by Eden Beck
Bitter
The Wicked Brotherhood Book One
Eden Beck
Bitter by Eden Beck
© 2020 Eden Beck
All rights reserved. This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of including brief passages for use in a review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
For permissions contact:
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Ebook ASIN: B08MYBW5XD
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
A Note From The Author
Also by Eden Beck
Chapter One
Bleakwood Academy is the most prestigious school in the world for boys with talents like mine.
The only problem? I’m a girl.
The air is unseasonably hot and dry when I step off the bus. A gust of wind kicks dust up into my face, making me instinctively reach up to brush the hair out of my eyes—only to find it shorn short.
Right. Gotta look the part.
I push back that aching pit in the hollow of my stomach for what feels like the thousandth time as I glance back down at the map in my hands. It wasn’t easy cutting my hair so short, especially when I had to do it in the dim light of a tiny bus station with dull scissors bought from a bodega outside the airport in Zurich.
Who sells scissors outside of an airport? Isn’t everyone just going to have to throw them out once they get through security? I remember thinking, just to keep from thinking, as I snipped lock after lock of my curls into a neat pile on the tile floor. I didn’t stop until the face looking back at me from the mirror was unrecognizable.
I never knew before today just how small my head looks.
No matter which way I turn it, the map in my hands is completely useless. The tour guide had told me to use the mountains to help orient myself, but every time I look up and glance around me—all I see are mountains. And they all look exactly the same. Maybe if the map wasn’t some godforsaken mix of four different languages I might be able to use it—but for now, all I can do is stuff it back into my suitcase and start off up the winding road leading further up into those same mountains.
They have to end somewhere, eventually, right? They can’t just keep going up, up, up … spiraling forever into the fog at their peaks.
I haven’t made it more than ten steps up the road when I hear the roar of an engine followed by the sudden screech of tires behind me.
“Hey you there, idiot!”
I glance back just in time to see a boy pop head and shoulders out of the passenger side window of a very well-maintained Aston Martin. I’ve never seen one before, but with four overly rambunctious brothers there was bound to be one of them who ended up obsessed with cars. That brother turned out to be Caleb, the youngest of them at only a year older than me. He would die just to be this close to a car like that.
But even still, while my brother would take note of the car, I have to take note of the boy leaning out of it … and just how strikingly beautiful he is. Slicked-back blonde hair, broad shoulders, cut cheekbones. The Scandinavian in him somehow stands out even more here, in the heart of the Swiss mountains.
“You headed up to Bleakwood?”
Even as he stares me down, it takes me a minute to stop gawking and realize he is, in fact, talking to me. He registers the look on my face as it dawns on me too slow and doesn’t let it slide.
“Yeah, I’m talking to you, boy. So then, are you?”
It takes me a second to find my voice, and then another to remember to force it down an octave.
“Y—yeah. What of it?”
I cringe, inwardly. Apparently, the male version of me sounds like a total douchebag.
“Well, unless you plan on spending the semester tucking it up there at the little girl’s school, you’d better hop in with us.”
I glance back up over my shoulder. Girl’s school? You’re telling me there was a girl’s school here all along?
“Don’t look so shocked. Gonna give the impression you’re as stupid as you look.”
There’s a chuckle from inside the car when I finally look back. As classically attractive as this boy is, there’s something off about him. Something I don’t trust.
“Maybe I’ll just walk.”
The boy turns to someone else inside the car, his shoulders shaking with laughter. “Your loss. Don’t let it be said that I have no heart. Now no one can blame us when the wolves get you.”
The wolves?
I really hope that’s a metaphor for something.
There’s an edge to his voice that I don’t like. This is a boy who isn’t used to being turned down, not for anything. But this is also not the kind of first impression I wanted to make. Not if these are some of my new classmates.
Before I can backtrack, try to salvage what is quickly turning into an interaction I have a feeling I’m going to regret later, I hear the muffled sound of a third voice from the back of the car. I can see the shift of a face on the other side of the dark glass, but I can’t make out his features, or hear exactly what he says.
But whatever he does say has an effect on the boy in the window. He flashes me one last look, some mix of distrust and disbelief at being turned down, and then slips back into his seat as the engine roars back to life.
I have to squint against the sunlight reflecting off the mountainsides to watch which road it takes. With one last look over my shoulder towards the supposed girl’s school now behind me, I follow after it.
I’ve seen Bleakwood in brochures, but no photograph could do this place proper justice.
