by Eden O'Neill
BRUTAL HEIR: Court University Book 1
Copyright © 2020 by Eden O’Neill
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, including electronic or mechanical, without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to any person, living or dead, any place, events or occurrences, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
Cover Art: RBA Designs
Editing: Straight on till Morningside
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Epilogue
Prologue
Greer - age 9
I got sick on my shorts. Hunkering down, the harsh smell twisted my stomach again, my hands on my shaking legs. The bite on my ankle oozed blood, and I brought my leg in, cradling it as I listened for sounds. Some rustling behind me and I was on the ground, hugging my knees and hoping the dog couldn’t find me. Old Man Peabody let it out again.
Oh, God. Oh, God. Please.
Movement behind me and I was almost sick again, trembling as I eased a look behind the tree that hid me. The dog had chased me for nearly ten minutes, exhaustion quivering my limbs as much as the fear. When I saw nothing, I was up, running again as fast as I could. I found another tree and I hugged it.
It was all quiet.
Too quiet, I closed my eyes, listening. The animal cry made me jump, the yelp right after shooting a harsh sense of fear inside me. The struggled cry had sounded like a dog, the yelp the same.
More rustling and movement in the leaves beneath my feet sounded. I left the tree, escaping its security to find two local boys. They were hunkered over something, and both were familiar to me. The one with the blond hair and light-colored eyes liked to play with the master of the house my mom cleaned and cooked for. His name was Royal, and he held down something, his hands white and knuckled over fur.
They no longer knuckled as I got closer, no longer needed. The thing below him wasn’t moving. He sat back on his haunches, staring up at the other boy there. He was the master of the house with his grandfather, only a couple years older than me and the boss of my mom, who was an adult. I hadn’t known kids could be in charge until I met him, moved into his house with my mom.
A twig snapped under my sneaker, and that boy gazed up at me, eyes a coal black even from here, though I knew them to be brown. I stared at him a lot when he couldn’t see, dark and harsh and angry, always angry. A sweep of dark hair breezed across his forehead, shielding eyes that bored into me. Some of that anger descended my way, dark eyebrows above like storm clouds.
Knight Reed wet his lips, a rock raised above his head. Frozen, he stared at me, the thing dripping red onto the mass of fur on the ground below him. Backing away, Royal put space between himself and the scene, but Knight hadn’t moved. He stayed, watching me, and closer now, I saw what he hovered over. Before I had met Old Man Peabody’s dog, I used to like looking at the animal behind the fence. It was so innocent, caged, and I had always wanted to free him.
That was until he’d started chasing me.
Black and cream spotted, that dog lay dead now, its head smashed in and its brain oozing out of its scull like soup. I’d never seen real insides before that, not even on TV, and Knight Reed hovered over it all, raging and breathy with a rock I knew now… was covered in blood. It leaked from it like a river, and Knight only dropped it when I slammed to my knees. My head falling forward, I got sick again.
At least this time I missed my shorts.
Chapter One
Greer - age 19
The water in the sink shifted to red, deep and crimson like a vision pulled from my memories. My thoughts traveled back to the past when I’d been nine, a bleeding dog before my eyes and a boy with a dark and sinful stare looking at me. Wicked, he peered on with nothing but a pointed gleam at me.
Just like he did now.
I was aware of that same gleam hovering over me at the present, lingering as I scrubbed and scrubbed at the skin stained red. The friction of the wash burned, my skin threatening to come off as I washed it so hard. All the while that glare found me, a large presence following as the boy with the brown eyes made his way into the bathroom with me. He was no longer that boy, but a man of size and firm stature. He was a man of presence and heat that did nothing but make my heart race.
If only it could be for the right reasons.
A slow reach and Knight Reed tugged at my sleeve, exposing skin covered in the same red I was attempting to rub away. It’d made it everywhere, even up my sleeve.
“You’ll miss your arms,” he said, and I found his eyes again. They immediately swallowed me up in their ebony depths, a dark sea as rigid and harsh as when we’d been kids. He’d had so much anger as a child, and that same anger stared right back at me through the mirror. Those eyes shifted, and mine did too, to me this time in the mirror. It seemed I’d missed some of that red I was attempting to wash away...
The blood coated my face like freckles.
Earlier that night
Chapter Two
Knight
Behind a drink, I saw her, remembered her.
And she still managed to get mixed up with pricks.
Greer Michaelson couldn’t help getting herself in trouble, even after all this time and all these years. My frat brother Bryce’s arm was around her, the king of the entitled douchebags that roamed the halls of our frat house. I didn’t have to like every motherfucker here, and I especially didn’t like him, a special place in hell reserved for him and his lot.
I sipped at my beer, the brother guiding Greer around. Holding her like arm candy, he didn’t even acknowledge her, bumping fists with other brothers and friends. Had he actually seen her, he’d see her and sure as fuck wouldn’t be looking away.
