Breaking Amara (Feral Boys of Westpoint #5)

Prologue Julian

There are two types of silence at Westpoint Academy. The first is the stifling hush of tradition, smeared on every stone by centuries of ritual. The second is the aftermath of violence, a pause thickened by humiliation, pain, and the faint scent of fear.

Tonight, the Feral Boys’ wing is heavy with both.

I recline in a leather armchair, one ankle crossed over the opposite knee, an unblemished crystal tumbler balanced on my thigh. The bourbon is older than most of the student body. In this light, it glows like a captured sunset.

On my lap, a woman. Blonde, with a fat ass, not a student, just someone who comes when called.

She’s not paid to speak, so she doesn’t.

Her thigh muscles tremble as she grinds against me, working for a reaction that isn’t coming.

Her hands knead my chest through fine cotton, nails tracing the ridge of my sternum with professional optimism.

I study her scalp. Roots the color of dishwater. A rash of acne along her jaw, hidden with cheap concealer. There is a transient, brittle quality to her beauty, the sort that bends under scrutiny, then shatters.

She looks up at me through false lashes. The act is supposed to read as inviting, but she flinches at the cold scrutiny in my gaze.

To be honest, I don’t know why I called her here. Guess I needed my mind off of the one thing that’s been running through it since I heard he news.

Amara Marcus.

This is a distraction, but not the one I want. My thoughts drift, as they always do, to the reason my father made me attend the Academy: the next Hunt.

My Hunt.

I take another sip of bourbon and let the liquor burn through my tongue, corroding the taste of cheap lipstick.

My father, the Governor, called me after I got home with the same blunt precision he uses to order executions. “Your Hunt will go as scheduled. Don’t fail the Roth name,” he’d said. “See to it that her family’s loyalties do not… waver or kill her.”

Dean Marcus’s bloodline is an embarrassment of riches—hedge fund capital, international influence, a direct line to the White House.

His daughter, Amara, is the forbidden fruit of this tree, locked in an ivory tower and guarded by a squadron of security that would make the Secret Service look underfunded.

The dancer’s hands are on my fly now, clumsy and insistent.

Her mouth presses to my neck, the scent of peppermint gum eclipsing the bourbon.

There’s a logic to her movements: a calculus of need, compensation, and old-fashioned greed.

She’s paid by the minute and incentivized by tip.

I let her work for a while. It amuses me.

It’s all chump change anyway.

Her tongue finds my jaw. She bites, hard enough to sting, and whispers something she thinks is dirty. I look at her, and the smile I give is pure condescension.

“Are you bored?” she asks, voice raw from disuse.

“Indeed I am.”

She pouts. “I can do more. Anything.”

This is the point where most men say yes. Consent is implicit. But I’m not here to fuck, or even to be entertained. I’m here to confirm a hypothesis: that desire is just a variant of hunger, and hunger is always, inevitably, about power.

I place a hand around her throat, thumb pressed to her windpipe. Her eyes widen—part fear, part anticipation. She’s been choked before. Probably prefers it.

“Try harder,” I say. The words are soft, the grip is not.

She whimpers, wriggling closer, desperate to please.

Her hand is inside my shirt now, nails dragging over muscle, then down.

When she slides her palm beneath my waistband, I let her because the frown that accompanies her frown at my flaccid cock is almost enough to make me laugh.

I want to see how far she’ll go for the illusion of control.

The answer: too far.

She fumbles with my belt, fingers slick with sweat, breathing ragged against my shoulder.

She looks at me, pleading, to help her, but I don’t.

She’s desperate so she switches tactics.

If she can’t get the belt off, she will try dry humping me until I’m hard.

It won’t work because I can’t stop comparing her to the woman I will claim as mine.

The moment her other hand slips between my thighs over my pants, I tighten my grip on her throat and twist, using the leverage to throw her to the floor.

She lands hard, arms splayed in an undignified heap, one stiletto flying off into the gloom. For a moment she just blinks, stunned. Then she scrambles upright, fury and humiliation flaring on her face.

“You’re an asshole,” she spits. Her lower lip is bleeding where her teeth punctured it on the landing.

I adjust my cuffs, smooth the front of my trousers, and look down at her. “Get out.”

She hesitates, eyes flickering to the corner where her purse is abandoned. “My—”

“Now.”

It’s not a shout. I never shout. But my voice does something to the room, slicing through the dull, bass-heavy music and scaring her enough into movement.

She shudders. And then, in a sudden flurry of motion, she snatches up her purse and totters out, clutching the remains of her dignity around her like a cocktail napkin.

Silence again. The second kind. The kind I prefer.

I stand and walk to the window. The campus outside is a gothic fever dream—spires, gargoyles, ancient oaks shivering in the wind. The sky is black and moody, my favorite kind of weather. Westpoint never looks better than on the edge of a storm.

I roll the glass in my hand, watching the ice bob up and down.

They think pairing me with Amara is a leash. An arranged marriage in all but name, designed to yoke two dynasties and harvest the resulting offspring for future Boards. They think I’ll fall in line, because I always have.

