Beasts in the Shadows (Castlehill University #1)

Chapter 1

“Wicked stepmothers are not just found in fairytales,” I whispered under my breath, gazing out the carriage window at the glorious vista of rolling hills and conifer trees as the train curved around a bend toward Castlehill University. “Even her laughter was more like a cackle.”

I glanced at the students in the seat parallel to mine to make sure they didn’t notice me talking to myself, and luckily, they were plugged in to their phones, wearing grim expressions on their faces that showed their lack of enthusiasm for the new school year, which hardly filled me with hope.

I hated her the day my father started dating her two months after my mother's death. I hated her when she took my mom’s old black Labrador to the vet to be put to sleep, and I hate her now as I sit on this rickety train traveling to a place I’d never been before.

The sole reason I was attending this school was because of her.

She wanted me out of her hair and out of my father’s business.

So, a deal was struck that if I transferred to Castlehill for my sophomore year, and received straight A’s, graduated with honors, then I’d be rewarded with a position in my father’s business.

A position in my father’s business meant that I could watch over the woman who was trying to squeeze me out of my inheritance.

“An evil stepmother straight out of Cinderella,” I murmured as someone opened the door between my carriage and the one ahead, allowing excitable cheering to flood into the space, which was filled with jocks tossing footballs about and playing music.

The door slammed shut, and the boisterous laughter was silenced again as I reached into my bag for a celery stick and munched on it while I perused my class schedule.

The scent of cologne drifted by, and I glanced up only to catch the sight of a broad-shouldered man in a white t-shirt walking away. That t-shirt was almost breaking at the seams, stretched as far as it could go over his thick arms and solid back.

A large field of miniature ponies caught my eye, bringing a sense of joy for only a few moments before the train curved around another bend, leaving the ponies behind us as a forest suddenly rose from the greenery.

But I couldn’t rest for long as pressure in my bladder urged me to leave my seat and find a bathroom, reluctantly. I’d been holding for the last hour because I didn’t want to leave my belongings with people I didn’t know or trust, but nature was calling, and I had to go.

I walked unsteadily toward the front of the carriage, where the jocks were partying, and found the bathroom door, swung it open to find that white t-shirt man with his back to me, holding a second man hard against the wall with his hand wrapped around his throat.

“What are you doing to that man?” I demanded, noticing the color draining from his face from the lack of air streaming into his lungs.

“Leave,” the white T-shirt man snarled without glancing back at me, and a shiver traveled down my spine from the dangerous venom in his tone.

I hesitated, deeply concerned for the man being choked, but then White T-Shirt dropped his hand away, and the man who was being choked waved his hand dismissively, “We’re just mucking around,” he confessed, but I didn’t believe them.

White T-Shirt started to back out of the cubicle, forcing me to shuffle backwards to get out of his way, as there was barely enough for him to turn around.

As they left the bathroom cubicle with the choked man unharmed, I watched to see if the bully White T would bother him again.

The choked man sat in the empty seat two rows down, while White T wandered to the back of the carriage, where a brunette appeared with a flirtatious smile, looking up at him as if he were a god.

Then the two of them exited through the door into the next carriage.

I tried to catch the eye of the choked man, but he seemed embarrassed, staring out the window while rubbing his throat.

In the interim, a girl slipped into the bathroom, and because I was almost at bursting point, I took a deep breath and opened the door into the noisy carriage where cap-wearing jocks were speaking in one-syllable language, grunting over something they found on their phones.

Let’s face it, they were probably watching porn or sports.

Luckily, the bathroom in this carriage was right by the door, so I didn’t have to walk past these men and the girls fawning over them.

I won’t lie, I find every single one of them terrifying.

Their towering, bulky bodies were dictated by high testosterone, sex on the brain, and large hands that could strangle a woman to death in seconds.

Definitely not my cup of tea, and I’ll assume that I wasn’t there.

I slipped into the bathroom and made sure the door was securely locked.

I pulled my jeans and panties down, then exhaled as the pressure in my abdomen was relieved.

Smug laughter rattled outside my door, followed by someone banging on it.

“Can’t a girl get some peace while she’s taking a pee in this shithole?

” I snarled to myself. But I quickly finished my business because I was worried that someone might steal my bag, which I had left in my seat.

Exiting the bathroom, I returned to my quiet carriage, which was a nice contrast to the party one, and paused by the choked man who was still staring out the window. “Are you okay?” I asked quietly.

He nodded, cheeks embarrassed as he’d just been humbled, even though he was the victim here. “I’m fine,” he blurted coldly, shooting a dark scowl at me as if I was annoying him. “Just drop it.”

Okay. Fine. I’ll leave him alone, but I didn’t feel good about it.

I found my seat and rejoiced in the silence of the carriage compared to the jock carriage ahead.

Sometimes I enjoyed silence so much that I forgot to communicate with people around me, family, friends, and classmates.

And when someone speaks to me, it takes a lot of effort to pull myself out of my thoughts.

My mother referred to me being a deep thinker, but that’s not entirely true.

In reality, I’m an escapist, preferring to live in my imagination rather than in reality, because at least I was in complete control of every event that took place in my head.

The train was ascending a winding hill, and the pace had slowed, but the view across the valley was awe-inspiring, with snowcapped mountains in the distance and forests.

We were really heading into the middle of nowhere, and I was both excited and nervous about that.

How easy was it to get back home if I needed to leave for an emergency, like, for example, if my evil stepmother shoved a pillow over my father’s face while he slept?

The view blacked out, and the entire carriage was steeped in darkness, and I startled for a second because it was unexpected. But it was only for a few moments before the train left the tunnel, and I could gaze at the wondrous vista again.

