Burn Before Reading

  A girl meets a wolf.

  And a wolf meets his match.

  Beatrix Cruz - Bee for short - has exactly one goal; kick her dad's severe depression in the ass. She's got a foolproof plan;

  1. Get into the elite high school Lakecrest Preparatory on a scholarship

  2. Study like crazy

  3. Graduate into NYU and become a shrink

  Nothing can stand in her way - not even Lakecrest's rich, hot, and notorious Blackthorn brothers. Not Fitz Blackthorn, with his flirting and his elite computer hacking, not Burn Blackthorn, with his intimidating height and emotionless face, and certainly not sinfully handsome Wolf Blackthorn, who hands out 'red cards' to students who displease him, and expels the ones who keep doing it.

  But when Bee stands up for a student, she pisses off Wolf, and he's suddenly itching to pull her scholarship from underneath her. To keep it, Bee strikes a deal with the devil - father Blackthorn himself; spy on Mr. Blackthorn's sons, become friends with them, and learn their secrets in exchange for staying at Lakecrest.

  Betraying the Blackthorn brothers' trust is supposed to be easy.

  Becoming friends with the Blackthorn boys makes it hard.

  And falling in love with Wolf makes it impossible.

  BURN BEFORE READING

  A novel by Sara Wolf

  Also by Sara Wolf

  The Lovely Vicious Series

  Love Me Never

  Forget Me Not

  Remember Me Forever

  The EVE Chronicles

  Fear Me Not

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2017 by Sara Wolf. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact [email protected].

  WARNING: Page 282 contains two instances of a homophobic slur. Please be safe.

  For B, because life never follows that straightforward path.

  Chapter 1

  BEATRIX

  If I told you Lakecrest Preparatory School ruined my life forever, you wouldn't believe me.

  'But Bee!' You'd say. 'How can a collective of buildings centered around high school learning ruin your promising young life?' And I'd look you right in the eyes and grasp your innocent, naive hands and say three words;

  Wolfgang Alexander Blackthorn.

  And you'd be confused, of course, because who is he, and how can one person ruin a life forever? You'd have questions. Hell, I still do, even after all this time.

  But let's start from the beginning, shall we? God it feels good, saying that. Like this is a proper story, something long and epic that deserves to be written down. Maybe it doesn't. I did screw it up royally, after all.

  Whatever. I'm doing it anyway. A little screw-up's never stopped me before. I'm writing in the caveman style, too - with ink and paper instead of my laptop. I've had enough of computers, and phones. I've had enough of people texting me non-stop about how badly I messed up. And holy shit, did I mess up.

  Pen-and-paper is safer, too. Nobody can hack me, especially not Fitz, the sneaky bastard. We'll get to him, don't worry. All you need to know is Fitz is smart. Smarter than me, which I like to think is a feat in and of itself.

  Where the hell was I? Oh, right. Wolfgang Blackthorn, and how he ruined my life.

  And my heart.

  Let's start at the beginning.

  My name is Beatrix Cruz, and no matter what anyone else says, this is how it went down.

  ***

  It started three months ago, when someone left a very helpful and informative note in Eric Jones' locker.

  I didn't like Eric. I still don't. I barely knew him at the time, but we had art class together and I'd just started at Lakecrest and asking him to pass me the charcoal was about as much of a friend as I'd made thus far. The note was a red post-it, with just the word STOP on it. I knew that because his locker was also right next to mine, and I saw him take it out with shaking hands.

  He looked up at me, his mousy brown hair - which always reminded me of a dirty mop - quivering with the rest of his body. Being both a kind and considerate member of society, I voiced my concern gently.

  "What's up, my dude?"

  Eric gestured at the post-it. It took a while, but I solved his riddle.

  "Ah! So either you've contracted lockjaw, or I'm supposed to know what that is. You do realize I've been here all of two weeks, right?"

  "It's a red-card," He whispered.