Bleakwood Academy for Boys sits nestled in a mini valley between the peaks of three mountains, each one plunging higher up into the misty clouds than the last. Green hillsides meld with sheer rock cliffs that melt up into the still snow-covered peaks, even now, at the end of summer.
Any remnants of heat have long since dissipated with each footstep that brought me climbing higher into these mountains. Now, I’m eternally grateful for the oversized hoodie that both shields me from the chill breeze whipping up between their peaks as well as my body from any overly prying eyes.
Now that I’m here, staring up at the cluster of buildings more akin to a castle than a school, I have to stop a moment and catch my breath. It’s more than just the altitude. It wasn’t long after turning down a ride up the mountain that I realized another reason to regret my decision. The burn in my thighs and calves just reiterates that mistake. It’s one I won’
t make again.
Especially now that I’m late.
I spot what looks like a tour group disappearing up the first flight of steps and into the main hall. Unless I’m mistaken, the boy from the car is there among them. His voice, sharp and loud, echoes out above the rest like the bark of a wolf.
My lips purse as I take in a deep, steadying breath to calm myself.
I can do this.
I can do this.
I didn’t know this was an all-boys program when I applied. I mean … I should have. Looking back, I don’t know how I didn’t see the signs; the imagery on the website alone, the pamphlets, the application.
I just thought whatever photographer they hired wasn’t exactly schooled in the meaning of the word “diversity” or “inclusivity”. For a girl who got into a school for geniuses, I sure can act like an idiot sometimes.
But it’s too late now. It was too late by the time I received the scholarship letter and realized my mistake. It might be a boy’s school, but it was too great an opportunity to pass up. Not when I know there won’t be another like it. At least, not in my lifetime. Not if I want the chance to become something more than the overlooked youngest daughter in a family that basically forgot she existed the moment she was born.
Average. Unremarkable.
That is Alex Trevellian, the girl. Alex Trevellian the boy … now that’s about to become a different story.
I reach for the handle of my suitcase again, but before I can follow, huffing and puffing after my classmates, a voice drawls out from behind me.
“Well, I’ll be damned … this isn’t a sight you get to see every day. Not here, at least.”
I don’t see who it belongs to at first. I take a step back and trace my eyes down the low, cobblestone fence curving around the edge of the driveway. Eventually my gaze falls on the gaunt face of a boy staring back at me, a long cigarette perched between his teeth. He has dark hair and eyes, and something about the way he looks at me … it’s like he can see right through me.
I don’t like it.
Almost as much as I don’t like the next thing that drops from his lips, and it isn’t the cigarette.
“You’re a girl.”
Chapter Two
I gawk at the boy in front of me for a moment, my mouth working like a stupid fish gasping for air.
“I … what? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The boy nods once, pulls the cigarette from between his lips with two fingers, and lets out a stream of smoke. “Nice cover. You’re really going to last here.”
My shoulders slump forward protectively before I immediately force them back. Then forward again. Maybe it’s better if I look small and weak, lean into the girlish thing. I don’t know. I probably just look like I’m having some kind of seizure.
Whatever it is I’m doing, it doesn’t seem to convince him. He pushes himself up and away from the wall, folding his arms in front of his chest as he gives me another slow, raking once-over.
“Now, unless you couldn’t tell … since the rest of you seems completely out of touch with reality … that was sarcasm.”
“I … I … fuck.” This time, I let my shoulders slump forward and stay there with the rest of me. “I knew this was a mistake. All of it. Just one big fucking mistake.”
“Well, I’m not going to argue with you there,” the boys says, his eyes finally coming to rest on the mess of hair falling over my forehead. I self-consciously try to flatten it down a bit, but he suddenly waves his arms for me to stop.
“No, no, you’re doing it all wrong. Have you never seen a human boy before?”
He tuts loudly and shoving the cigarette back into the corner of his mouth, hurries over to start fluffing up the bits of hair around my face.
“Oh, my. You did this yourself, didn’t you? Don’t even answer that. Was there … did you have a mirror? Don’t answer that either, because I’m not sure which prospect terrifies me more.”
I stand frozen to the spot while this strange boy tousles and rummages through my floppy, wind-blown mop like it’s a delicate flower arrangement. Normally I’d never let someone this close to me, but right now … I just stand as still as possible and hope that, maybe like a T-rex, if I don’t move long enough he’ll just forget I’m here altogether.
After what feels like an impossibly long time, the boy finally takes a step back to admire his handiwork. While he doesn’t look exactly satisfied, he does look, at the very least, appeased.
