growled and the sound had my heart pounding.

  “I wouldn’t,” I agreed. “If I didn’t want you here, I’d just throw you out myself.”

  “Do you think you could?” he asked like he was challenging me to try and I laughed in answer, letting him wonder about that. I was trained in kickboxing and self-defence, so I totally could if I wanted to. My dad always joked he’d built me into Lara Croft and maybe that was a little true – except my version had less pointy boobs and couldn’t do a rolling tuck jump in tiny denim shorts.

  We reached the third level and headed down a corridor with dark wood floors and rooms leading off of it on either side. “You’re in room three three three.” He stopped in front of it, backing away from my suitcase and pushing a hand into his hair. “See you around, Tate.”

  “Thanks for the escort.” I smiled as he turned away, strolling off at a casual pace down the corridor.

  A girl stepped out of a bathroom at the far end of it in nothing but a towel and shrieked as she spotted him. She turned back into the room crying, Blake Bowman’s here! and set off a chain reaction of excited chatter and giggles. Blake bar
ked a laugh as he headed down the stairs and I shook my head before moving toward my room and pushing the key into the lock.

  Guess the guy has a fan club. And I guess I’m hardly surprised.

  I headed inside, the scent of cocoa and shea caressing my senses as I tugged my suitcase into the room. Two beds sat opposite one another and the whole place had been transformed by fairylights, rugs and mini cactuses. The unoccupied bed was piled high with clothes and I frowned as I looked to the girl sprawled out on the other bed in a crop top and red Nike shorts. She sat up in surprise, her large eyes scanning over me. She was model beautiful, her mahogany skin flawless and gleaming, her frame slim but rounded out by soft muscle and stupidly perfect boobs. Her hair was a tumble of hazel and her mouth was wide and currently hooked up into a smile.

  “You’re the new chick?” she asked, leaping from her bed and darting across the room to the other one. She scooped all of her clothes off it and dumped them on the desk on her side of the room.

  “Yeah, hey, I’m Tatum.” I offered her my hand but she came at me with a full on hug. The hand had been kinda weird anyway and I immediately warmed to her as she squeezed me tight.

  “I’m Mila. I’ve been so fucking lonely in here, girl. You don’t even know. I need human contact.”

  I laughed, dragging my suitcase across the room and lifting it onto the bed. “Well I’m kinda used to the quieter life so you’re gonna have to show me the ways of an extrovert.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked, dropping down onto her bed and folding her legs up beneath her. She looked genuinely thrilled to have me here and it was kind of…nice.

  I started telling her about how I’d moved around the whole country and by the time my suitcase was unpacked, I’d pretty much told her my life story. Not the dark parts, just the light. I wasn’t ready to open up about the shit in my past. But my days moving from town to town while Dad worked in labs all over the country was something I’d repeated a hundred times to a hundred people. Though maybe not in so much detail. I really did wanna make an effort here.

  “So what’s your story?” I asked her, dropping onto my bed and shoving my backpack up by my pillow, overly aware of the weapon concealed within it. I couldn’t believe my dad had made me bring a gun. What did he expect to happen in a prissy boarding school for the sons and daughters of the elite?

  “Well, my mom moved to the US from Pakistan when she fell in love with my dad while he was working out there. I’ve never actually been to Pakistan so I’m a New Yorker through and through. My parents sent me way out here to get ‘the best education available’,” she air quoted the words, putting on a stern voice and I laughed.

  She grabbed a bar of chocolate from her nightstand, breaking off a piece for herself before tossing it to me without even asking. I smiled as I picked up the bar, snapping off a piece and popping it onto my tongue. This place wasn’t looking so bad after all.

  “My dad wants me to get into Yale to study law.” She pulled a gormless face.

  “You don’t wanna go?”

  “If it was up to me, I’d be training to get in to Julliard on a dance major,” she said with a dramatic sigh. “But they’d never let me. That’s the way with parents right? Everything’s in our best interest. So long as it’s what they want us to do.”

  I blew out a breath, nodding in agreement. “Yeah…I totally get that. If it was my choice, I wouldn’t have even come here. I would have stayed on the road with my dad.”

  “That’s gotta be lonely though,” she pointed out. “I mean, I get it. That’s all you know. But have you seen this place? And girl, trust me, it’s worth staying here just for the guys. You wait until you meet Blake Bowman.”

  I cracked a grin. “He showed me around actually.”

  She slapped her bed with a wild laugh. “Cute right? Actually cute is like calling him ugly. He’s fucking hot. All three of them are.”

  “Three of them?” I frowned.

  “Yeah, him and his friends Saint and Kyan. They call themselves the Night Keepers,” she said ominously, glancing around her as if there was a sudden chill in the air. I almost felt it too.

  “Why? Is that something to do with the Night People?” I breathed, hushed by the tension in the air.

  Mila nodded. “Blake told you about them?”

  “Yeah, but it’s just some legend, right?”

