Prologue
2354 Words
Prologue
_________
SERAPHINA
The bass thrummed through the house, shaking the very foundation of the Morelli frat house. A haze of alcohol and smoke clouded the air, bodies pressed together, grinding to the beat of the music. The scent of expensive cologne, spilled beer, and sweat clung to the atmosphere, an intoxicating mix that made my pulse race.
I had turned eighteen a week ago. A freshman at Elite Lords University, and this was the first frat party I had ever attended. Not because I wanted to drink or dance, and finally decided to do what people of my age were doing. But because Dante Morelli, my stepbrother, was here.
I wanted him to see me. To see more than an annoyance, and an unwanted presence in his house. For once I wanted his attention, the same attention he showered half the female population with but never even spared me a glance.
Since the moment Mr Morelli brought us to his home, Dante had hated my mother for taking his dead mother’s place and had hated me equally for being my mother’s daughter. He had ignored me like I was a pesky little fly in his house he couldn’t wait to squash under his boot.
I didn’t even blame him. My mother was a gold digger, after all. Mr Morelli was her third husband, and she’d married him for the same reason she’d married the first two: money, and none of them was my father. I was just an accident she was saddled with. She didn’t love me, nor she loved any of her husband or the one she was now married to. She didn’t love anyone, except money.
But I digress.
Tonight wasn’t about my mother or her choices. Tonight was about me. About making Dante notice me. Because like the stupid fool I was, I somehow developed a crush on my indifferent step brother and I wanted his attention.
I looked down at myself, rubbing a hand down on the black dress I had spent hours picking, something I had seen the girls who hung around him and his best friends wear. Something tight, something that made me feel less like the unwanted girl he always saw me as.
But as I stepped inside, my decision wavered and whatever daring I’d harbored slowly started to fade off in the overwhelming crowd.
The house was packed. Students from our old high school and university mingled, uncaring if they were even of legal age to drink everyone had a red cup in their hand.
My gaze searched for the one person I’d come here for, but I didn’t find him or even his friends. They were called the Lords. It was a cliché but not when you look at the families they each belonged to.
Dante Morelli.
Oliver Romano.
Allister Hale.
They were the kings of ELU, untouchable, feared, and worshipped in equal measure.
Someone bumped into me. “Watch it!” The girl growled.
I blinked at her back as she disappeared, my heart thudding in my chest at the unfamiliar setting I was in. For a moment, I wondered if I should just leave. Maybe another time I’ll have the guts to share my feelings my step brother.
“Hey,” A boy from our high-school stopped in front of me. “Serena, right? What are you doing here?”
I pasted an uncomfortable smile on my face as I responded, “It’s Seraphina. I was just here for Dante. Do you know where he is?”
His eyes bounced from my face to my chest and then around. “Yeah, now I remember, you are his sister.” With that he left, not even answering me.
I sighed and looked around at the crowded place, everyone seemed to look too busy with their friends. But then my eyes fell on the girl in golden sequin dress. She was looking at her phone as she stood at the far wall, alone.
I made my way to her, to ask if she had seen any of the Lords but a group of girls accosted me midway and ushered me into the kitchen. “Hey, Seraphina!”
“Hi,” I mumbled. I recognised some of them from my classes at uni.
“You live with Dante, right?” One of them asked.
Another followed, “Of course, she is his sister.”
I wanted to correct her. But the third one held out a red cup for me. “Here, have a drink.”
When I didn’t take the cup, she grabbed my hand and thrust it in my grip. The fourth one asked, “So, tell us about Dante and his friends?”
Another, “Do they have girlfriends?”
The other one interjected. “I have heard they share.”
The group burst into giggles but I didn’t understand what was so funny. I took a step back from them and said, “I need to find him. Do you know where he is?”
The first one glared at me. “I thought you’d tell us where they are.”
“I don’t know, I am also looking for him.” I started to back out of the kitchen. “I’ll find him on my own. Thanks.”
I decided to check the pool area before I left and as I made my way through the crowded hall and corridors, I felt the need to just curl up into a ball and disappear. I hated crowds. I hated them since I was a kid, maybe it had to do something with my mother’s negligible parenting and parties she used to throw, uncaring of her little daughter.
When I finally came out to the pool area, surprisingly it was empty and dark. Only the pool lights illuminated the water and the surroundings with the hint of moonlight. I was about to leave when a whisper of voices had me stopping.
Another glance around revealed the three men reclining back on the couch, in their usual no f***s given pose. The three of them were a beautiful sight to look at, especially with the moonlight bathing their features.
I have studied my step brother and his best friends in last two years so much that now I knew what kind of men they were.
Dante was the storm. Tall, broad-shouldered, dark eyes that could strip you raw in a single glance. His presence alone commanded attention, a force of nature that made people step aside without him uttering a single word.
Oliver was the charmer. Blonde hair, blue eyes, and a devil-may-care grin that hid something dangerous beneath. He was the most outwardly friendly of the three, but rarely people knew better. His touch could be deadly when provoked.
And then there was Allister.
Allister Hale was the worst of them all. Quiet, calculating, and patient in a way that made my skin crawl. He was the predator who never rushed his kill, who made you think you were safe right until the moment he sank his teeth into you. His whiskey colored eyes held no warmth, no mercy. Only hunger for chaos.