I was less jumpy when the train entered the next tunnel, and this time it was much longer, once again plunging the carriage into darkness.

I could hear the murmurs of students talking as a small light flickered in the seat in front of me, while a waft of cologne and cigarettes passed by my nose, turning my stomach.

The train left the tunnel, lighting up the carriage again, and I startled when a man was towering over me, hands resting on the back of the seat, gazing at me curiously. Tight white t-shirt stretched hard over those broad chest and shoulders, thick forearms, and enormous hands.

“Haven’t I seen you before?” his voice was deep and assertive, and he probably would be more suited in the jock carriage.

“No,” I replied taciturnly, “Well, I mean, were you the same man who was in the bathroom choking that man just now?” I didn’t see his face, but the size and the dark blond hair color were the same.

“Before then,” he kept his gaze on my face, making me nervous, yet he held no guilt or regret for assaulting that man earlier.

I shook my head. “You don’t look familiar to me.” That was a lie. As he stood before me and I could see his face properly, I swore I had seen him before, but I couldn’t picture where, particularly under these circumstances where I’d been put on the spot.

He chewed the inside of his mouth, glanced to the back of the carriage with casual confidence like he owned the world and everyone in it. When he focused his attention back on me, this time his eyes landed on my class schedule on the seat next to mine.

A realization came over him when he read something on the page and grunted, “Ah. I knew it.”

In response, I turned my schedule face down so he couldn’t pry and shot that square unshaven jaw a sharp scowl. “Haven’t you got a brunette to cater to?”

His eyebrows cocked. “Brunette?” Then it dawned on him. “Oh, her, yeah, she’s somewhere.” But his attention stayed on me, almost accusingly, as his finger pointed at my schedule. “I thought I recognized your face.”

“I have one of those faces,” I was trying to shaft him, but it wasn’t working. He must be confusing me for someone else. Or was this a pick-up line? No, surely not.

“Ah, no, you don’t. That’s why I recognized you. Boylen,” he mouthed my surname venomously as the skin on my forearms prickled. “You’re his daughter, ain’t you? Maxwell Boleyn’s daughter? Adaline or something?”

My cheeks burned, not because I was embarrassed but because he was speaking as if there was a history laden with dark secrets between my family and his. A history I wasn’t privy to. I was aware my father had enemies, but I didn’t think I’d meet one of them on a train heading to college.

“Who are you?” I pressed in an unfriendly tone, refusing to bow down to the power he obviously bestowed.

He grinned, revealing a dimple that would drive women wild, not me, of course. “Did your father send you here? Or was Castlehill your choice?”

I bit my lip, refusing to answer. “You haven’t answered my question. Who are you? Are you going to give me a name or not?”

He grunted, amused. “It was your father’s choosing or maybe your stepmother, right? You had no choice.”

“How do you know about my stepmother? No. Forget it,” I waved my hand dismissively. “I don’t like playing this game.”

That grin stretched across his dial. I bet life fell into his lap with little effort. He leaned forward so his lips were only a couple of inches away from my cheek. “Too bad, Boleyn. Because I love playing games, particularly with people who destroyed my family.”

My mouth parted in shock, struggling to find a suitable retort. I was about to snarl at the lout to eff off, but he did me a favor and stepped away finally, so I could breathe again. But unfortunately, he stalled and glanced back, smirking, “See you in class, Boleyn.”

“No, thank you,” I screwed my face up in disgust, before flipping my class schedule back over to assess how much he might’ve seen. My name in bold letters at the top of the page, Adina Boleyn, yet he likely called me Adeline deliberately, so I took offence. As if I cared what he thought of me.

But he recognized me from somewhere, and it will plague me until I find out. His confidence and relaxed nature told me that he held authority in some way and filled me with dread. The last thing I needed at a new school was to be bullied by a popular jock with a hidden agenda.

Feeling self-conscious, I opened my phone to look at my face in the camera.

Long jet-black curly hair, freckles across my nose, green eyes - nothing special to see here.

But to make myself invisible, I took my hair tie out of my backpack pocket and tied my hair into a ponytail.

I then found a plain black baseball cap and slid it on my head.

A pair of large sunglasses would complete the disguise, and if I kept my head down, hopefully he wouldn’t notice me again.

Scrolling through my contacts, I found my father’s number and wrote a message: Why have you sent me across enemy lines? There are people who hate the Boleyn family here. Are you trying to kill me?

Frustrated, I threw my phone down on the spare seat after pressing send, and the message stuck in purgatory because there was no phone reception up high on a mountain. Besides, I couldn’t guarantee that the evil stepmother wouldn’t read it and regretted my decision to message him.

My fingers tapped impatiently on my knee, feeling the walls close in on me, and the enchanting view seemed to drain of color, becoming frightening as my perceptions changed.

On edge, I kept looking out of that large figure in the white t-shirt, but I didn’t see him again for the rest of the journey. When the train made its final stretch along the tracks, I could see a large castle-like building rise from the ashes and hoped like hell that it wasn’t the university.

Sadly, my hopes were quashed when the train pulled up outside high iron gates that led directly into the mouth of the stone beast.

My heart felt heavy in my chest as I gathered my bags and rushed into the aisle with everyone else to disembark from the carriage. When I passed the man I found in a chokehold in the bathroom, he was still staring out the window, clearly waiting for everyone else to leave.

I hoped he’d turn my way, so I could smile, even though he made it clear he didn’t want my attention. But I couldn’t help but feel bad for him. Yet, I knew nothing of the situation. What did he do to annoy the brute in the white T, if anything?

Once I reached the end of the aisle, I turned back one last time to look at the man, and he was still staring out the window as his chest rose and fell as if he was beating off demons in his mind.