I fucking wasn’t.
White blond hair curled a little at the ends, a pert nose and pink lips like a sweep above and below. Her chin round and her face oval, she flitted those wide eyes of hers innocently around the room. She hadn’t seen me yet and may not even recognize me, a far cry from that eleven-year-old with knobby knees and hair that couldn’t be tamed for shit. I also hadn’t lifted a weight until junior high, and needless to say, that scrawny-ass kid had filled out in the years since. I had trouble fitting through the frames of most doors these days, height or width.
Smirking at how much Greer had changed too, I drew off my beer. Curves and supple tits she hid behind a long sleeve crop top and acid-washed jeans sitting well above her navel. The things were basically grandma cut and went well with the whole nineties MTV video thing she was trying to pull. She definitely didn’t fit in this place, definitely looked like a freshman, and that was probably a big reason t
he second biggest guy in the room outside of myself preyed on her. He thought he could take advantage of that little white dove, pure and innocent as she pranced around the room with him. I hadn’t seen her in over ten years, but the memories had hardly left. I mean, she fucking lived in my house, she and her mom since her mom used to clean my grandfather’s manor. He basically raised me, and I saw that little dove often.
I shifted as Bryce guided Greer around, barely even speaking to her. The growl low in my throat, I recalled some of the last moments she’d been in my life. Things hadn’t been pretty toward the end there, and even being eleven I’d known that. Grandfather had tried to hide a lot of things from me growing up, shelter me, but even he couldn’t scrub away the real reason Greer and her mom had ultimately left. It’d been very much because of me and my grandfather’s need to keep drama out of my life. I’d been very fragile back then…
Veering my attention away from Greer and the spectacle, I transferred it to another blonde who vied for my attention. Melrose pushed her slender arms around me, a model outside of her college work, but even still she couldn’t reach my height. I folded an arm around her, an attempt to blend in and keep my attention off Greer fucking Michaelson. I couldn’t help but be intrigued. After all, I hadn’t seen her in so long and had been curious. Needless to say, a working model beneath my arm with her perfect tits pressed up against me proved to be enough to bring my head out of the past a little.
“Knight Reed. You can’t say hi to your fucking bro?”
That was until the clouds opened up and douchebag rains fell in, Bryce Coventry with the blast from my past under his arm.
“Bryce. Bro.” Ignoring Greer, I pounded the guy’s fist, very much aware that eyes that sparkled like sapphire cut jewels lingered in my direction. I couldn’t discover if Greer had put two and two together that she knew me yet, but she was definitely looking at me. Easing my arm back around Melrose, I tipped my chin at the girl with me. “You know Melrose.”
And did Bryce know her, his eyes mischief as he smoldered and grinned at one girl while holding onto another. The guy was just a tool like that, the pair of us cut from the same cloth in a few two many ways, but that was different since one of those girls today was Greer. I knew her.
And God did she know me.
Her lips parted in the most stunning of ways, her nervous lick across them inducing all kinds of fucking images and shooting them straight into my cock. My dick strained at my fly like I’d never had a pussy before, making me uncomfortable enough to hold tight onto Melrose. She might have to take care of me a little later, and with my digits brushing against her shoulder, she definitely got the point. She put a hand on my chest. “Bryce, who’s your friend?”
His friend was currently staring at me too. Like I said, she knew me. She knew our history, and the way her blue eyes bored into mine before finding Melrose told me that. She put her hand out to Melrose. “Greer Michaelson.”
“Melrose Andrews.” Her hand returned to my chest. “You’re new? I haven’t seen you around here, the campus or anything.”
“Just started actually.” Greer blinked, her attention shifting again. Oh, yeah. She definitely knew me. Her gaze drifted back to Melrose, and when she smiled, it did appear genuine. “I’m a freshman.”
“But sexy as fuck.” Bryce twirled her around, and the growl rumbled deep in my chest, more unnerved than I should be. I shouldn’t give a fuck about Greer Michaelson.
So why the fuck were my fingers digging into my beer bottle?
Maybe it was because I didn’t want to see someone so clearly pure and innocent being gobbled up by the king of the pricks, my ring restlessly tapping my beer before bringing it up to my lips. I eased the alcohol down in a thick lump, other images clouding my vision. I’d made the mistake of coming to this girl’s rescue before, something that had ultimately gotten her and her mom kicked out of my house in the first place. I remembered that thing with the dog well, my meddling well, and I brushed my fingers against Melrose’s shoulder. “I know you. Don’t I, Greer?”
Since I did, I might as well acknowledge it, and she appeared relieved that I had. At least, we wouldn’t have to pretend anymore, and she placed a hand on her chest, nodding at me. “Right. It’s been, what?”
“Ten years.” And I knew them well, my smile small. “How’s your mom doing?”