  "From...a soccer match?" I tried. He suddenly looked even more scared. "A teacher? The principal? I've got it - the Principal's soccer match!"

  While I played one-man charades, Eric's eyes rooted over my shoulder, and I could hear a faint crescendo of laughing, giggling, and 'good mornings'. At that point I'd spent all of fourteen days at Lakecrest, but I already knew who was causing the ruckus.

  "The Blackthorns," I sighed, and turned to watch their approach. It was dazzling, to say the least. Good-looking guys of their caliber don't usually show up until like, college. Or until you turn on the TV. Even in a richy-rich Pacific Northwest school like Lakecrest, where every single student drives their own BMW or Mercedes or, at the very least, a brand-new Prius, a huge majority of the guys didn't give a second thought to their appearance. Sure, they all wore the same gray plaid and brass-buttoned uniform, but some of them knew how to take showers more than once a week, and some of them definitely filled it out better than others, thanks to puberty.

  Unfortunately, the Blackthorn brothers filled it out the best. Doubly unfortunately, every girl in school loved them for it. It was genes, some whispered. I once caught two teachers arguing whether or not it was plastic surgery. God knows they could afford it - with their dad being CEO of a huge shipping firm. Whatever it was, it worked. Pretty people get everything they want, and no one stops them. Everyone the Blackthorn brothers passed in the hall chimed in with a 'hello' or a slight wave, even the guys, and the shier girls just made do with lingering glances.

  You know me, paper-and-pen. You know I absolutely despise people who have it easy. And the Blackthorns had it so easy. They were rich. They were gorgeous. And everyone liked them. They lived charmed lives.

  Or so I thought at the time.

  Anyway, it wasn't the fact everyone stared at them constantly and would stare at them for the rest of eternity until they left the room that pissed me off. It was the fact they never seemed to care about the attention.

  There was Bernard, or Burn, for short. Taller than his brothers by at least a head, he was the oldest of three - a senior. His green eyes were always heavy-lidded, like he was perpetually on the verge of falling asleep, though he had the same dark, thick lashes as his brothers and high cheekbones. I knew he was on the Varsity basketball team, and was the whole reason Lakecrest went to states for four years. He didn't talk much, but he didn't need to. With his height and width, he was more than a little intimidating. Some people called him 'the bear', half-jokingly, half-terrified. Now that I think about it, he was definitely most of the reason people gave the Blackthorn brothers such a wide berth, physically speaking.

  The second brother was Fitzwilliam - Fitz, to everyone outside his family. Aside from the fact their mother was clearly on a big Victorian England trip when she named her sons, he was the most likable. And by 'likable' I mean he deigned to acknowledge people. Sometimes. If they were pretty enough for his tastes. He grinned more than the other two brothers. Once, he even winked at a girl, and the poor thing dropped her textbooks o
n her foot and she limped for a whole week straight with a dumbstruck smile on her face. The teachers and staff at Lakecrest were just as susceptible to his charms - he had a way with a smile and a compliment that got even Mr. Nomsky, the grizzled old English teacher, to soften up. Fitz was part of the computer science club, though I'd heard from the other members he never attended a single after-school meeting.

  Fitz had wavy hair like golden lace, neatly slicked-back, and the same green eyes as Burn, but with a friendlier edge to them. He was the only one with freckles on his nose, and he wore his uniform like it was a casual toga - his tie-half loose and his jacket slung over his shoulders. He was the baby of the three, and it showed in the way he never took anything seriously. I had three classes with him, since he was a sophomore, too, and not once did I see him pick up his pencil or try to read the textbook. And strangely enough, the teachers never harped on him to do it, either. I chalked it up to the general unfairness of wealth until I saw his test results; nothing lower than 98% on every single test. And here I was, busting my ass from the time I got home from school till midnight just to make an 80% in one of the most strict, college-oriented curriculums in the country. Needless to say, I hated him. Still do, actually, but back then I hated him without knowing him.