And she was with them. The girl I hated.
Ivy Devereux.
The girl who had been their shadow since high school, a stunning brunette with a smile that screamed innocence and a body sculpted for sin. She was always there, clinging to them, especially Dante. And they treated her like she was a real life princess.
My stomach twisted at the sight of her curled against him, whispering something in his ear that made him smirk. That smirk. It burned through me, made my grip tighten around the red solo cup in my hand.
I turned, ready to leave. I was stupid to come here. I couldn’t compete with all these girls that roamed around them and not especially with Ivy Devereux.
I was struggling to make my way through the crowd when an arm draped around my shoulder and a whisper caressed my ear,
“Hey, beautiful…” I looked to the side and nearly lost my ability to speak. Because none other than Oliver Romano was standing beside me.
I snapped out of my daze. His lips curled in amusement, head tilted as he studied me like he wasn’t sure what to make of my presence. “Hi,” I murmured.
“Didn’t think this was your scene.”
He was right. It wasn’t. But today, I had come with a plan which I now realised I was just over my head. Before I could answer, a tall blonde glued herself to him. “Olli!”
I watched how his left eye twitched in irritation but the smile didn’t leave his face. He wrapped an arm around the blonde and stepped away from me. Before turning away, he looked at the cup in my hand. “Don’t drink.”
I didn’t know what came over me as I lifted the cup and drank. His lips pressed in a thin line before they lifted in a smirk. I didn’t understand the change, but then the air around me shifted.
My body tensed, the fine hairs at the back of my neck rising.
Dante.
I knew.
It could only be him for whom my body reacted like this.
Even though he had never paid me any attention and never stayed longer than five minutes in the same room with me, and yet I could feel it was him behind me as his heat engulfed me.
I whirled around my whole body hyper aware of him. At some point while I was in Oliver’s presence Dante had also come out of the swimming pool area.
His jaw clenched, irritation leaping into his dark eyes as they locked onto me. He stepped closer, seeming to suck the oxygen right out of my lungs.
“What are you doing here?” His voice was sharp, cutting through the noise like a blade and people stopped to stare.
“I—I—”
He didn’t let me finish. His hand reached out, grabbing my cup. He brought it to his nose, sniffed, and then with a look of utter disgust, tossed it aside.
Before I could react, his fingers wrapped around my wrist, tugging me toward the door. “Leave. This place is not for you.”
“But, I just wanted to see—”
He didn’t let me finish, he stopped and jerked me around in the middle of the hall between all the people looking at us. “You are not welcome here. If I see you again,” He leaned closer, his mean and cold words only for me. “I’ll f**k up your life.”
Rejection burned through me, humiliation clawing at my chest as he dragged me through the crowd to the door and pulled it open. And then practically threw me onto the porch. His eyes were cold, void of anything but annoyance.
“Go home, Seraphina.”
And then he was gone, slamming the door in my face.
I stood there, silent tears slipping down my cheeks when a cold, silken voice slithered through the night.
“This was the wrong place and wrong time to seduce your stepbrother, sweetheart.”
I stiffened. My stomach twisted as I turned slowly, because any sudden movement felt like it would cost me my life.
Allister Hale leaned against the doorframe, honey colored eyes gleaming like a predator who had just cornered his prey. Even the endearment that fell from his lips felt like a curse.
“I—I wasn’t—”
He smirked, taking a slow step toward me. “You know what happens to liars, don’t you?” His voice was soft, deceptively gentle. “They get punished.”
I swallowed thickly, taking a step back.
Big mistake.
My foot slipped on the porch step, and I gasped, arms flailing. Before I could hit the ground, Allister’s grip was there, firm, unyielding. His fingers dug into my arm and I knew his grip would leave bruises, as his lips curved into something sharp.
“Run, sweetheart,” he whispered, his voice laced with dark amusement. “Run back to that mansion and wait. Maybe when Dante’s done fúcking here, he’ll give you a taste of it too.”
As soon as I was upright, I shoved past him, my heart pounding as I stumbled down the steps. My hands fumbled for my phone, pulling up the cab app with trembling fingers.
I walked to the edge of the property and waited for the cab to pull up. As the house was far from middle of the town, almost secluded, it showed twenty minutes for the cab to arrive.
I should have left on foot.
I should’ve walked away instead of waiting for the cab.
But I stood there and that’s when I heard it.
A scream.
A loud cry that pierced the night air.
And then laughter.
Sinister. Cold. Cruel.
The kind that sent ice slithering down my spine.
My feet took me closer to the screams. And as I entered the woods, the moonlight glinted across something and I turned around just in time to see Allister passing from my left with a knife in his hand.
A sound of a twig to my right hand my head snapping up just in time to get a glimpse of Dante and Oliver. A twisted smile curled on Dante’s lips. A smile that made my blood freeze.
I should have backtracked. I should’ve gone back to wait for the cab.
I didn’t.
I followed them.
I followed them into the dark forest, my footsteps as silent as they could be.
When I saw them together and what they were doing, I became the witness to something I didn’t even understand.
And committed the ultimate sin that made the headlines and for which no one in the town forgive me. And let me forget.
_______
This Book is DARK BULLY ROMANCE with themes like Revenge, bully, húmiliation, reverse harem, MMMF, MF, and dúbious cónsent.
A. Gupta
- Writer