  She swallowed thickly. “Yeah I guess…but those guys take it pretty seriously. And so does the rest of the school. The Night Keepers were four ruthless warriors, called upon to protect the Night People from the men who sought to claim this land. The myth says that they had hearts of stone and skin of iron. They built an army of nameless followers they called the Unspeakables.” Mila wet her lips, her eyes glittering and I couldn’t help but let the story infect me with its darkness. “But the Unspeakables weren’t just any men or women. They were traitors, liars, thieves and murderers. Anyone who had sought to hurt or betray the Night People. They were forced to do the Night Keepers’ bidding, stripped of their names and made to work in penance for their crimes until they were eventually absolved of their sins.”

  “That shit is crazy,” I breathed a laugh, but Mila didn’t return it.

  “There might only be three of them, but Saint, Kyan and Blake act like they really are the Night Keepers of Everlake. They’ve even laid claim to the sacred stone down at Sycamore Beach.”

  “What stone?” I frowned.

  “Its this huge obelisk in the sand; its carved with markings of the Kotari tribe and tells the story of the Night People and how the Keepers came to save them. The legend says…” she dropped her voice an octave. “Anyone who dares touch the sacred stone will have their soul bound to the Night Keepers for the rest of time. They’ll be Night Bound.”

  “How’s that different to the Unspeakables?” I narrowed my gaze.

  “The Night Bound choose to be in servitude to the Keepers. They willingly sacrifice their soul to be everything and anything the Night Keepers desire. Forever.”

  A shiver ran down my spine. “So what happens when someone touches it?”

  Mila shook her head. “No one has ever dared, Tatum,” she whispered. “The Unspeakables have it bad, but being Night Bound would be pure hell. Saint, Kyan and Blake don’t play nice. Everyone fears that stone like it’s a bomb waiting to go off.”

  “Great. I’ll avoid the rock then,” I laughed. “Sounds like I should avoid those guys too.”

  “No way. If you’re in with them, this whole year is gonna be the best one of your life. But if you’re not…” She shrugged.

  “What? Do they sacrifice you to the Night People or something?” I snorted, but she looked at me deadly seriously like that was no joke.

  “Worse, babe. Far fucking worse.”

  “Come on, they can’t be that bad. Blake seemed like a nice guy to me.”

  She laughed like I was insane. “Calling him nice is like calling the devil pretty. If you’re on his shit list, he’s got a heart more vicious than a butcher’s. Though the fresh meat he likes the taste of isn’t cow, it’s human.”

  I laughed in denial, breaking off another piece of chocolate. What she said did not add up with the friendly guy who’d just led me here. Sure, I could tell he thought he was the shit. But I couldn’t imagine him being cruel to someone. Then again, apparently I was a terrible judge of character.

  “I guess I’d better be his friend then,” I said with a smirk and Mila laughed.

  “Lucky for you, I already am. So you just bought yourself a free ride, new girl.”

  Tick, tick, tick.

  That fucking clock was about to meet the grey brick walls which surrounded me with the force of a HGV colliding with a minivan.

  Tick, tick, tick.

  Every. Fucking. Day.

  I lay still in the ice white, eight hundred thread count organic cotton sheets that surrounded me and fought the urge to grind my teeth to dust as I waited for six am to tick the fuck around. This was the worst ti
me of the day. When the rage which lived within me had spent the night feasting on my blackened soul and dragging up the things that fed it.

  I slept in a bed that cost more than some cars, in sheets which were hand woven and changed daily, in my own private temple with the most picturesque view imaginable, and it didn’t make a bit of difference. I hadn’t slept through the night in…ever.

  The mellow sound of Debussy’s Clair de Lune finally spilled forth from the speakers hidden behind my headboard and I exhaled slowly as I opened my eyes.

  The vaulted roof of the church I’d claimed for my own personal quarters opened out above me, the thick beams of the rafters tapering up towards the heavens. They said money couldn’t buy you everything, but I sure as shit in a diaper hadn’t found much it couldn’t. I’d taken one look at the dorm they’d allocated me when I arrived here and told them fuck no. I wasn’t sharing a room with anyone. I wasn’t sharing walls with anyone either.

  And when my family had threatened to remove me – and their contributions – from the school, Headmaster Brown had come up with the solution. This church had fallen into disrepair and was in serious need of a makeover. With a donation or three from my parents, this place had been ready within the week.

  And really, an old church was the perfect place for a Saint to live, although the people who worshiped at my altar didn’t tend to be the pious types. But I gladly took service from girls on their knees five times a week all the same. Though not here. Never here.

  The Temple was my safe haven. No one crossed this threshold aside from me and the other Night Keepers. And my personal maid, Rebecca, but she came and went like a ghost whenever I wasn’t here so I liked to pretend the place just kept itself spotless and ignore her existence.

  I sat up, running a hand through my tightly curling hair as I looked out of the enormous stained glass window on the far side of the church which was in the shape of a crucifix. My bedroom was on the balcony level of the old church and wooden railings sat beyond the foot of my bed where I could look down at the level below.