  And finally, we came to the grand emperor of all evil - Wolfgang himself. He didn't always walk in-between the other two, but he seemed to like to, as if they were his personal gargoyles instead of his brothers. Taller than Fitz, but a hair's shorter than Burn, Wolfgang - or Wolf for short, because of course there's always a 'for short' with them - walked like a sidewinder moves in sand; utter silence and perfect poise. I think that's what intimidated most people - that he looked like he could never be ruffled, or upset, or tilted off-balance, not even by a passing tornado. There was something unshakeable about the way he held his head, his broad shoulders. It scared people. Well, maybe it was also the fact it looked like he hated everything. Where his brothers' eyes were green, Wolf's were brown-green, hazel if you really wanna get all gushy and poetic with something like Satan's eye color. Regardless, Wolf's eyes burned. They burned with a deep poison I can only describe as utter contempt. His gaze was always sharp, and started to hurt a bit if you maintained eye contact with him for too long. It was a small mercy his hair was as dark a black and shaggy as it was - it got in his eyes a lot, and put a buffer between the world and his acid-fire. Unlike Fitz, he wore his uniform perfectly pressed, though he always kept several silver rings on different fingers, and it was no secret he played with them, turning them around his skin in idle moments, or even when he walked. The middle brother, Wolf was a junior, and the rumors were already swirling he was poised to go to an Ivy League. He was on the Varsity swimming team, and nothing else.

  Burn was the quiet one, Fitz was the flirty one, and Wolf was the nasty one. Everyone knew that.

  And as they approached Eric and I, I realized from Eric's stare and the way he started trembling harder that they were the ones who sent him the post-it. I grabbed it from his fingers and waved it as the Blackthorn brothers came close.

  "So you're the ones who gave Eric this weird, ineffective paper stop-sign, huh?" I asked. Wolf spun a ring on his finger and pointed his volcanic glare at me.

  "This doesn't involve you, scholarshipper. I suggest you keep your nose out of this." He snarled.

  Burn, obviously used to Wolf's usual venom, closed his eyes and leaned on the lockers like he was taking a casual nap. Fitz turned to the hallway railing and watched the clouds go by, as if he was bored by it all. Scholarshipper. Of course he'd use the fact I'm the only one on scholarship to this school against me. Everyone else had mommies and daddies who could pay for such a prestigious place. I took a deep breath.

  "And I suggest you go back to Hot Topic and give them their entire juvenile angst section you've clearly gobbled up and repurposed as a personality."

  Burn cracked an eye open. Fitz turned his head over his shoulder, one eyebrow raised. Wolf narrowed his long-lashed eyes to slits. Eric probably peed himself.

  "Who do you think you are?" Wolf asked. The way he said it, dark and low and serrated like a knife, made me realize for a split-second why Eric might've pissed his pants. Beneath all that rich-boy angst, Wolf had an anger in him, a genuine, awful fire. Burn might've been the brawn behind the Blackthorns, and Fitz the affability, but Wolf was the fear.

  "I'm just a scholarshipper," I said brightly to counter his darkness. "Minding her own business."

  "You clearly aren't," Fitz chimed in with sweet smile, voice like cool honey compared to Wolf's ragged one. "This is none of your business."

  "You're right. One sec." I held up the post-it and ripped it in half, letting the paper flutter to the floor. I've always been one for dramatics. And for a fair fight. Eric versus all three of the Blackthorns wasn't fair by any definition in the solar system. I smiled at Fitz. "Now it's my business."

  Eric let out a sound like a squeezed piglet behind me. A murmur ran through the interested crowd watching us. Burn stood up straight all of a sudden, brow furrowed. Wolf had less neutral feelings about it. He leaned in so fast I barely had time to breathe, his height towering over me. I came up to his shoulders, but I wouldn't give him the satisfaction of looking up at him, so I fixated my gaze on his throat. He hovered, just in front of me, no part of us touching, and yet I felt him like a thousand pounds of coals on my skin.