That’s when her smile fell and shifted to something else, what? Annoyance? Disdain? Honest to God, the line traveled so thin, but I couldn’t make it out. I just knew thoughts of our history were definitely playing across her mind, and whatever they entailed wasn’t making her happy. “She’s fine. Works on campus actually. That’s why we moved back here.”
And so my blast from the past had returned, her mom no doubt getting her a free education. No way could she afford the private tuition of Pembroke University, this school full of nothing but blood the pure color of blue. I was amongst that elite due to my familial ties, as most of the guys in this frat were.
The majority of us had been funneled over from my small town more than two hours away. Maywood Heights was a city of nothing but sin and the darkest elite, a brotherhood known as the Court the main reason why. Basically a boys’ club, it bred our fathers and grandfathers into some of the most powerful men in this country, not just our small town, and was the reason why myself and many others in this room wore the very rings on our fingers. It had a gorilla pressed into the chrome finish, and though there may be miles between us and Maywood Heights, that didn’t mean the values stayed behind. I liked to think I rose above some of the riffraff that came out of there, but even I wasn’t innocent. I had a past just like everyone else, and this girl before me had seen some of it.
I nodded at Greer, what she said, and when Bryce exchanged a glance between us, I smirked at him. “Greer’s mom used to work for me.”
“His grandfather,” she cut in, a little fire cat to that innocent image she portrayed. It turned me on more than I’d readily admit, her smile wide on me. “He’s actually the reason she got fired.”
“Fucking yeah?” Bryce balked, then slapped his hand against my chest. “What did you do?”
“Nothing worth noting now.” I shifted my attention to Greer. “It’s been a long time.”
It had been a long time, and though I’d been a snot-nosed little kid last time I’d known her, the reaction she elicited out of me now I couldn’t so easily lock down in the past and pass off as a little brat kid with an infatuation with the first girl his grandfather threw in front of him. Greer Michaelson unnerved me, was under my skin, and I felt that each time my slime ball frat brother rubbed her shoulders and pressed his nose into her white blond hair. She wasn’t in his league—at all—and that was because she was better than him. Better than all this.
“How do you two know each other?” I fought heat in my voice staring at them, trying to distract myself with Melrose and her perfect tits as she pressed her pebbled nipples up against me. They strained at her top and everything, the girl hungry for me as she lazily drew fingers across my abs through my T-shirt.
Greer noticed when I glanced over to her, frowning, and though she opened her mouth to speak the douche prick wouldn’t let her.
“Just met at a club tonight,” he crooned, the girl basically fresh meat under his arm. He jiggled her, the ass hat basically trying to fondle her when he moved his hand around and brushed his fingers against her side boob. Greer immediately tried to ease away, clearly uncomfortable, but he kept her there.
My hand squeezed glass, and complacent, she let him hold her. He was in a position of power, and she allowed it, probably not wanting to be rude. With a tap against his arm, she did eventually push away though.
“I’m going to get a drink.” A breath pulled from her lips, clear relief from no longer being fucking fondled. But with a move, Bryce got back right into that.
He brought her to him by the hips, then pinched her chin. “Get me a beer?”
She nodded, again I think t
o keep the peace. She passed me barely a look, and before I knew it, I was telling Melrose to follow after her.
“Get yourself something,” I told her, wanting to talk to this cocksucker alone. If he was going to be talking to Greer, he wouldn’t be fucking with her. I raised my bottle. “And me one too.”
Melrose more than wanted to oblige like most girls in her position; being in my hometown gave me power. Then coming here, a new elite made up of people from where I was from and similar places around the globe, the same. Pembroke University had its own caste system, and as far as myself or anyone else in this fucking room was concerned, I was the king. My grandfather and my family basically funded half the programs on this campus, a building named after my family and shit. That was something I was about to let Bryce Coventry know and started right in on it the moment I asked for some of his time. It was a request mostly out of formality. The dick would do anything I fucking wanted if asked.
We ended up taking our talk upstairs and out of earshot of the party beneath. I didn’t know how loud I’d get, and it would get loud if this guy fucked with me.
In his room, Bryce immediately started texting someone, and I closed the door. He had a bar set up like most of our rooms in a house meant for the privileged, so I decided to help myself to scotch.
“What’s this about, brother?” he asked me, still texting when I turned around, and after I asked him about that, he smirked. “Just telling Greer where we’re at. Want me to get her up here?”
Curious, I took my drink, lounging back against the wall. “Why?”
“I don’t know. Thinking you, me, her.” Waggling his eyebrows, he went back to his phone, then after, he tossed it on the bed. “I told her to go ahead and come up. We can have a good time with her. I bet she’d be game, and if she’s not…” He reached over to his end table, pulling out a little bag. Clear, there were several pills inside, and it didn’t take a scientist to figure out what he held.