“That’ll have to do for now,” he says, once again taking out the now long-extinguished cigarette and flourishing it like a prop in front of him. “Though the rest of you … ” He grimaces a little, wrinkling up his nose as he takes me in again. “That’s going to take a little work.”
For what feels like the first time in ages, I suck in a breath. “So, you aren’t going to turn me in?”
The boy raises an eyebrow at me. “And why would I do that?”
“I … I don’t know,” I stammer. “It’s a school for boys. And I’m, well, not a boy.”
“And I’m gay,” he says, nonchalantly. “Who’s to say you can’t be a boy if that’s what you want to be. Though, correct me if I’m wrong … that’s not really the whole point of this, is it? Because if I’m being totally honest, it sort of seems like you’re not actually trying to be a guy. Just, you know, a kind of caricature of one. The hoodie. Bad haircut. The excessive swearing.”
I let out a half-strangled laugh. “Actually … the swearing part might be the only real part of what stands before you.” I shrug. “I grew up with four older brothers. It sort of … it’s like breathing after a while.”
“So,” he says, nodding again. “If you’re not here to actually become a boy … what gives? Why Bleakwood and not, you know, Grandview? The girl’s school next door.”
“Oh god, please, I was wondering about that,” I say, my words tumbling over themselves as I finally start to register the fact that although my disguise has been found out literally within minutes of arriving, this boy doesn’t seem determined to turn me in. Not right away, at least. “Is it like this place?”
“You mean the most pretentious excuse for a boarding school ever? Except for girls instead of dicks … I mean boys … then yeah. It is.”
I squeeze my eyes shut and suck my lips between my teeth to bite them shut for a second. “I’m such an idiot.”
“Everyone here is, at least you’re smart enough to admit it,” the boys says, sticking out his hand. “I’m Rafael. Guess you really lucked out running into me first, huh?”
“I only wish you’d been there when I first submitted my application to this place,” I say, begrudgingly sticking out my own hand to accept his. “I’m Alex.”
He doesn’t shake my hand like I expect. Instead, his hand grips mine tight and turns it over, leaning his face close for inspection.
“Can’t leave your nails like that, you need to bite them off.”
He glances up over my shoulder as he lets my hand drop back down to my side.
“Wait, right now?”
“I’m not going to do it for you,” he says. “But no boy has nails like that. Not even me.”
The last thing I’m going to do is argue, so I set upon my nails like a rabid creature while Rafael peers over the wall at the now-vacant courtyard leading up to the main doors.
“If I just had one afternoon with you … just one … ” he shakes his head as he steps back and away from the wall and makes a face at me with half my fingers in my mouth at the same time.
“What? I didn’t think we had a lot of time.”
“No, unfortunately, we don’t.”
Somewhere across the valley, a tower bell tolls. It sounds distant at first, growing and multiplying as it rolls across the bare faces of the mountains. The sound makes Rafael suck in his cheeks. As soon as the sound fades, he tosses his unfinished cigarette over to me and holds out a lighter.
“For the voice,” he says when I hesitate to lig
ht it.
I hold it out in front of me like a used diaper. “I’ve never smoked before.”
Rafael lets out a loud sigh. “At least pretend to have a little pride, Alex. That’s rule one about being a boy. Throw out everything the media tells you about toxic masculinity bullshit being over. Just throw it out. That might fly out there, in the real world. But you’re at a boy’s boarding school now. This is as toxic as it gets.”
I chuckle, a sound that dies when Rafael just keeps staring me down from beneath his thick, Mediterranean eyebrows. “You say that like we’re in purgatory or something.”
“No, not purgatory,” he says, lifting the lighter up and miming the correct way to inhale, “this is hell.”
With the sear of smoke and tobacco in my lungs, I have to agree. My stomach turns, my body wanting me to double over and cough until I’m forced to vomit. But I think of what Rafael said, and I suck it up and swallow down the pain until it slowly numbs. From the jabbing pain in my throat, I’ll be croaking like a frog in no time.
“This’ll have to do for now,” Rafael says. ”We’ve gotta get inside before we’re missed. Any later, and people are going to think you were out here giving me a blowjob.”
“Actually, is that such a bad idea?” I feel my pulse quicken a little. “What if … what if it was you giving me the blowjob? Then no one would doubt I’m a boy. You know, since you’ve seen my dick and all.”
The look Rafael gives me could send a grown man running for cover.
“Absolutely the fuck not. There’s a place where I draw the line. And really sorry, little Alex … you probably weren’t that bad looking as a girl, you know … before the whole hair thing … but as a boy … ” He shakes his head. “That would send all the wrong messages. I’ve got standards, you know.”
