Being the new girl in a new town is hard enough, but for Brayden Hayward it's damn near impossible. Especially when Ashton Philips, the king of the school, is determined to make her life a living hell. He tells her to stay out of his way, yet everyw...
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The mist rose from the trees as Brayden ran to get away. She didn't know where she was going, or really where she was—she had just moved here—but she knew that he was chasing her. And that was enough to convince her to keep running. Being in the woods, she was completely out of her element, but maybe if she moved fast enough, she could lose him in the elusive forest. Those hopes were quickly dashed to pieces when she heard people crashing through the trees and running footsteps.
"Fuck," Brayden muttered as she looked behind her. "He brought reinforcements."
She had no idea what she'd done to piss off the king of the school, besides merely existing, but she did know that if she let him catch her then it would all be over. She already felt like it was over when she walked into Jensen High for the first time and was branded Wolf Girl by the asshole and the asshole's cronies. She was under no delusions that her first day at a new school would be like something out of a high school bully romance novel where the popular guy would give her a hard time, but actually had complicated feelings for her. Ashton Philips had feelings for her, alright, but they weren't complicated. He absolutely despised her.
Did she wish her experience had turned out the way it did in those books? Of course. But life wasn't a fairy tale, and Ashton wasn't Prince Charming. He was the villain. A psychopath. An extremely sexy psychopath, but still a psychopath. He was also a fucking asshole who decided he didn't like her the moment she accidentally bumped into him on her way to class and made sure she paid for that mistake with every waking moment.
Brayden stopped for a second to catch her breath, positive that she'd lost them. She reveled in the tranquility of the forest, the sounds of water from the earlier rain storm dripping from the leaves, the squeaking of the bats, when she was suddenly knocked to the ground. Her face fell in the mud and she could feel it oozing into her eyes, momentarily blinding her. She felt his weight on her back, his strong chest that she became a little too familiar with that first day pushing her further into the ground. She could feel his wet breath in her ear, but for some odd reason she wasn't repulsed by it, she was excited by it. She could sense more than see his friends surrounding them, chortling at her misfortune, anticipating what his next move was going to be. Even his best friend Peter , whom had been semi friendly with her when they met, was there. He wasn't laughing at her, but he sure as hell wasn't helping her either. Ashton's brother Devon was missing, but he probably didn't want to be involved in this shit show. It was too bad really. Devon had the ability to calm his brother's violent tendencies.
"Did you really think you could get away from me that easily, Wolf Girl?" Ashton growled in her ear, sounding almost bestial.
"Ash. Come on, man. Maybe we should let her go. None of this is her fault," Peter protested. It's about time he spoke up, Brayden thought to herself, if only he had done it two weeks ago.
"Pete, either shut up or fuck off," Ashton snapped, though he did move his weight so she wasn't completely crushed. "This weakling doesn't belong in our world and I'm going to prove it one way or another."
Brayden didn't hear Peter protest again. All she heard was a huff, a wooshing sound, the crunching of leaves, then silence. He'd left her at the mercy of these boys who hated her. She closed her eyes, not sure about what Ashton was going to do now that Peter was gone, he was the jackass's moral compass, after all. What was going to happen to her? She was alone in the woods with this pack of boys—or men—who hated her for some obscure reason and didn't care whether she lived or died. Their options were endless. Her parents might notice she was gone if they ever looked up from their Blackberries, but that might take a few days. There was nobody around to care what happened to her and now Ashton was going to take full advantage of that fact.
As Brayden contemplated how exactly she got to this point, in the distance a wolf howled.
