Page 1 of Cruel Elite (Princes of Ravenlake Academy 3)

1

Noah

It’s only mid-January, but it feels like early fall.

It’s just a bonfire party in the woods, but it feels like Hell.

Caleb doesn’t agree with me, though.

“For fuck’s sake, you are dramatic.” He rolls his eyes at me and nuzzles into his girlfriend, Haley. She giggles, and her dark brown hair slides in front of them like a curtain.

I can hear but—thank the fucking Lord—I can’t see the way their tongues are tangling together.

“There’s fire and sinners as far as the eye can see. Feels like Hell to me,” I respond.

Usually, Caleb would take this opportunity to point out his many angelic qualities as proof we couldn’t be in Hell.

But his mouth is too busy doing things God surely wouldn’t approve of.

That is, assuming the Big Guy Upstairs isn’t super into public displays of affection.

I sigh and go back to surveying the party.

Winter break is supposed to be exactly that—a break. A break from school, and more precisely, from my fellow Ravenlake Academy students.

Yet here I am, sitting in the woods with a horde of my shit-faced classmates. They’re drinking and laughing and making out all around me.

If it had just been us Golden Boys chilling, maybe I’d be in a better mood. But there are too many other people here I’d rather not see.

A beetle lands on my shoulder, buzzing in my ear. I lean forward and flick it into the flames.

“Fucking bugs,” I mutter.

More evidence that we’re in hell: flying cockroaches. What kind of sick pervert invents something like that?

Only one answer: Satan.

An ice cube pelts me in the chest. I look up to see Finn staring at me, eyebrow raised.

“What?”

“You’re being a buzzkill.” He holds up a beer can. “Get a drink and lighten up.”

Usually, Finn is on my side. At least, he used to be.

But that was before Lily.

Now, he’s “happy,” or so he says.

To which I say,congratu-fucking-lations.

On the other hand, at least he’s not tonguing down his girlfriend a foot away from me. So he’s at least one spot better than Caleb on my Shit List rankings.

“You know, Noah, three girls have already asked me if you’re here with anyone,” Lily says, tossing her platinum blonde hair over her shoulder. “It wouldn’t take much more than a look for you to be having a better time.”

Lily always had an artsy vibe, but she’s refined it since she and Finn started living in New York. She wears loose, paint-splattered jeans with a tight, long-sleeved crop top and chunky leather boots.

Nothing like the girl I would have imagined for Finn.

---