Arrivals
Cardan
Out of all the punishments his father had cooked up over the years, Cardan hated this one the most. And that was making quite a statement, because it truly was one of many. The list was long, including sending Cardan to his brother's snotty military school and bullying him into various unpleasant forms of volunteer work, the most horrible of which included wiping diarrhea off of dementia patients. Not to mention the dozens of destroyed phones, numerous runaway attempts, and that one time his father had dumped him off at a prison in Pennsylvania and left him there.
All of that was nothing compared to this.
Cardan was sitting on a jam-packed school bus. Behind him, two girls were standing up on their seats with their hands on the ceiling and were filming a questionable TikTok dance, one that involved hip gyrations and some very uncoordinated twerking. This in itself wasn't the punishment but it very well could be- the school year had just ended and Cardan wasn't in any hurry to relive the American education experience any sooner than he had to. Not that he'd be riding on the bus if he was.
No, Cardan had been carted off to summer camp. Not as a camper, thank the Lord, but as a counselor, which was only marginally better. The wheels on the bus went unsteadily over a bump in the road, and Cardan, caught unawares, hit his head on the window. Outside, the bus had just passed a sign.
It read "CAMP REDCAP" in very large and colorful letters and Cardan watched it pass by, feeling like a French Revolution captive being led past the guillotine. Cardan had stayed willfully ignorant about Camp Redcap, knowing only that it was run by one of his father's weirder friends: a notoriously bloodthirsty man named Madoc. He didn't know much about Madoc either, only that he was a filthy rich martial arts champion with a giant hard-on for anything involving violence. He was also a massive asshole- unless, of course, you were one of his three bitchy daughters.
Cardan privately took a moment to wonder if he was going to be expected to learn martial arts at Madoc's freaky summer camp.
It was exactly the sort of thing his brothers would put his dad up to. Balekin, military school nutcase that he was, probably thought it'd "put some hair on his chest". Golden boy Dain, who'd hated Cardan from the moment of his birth, was likely highly amused by the whole thing. And of all his sisters, the only one who gave a fuck was probably Rhyia, who was vacationing in Stockholm and in no place to come to his aid.
Cardan pictured rolling around on a gym mat in his boxers, trying not to get his ass kicked by some faceless heap of muscle. Or getting hit by a smelly punching bag. Or contracting syphilis off of a locker room floor. The possibilities were endless, really.
Cardan drew his backpack up from under his seat and settled it on the empty spot next to him. He hadn't been allowed to pack much, because that'd defeat the purpose of a punishment. But he had brought the essentials. His retinols and Vitamin C and hyaluronic acid serums and moisturizers were all in there, surreptitiously packed when Balekin had turned a blind eye.
Just as this lovely thought started properly warming up Cardan's insides, the bus turned onto an extremely bumpy dirt path dotted with potholes and the camp proper came into sight.
The rest of the bus promptly went wild. Cardan couldn't possibly imagine what for. He certainly couldn't picture the two TikTok girls learning Brazilian Jiu Jitsu or whatever the hell else Madoc had going for him here.
The bus came to an untimely and very bumpy stop, and although the ride was bad, Cardan liked this even less. At least he'd had a moment of reprieve before he got here. Now he had to get out and face the music.
He was the very last off the bus. He took so long, in fact, that the bus driver up front started threateningly revving the engine, as though implying he'd simply take Cardan back with him. Cardan wished he would. And then he thought of his father, Balekin, and Dain catching him sneaking back home and the undoubtedly worse punishment that'd bring. Maybe he'd get sent to one of those troubled teen ranches out in Utah, like the one Paris Hilton went to. Then again, maybe having something in common with Paris Hilton had its upsides.
It was only begrudgingly that Cardan got off the bus and stepped into the New Jersey summer air. It was humid, just like the rest of the East Coast in mid-June. His dark curls were plastered to the back of his neck in mass of sweat.
It wasn't like New York City was much better, but sweating like a pig in New York was about twenty times cooler than sweating like a pig in New Jersey. Around him, the landscape was frighteningly green. The camp was surrounded by sprawling green trees and even had a colorful lake in the middle, teeming with ducks and lilies and cattails. Cardan made a mental note to stay the hell away from that. Lakes like that were the perfect breeding ground for mosquitos, and if there was anything on planet Earth he hated more than his family, it was bug bites.
The first order of business at Camp Redcap turned out to be cabin assignments. Madoc looked down his nose at Cardan with obvious distaste and rifled through the sheets of paper on his clipboard.
"Greenbriar," he groused out. "To what do we owe the pleasure?"
"Evidently, my dear father decided it was time I get out of the house," Cardan said drily.
"Yes, I can see that." Madoc didn't seem to be buying it. "What'd you do this time? Run over another crossing guard with the lamborghini?"
Cardan scowled, because of out of all his misdeeds over the past couple years, the crossing guard incident had actually been an accident. The crossing guard hadn't even been badly hurt. He'd gotten away with a skinned knee and a sprained wrist.
Cardan raised his chin and looked Madoc defiantly in the face. "I poured lighter fluid on a lunch table and set fire to it, actually." Cardan was lying through his teeth, but Madoc didn't need to know that. Besides, it was exactly the sort of stunt Cardan was known for, and Madoc believed it without further fuss. Instead he just looked at Cardan with thinly veiled disgust, an expression Cardan had become very familiar with when it came to the faces of other people.
"Cabin 4. Get out of my sight, Greenbriar."
This Cardan was more than happy to do. He mussed his hair with one hand, pushing the curls off of his forehead. It was too damn hot. Bad day to have hair like his. Then, giving Madoc a haughty glance, Cardan shoved his hands into the back pocket of his Seven7s and strolled away unconcernedly.