But they’ve underestimated two things. First, I never do what I’m told. Second, I never want what I’m given.

I don’t want her because they want to pair us.

I want her because I like to break pretty things, just because I can.

The door opens. I don’t turn, but I feel the presence behind me.

“Dinner’s up, if you wanna come. Colt and Rhett are there with the girls.” Bam says and I turn to nod.

“Yep, give me a minute to change. You guys coming to chill after?”

He shrugs, “Dahlia wants to watch some chick flick, but I might be able to twist her arm. She had a rough day in Agriculture. Her orchids died.”

I don’t care so I just wave him off. “Be there soon.”

He leaves, shutting the door behind him as I head to my room and pick tonight’s attire.

My shirt is bone white and starched within an inch of its life.

I leave the top two buttons undone—a calculated breach of protocol.

The trousers are black, the shoes Italian, the cufflinks have an R carved into them, my family crest. The suit jacket hangs from my shoulders with the grace of a death shroud.

In the mirror, I am a work of deliberate violence.

I comb my hair back, exposing the sharp lines of my jaw, and touch the bruised bite on my neck. The dancer’s last gift. My lips curve in a sneer. I want them to see it tonight. I want them to ask.

There’s a psychology to dominance at Westpoint. Most students enforce it with volume, laughter, threats, the casual brutality of the privileged. I prefer a quieter method. Stillness. A refusal to look away. Silence is a lever; pull hard enough, and you can move whole empires.

I step into the hallway, the soles of my shoes echoing in the corridor.

Westpoint after dark is a mausoleum. After the rebuild, they decided to up the ante, making this place even more gloomy than it was before.

Suits of armor, real ones, flank the entry to the main staircase.

The banner above the landing reads: TRADITIO · ORDO · POTESTAS.

Tradition. Order. Power.

I descend, unhurried, savoring the scent of old books and cold air.

At the bottom, two juniors in navy blazers freeze at my approach.

One drops his eyes; the other tries to hold my gaze, then flinches and looks away.

They split to let me pass, like peasants parting before a king. I don’t acknowledge them.

In the lobby, a cluster of girls huddles near the entrance, necks craned, voices pitched low and conspiratorial. One stares at me, biting her bottom lip, in a piss poor attempt at seduction.

She just looks stupid.

The dining hall is at the heart of the building, a cathedral of cut stone and stained glass.

Tables are arranged in order of importance, with the poors at the back and the royalty on a platform at the front.

Just the way it should be. The ceiling soars above, lost in shadow, candlelight crawling up the walls.

I’m about to enter and join the Boys, and that’s when I see her.

She stands alone beneath the marble arch, backlit by the chandeliers. Amara Marcus.

She’s not what I expected. Her skin is too pale for health, and her hair, blonde, gleams with the soft shine of privilege, not dye.

The uniform fits perfectly: pleated skirt to mid-thigh, blazer crisp, no loose threads, not a single wrinkle.

She stands with her hands folded at her waist, posture so rigid she seems carved from wax.

Her eyes are cast down, but I sense she’s tracking every movement in the room. Like an animal waiting for the trap to close.

I slow my walk. I don’t want to approach yet. I want to study her.

The rumors said she was beautiful. They always do. But beauty, to me, is just a metric—a ratio of symmetry to anomaly. Amara is not a standard deviation. She’s the raw data. There’s an emptiness in her expression, a refusal to participate in her myth. The effect is jarring.

For a moment, I wonder if she knows I’m watching.

She doesn’t look up. But her jaw flexes, once, and she lifts a hand to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear.

My anger at being paired with her is gone. In its place: a curious, rising hunger.

It’s the kind of hunger you feel staring down from the roof of a tall building. The urge to see what would happen if you jumped. Or if you pushed someone else.

I imagine her seeing me for the first time. I want her to flinch. I want her to know, instantly and without doubt, that I am the architect of her future misery.

I want her to want it.

Moving closer, but not directly toward her. I circle, letting my footsteps ring out in the vaulted silence. I watch her eyes flicker at the sound. She glances up, just for a second, then drops her gaze again.

There’s fear there, yes. But something else. Calculation. Intelligence.

I lick my lips and taste bourbon, sweat, and the memory of peppermint.

The archway frames her perfectly, like a painting. I can see the pulse beating at her throat. I let the silence stretch. I want her to fill it.

She doesn’t. She just waits.

Time stretches. I wonder if she’ll look at me again. I wonder how long it will take before she breaks.

I glance away, feigning disinterest. I hear her exhale, slow and measured. There’s defiance in that breath. The first move.

I step forward. She looks up.

Our eyes meet, finally, and the world narrows to a point. Hers are gray—ice, not water. Cold and glassy, but not empty. There’s a challenge in them, the flicker of a dare.

My answering smile is feral and wild. She doesn’t even blink as she gives me a small smirk.

If they want to force us together, fine. I will turn alliance into annihilation.

My fuck this little wench is really trying to stare me down.

Me!

One thing is crystal fucking clear… she’s not prey. She’s the only thing worth chasing.

And I always catch what I hunt.