  "The McCaroll scholarship is the one you're hanging onto by a thread, right?" He murmured, and though his words were quieter they somehow burned even hotter.

  I didn't grace him with a response. He chuckled, the sound completely humorless.

  "Who do you think pays for that scholarship?"

  "The school," I retaliated.

  "And the school pays for it with donations," He led on. "Of which seventy-five percent is donated from Blackthorn Shipping Industries, LLC."

  I swallowed so hard I swore he heard it.

  "Your father has depression, and your mother works overtime at Southern General. Lakecrest is the only way someone like you can get into NYU for that high-end psychology degree you've always wanted, isn't it?"

  The lump in my throat fell to my stomach. "How do you know that -"

  "If I catch you interfering with my red-cards again, you're gone." He hissed. "No scholarship. No NYU. Nothing."

  All my muscles locked up, like I'd been poisoned. My head was spinning so fast I didn't even notice Wolf and his brothers leave, until Eric patted me on the shoulder.

  "Hey, are you okay?" He asked. His voice and the ring of the tardy bell pulled me out of it.

  "Y-Yeah. I'm fine. As fine as you can be when you've been threatened by Beelzebub himself."

  Eric nodded, picking up the halves of the red-card I'd ripped.

  "What was that all about? Why'd they give it to you in the first place?" I asked. Eric shrugged.

  "Red cards. It’s a signal to rest of the school, basically. Whoever gets one gets shunned by the rest of Lakecrest.”

  “What? That’s insane!”

  He shrugged. “It’s how things are around here. Wolf gives it to people who're doing something he doesn’t like."

  "Do you know what it was?"

  He sighed. "I've got an idea. Hopefully it's the right one."

  "You can't just -" I inhaled, feeling the blood rush back to my buzzing head. "You can't let those spoiled assholes push you around like that! So what if they don't like something you did? So what if they're rich? You don't answer to them!"

  Eric laughed, the sound bitter. "It's Lakecrest, Bee. Everyone answers to them."

  "Well I sure as hell don't."

  He shook his head and started towards his class. "Then you won't last very long, here. You ever hear about Mark Gerund?"

  "Who?"

  "Freshman, about two years ago. He was a scholarship kid, too. But then he got in a fight with Wolf at school, like a hardcore fist-fight."

  "Surely he wasn't
murdered for a bit of punching," I laughed nervously.

  Eric shrugged. "Whatever happened to him, we never saw him at school again. The teachers didn't mention him, either. It was like he...disappeared. Wolf seemed pretty happy about it afterward." The tardy bell rang, and Eric started. "Crap - gotta go. Thanks for your help."

  I watched him leave, feeling numb and cold.

  Chapter 2

  I spent the rest of the day trying to get Eric's words out of my head, and Wolf's pressure off my skin. And by that, I mean I curled up in the library. My sanctuary. My safe-haven.

  Lakecrest's library was a beautiful glass building, with pale wood tables and benches stacked with comfortable pillows. It overlooked the whole school, which back then I thought was incredible. It still is - the buildings are all old brick covered in ivy, with roman pillars and manicured lawns and walkways out of a storybook, with flower-covered trellises. Most of the flowers were wilting at that point, since October was setting in with chilly air. The library was the place I came to distance myself from everyone else, with their flashy cars and jewelry and non-stop chatter about new iPhones and who was having a party at whose house that weekend.

  I harrumphed and turned a page in my book, digging my butt deeper into the cushiony chair. I knew this place was for rich people when I applied, but I didn't know it was this bad. I'd been blinded by the incredible credentials of the teachers and the acceptance rate the students had getting into great colleges. Unlike most of my peers, I knew exactly what I wanted from high school - a better college. I didn't want to join clubs or go to parties. I wanted good grades, and to get out as soon as humanly possible.

  My phone rang in my pocket, and I pulled it out. It was a cheap Samsung, but it did the only thing I wanted from a phone - call people and maybe sometimes text them, if Mom could afford the bill that month.