Maybe he should have packed different pants. Denim and heat really did not go well together.
He kicked open the door to Cabin 4 and surveyed the room.
There were eight bunk beds and one single, and Cardan realized with a horrible jolt that he'd have to sleep in the same room as the children.
And to make matters worse, the other counselor had clearly gotten to the cabin first. In the bathroom, the shower was running. Plus the only single bed already had someone's stuff on it: a fancy leather backpack with gold buckles and all the bells and whistles- shoe compartment, laptop pocket, built-in phone charger and all. Someone had clearly paid a lot of money for that thing.
And so, Cardan wasted no time in dumping it onto the floor and claiming the bed for himself.
The other counselor's phone detached from the charger and went skidding under one of the bunk beds. Cardan ignored it, instead opting to inspect his sheets and pillow. Both were positively subpar compared to his bed at home. The mattress provided about as much back support as parking lot gravel and the linens felt scratchy and rough. Not to mention the pillow had a long, auburn-y brown hair on it. Curling his lip, Cardan threw the pillow into an empty bunk and extracted a clean pillow from another bed.
If he had to be here against his will, he might as well make everyone else miserable with him. Who was going to stop him? No one at his most recent school had ever had the guts.
He had just laid down and made himself comfortable when a voice sounded from the other side of the cabin.
"Wrong bed, fuckwit."
And just like that, Cardan's world went still. He recognized that voice, and instantly could have kicked himself. Of course. Of course she'd be here.
He sat up slowly to face Jude Duarte.
Jude Duarte, Madoc's favorite daughter and apparently his new partner counselor.
She was leaning against the doorframe of the bathroom, her hip cocked and her arms crossed. Her auburn-y brown hair was done up in that dumbass horn style she favored. She looked exactly like she had at the last school he got kicked out of. Cold. Disdainful. And unfortunately, still hot.
It took Cardan a considerable effort to look her in the face. Jude had very evidently just gotten out of the shower- her hair was just a bit damp around the back of her neck and she was wearing nothing but a towel.
That towel was putting in overtime. Jude's considerable chest was all but falling out of it, not that Cardan was looking. He was too busy being pissed at himself for not seeing this coming. In all his years of terrorizing schools- pissing off teachers and bullying fellow students, there was only one person who had ever truly made his life difficult. Only one person who'd ever refused to bend.
And she was standing right in front of him, naked save for a towel.
"Jude," he said, with as much contempt as he could muster. She looked ill-tempered, having evidently been assigned to Cardan Greenbriar Babysitting Duty.
"Cardan," she said right back, mimicking him. "I'm surprised your pampered ass got off the bus."
Cardan sneered. "So am I, with this camp being the shithole it is."
She glowered. "My dad runs this camp."
"Believe me, I know."
Jude bent over, clutching at the frayed edges of her towel to her chest as she moved to pick the shiny leather backpack off the floor. Cardan wasn't looking. He wasn't.
Her breasts swayed softly, the towel doing next to nothing to keep them constrained. And if that wasn't bad enough, the palest hint of a freckled ass cheek was peeking out from underneath the navy blue cloth.
Cardan tore his gaze away with great difficulty.
"Where the fuck is my phone," Jude snapped at him, having finally retrieved her bag off the floor and having realized that her phone was gone. Cardan shrugged blithely and gestured with one foot under a nearby bunk bed.
Jude's face, somehow, seemed to freeze over even further.
"Well then," she hissed. "You put it under the bunk. Get your ass off my bed and go get it."
Cardan stared at the ceiling and imagined what'd happen if he refused. Firstly, she'd probably inflict some degree of grievous bodily harm on him. Then he pictured Jude in that short little towel creeping under the bed to get her phone, with her damp hair mussed and her skin flushed, and with that damned towel barely covering the necessary areas. And it was that mental image, not the threat of violence, that made him sit up. The unfortunate beginnings of whatever he felt toward Jude didn't need any more fuel than what it already had.
…
Twenty minutes and several dust bunnies later, Cardan had reluctantly followed Jude out of Cabin 4. He'd lost the bed, although his hopes of keeping it had been slim as soon as he'd seen who its owner was. He found himself evicted onto the top bunk of a bed across the room, which he resolved to bully the lower bunk inhabitant out of as soon as possible. Some of the brats would have to share a bed. Who cared.
They emerged into the center of camp for a meeting. Jude's sister Vivienne and her pink-haired girlfriend had been keeping the rabid horde of teens and children amused for the most part, but the campers' interest was beginning to grow thin.
Enter Cardan. And the twins, Jude and Taryn, who he both unfortunately already knew. And finally, three other teens. It was two boys and a girl- one boy with muscles the size of watermelons and very obnoxiously gelled blond hair. The other boy had an almost foxy face and ginger hair to match. There was a sort of shifty cleverness to the fox-faced boy's eyes, and Cardan immediately resolved himself to be wary of him.
But it was the girl who stood out.
She was porcelain-skinned with a sheet of navy-blue hair hanging down her back. She was astonishingly beautiful, with sharp, regal features: high cheekbones, full lips, and a small, synthetically perfect ski-slope nose that clashed spectacularly with the rest of her face. A nose that perfect could only conceivably be achieved through a nose job.
The girl with the nose job made direct eye contact with him. And then she smiled coyly, one manicured finger coming to rest softly on the corner of her lips.
He knew this game, and so he smiled back sweetly.
"I'm Nicasia," she said. "And you are?" She didn't ask for his name as much as she demanded it, but Cardan found he didn't mind. There was a certain degree of appeal to women like Nicasia, women who were assertive and no-nonsense and made it very clear what they wanted.
Out of the corner of his eye, he couldn't help but seek Jude out.
"Cardan," he said graciously, as though bestowing Nicasia with some kind of gift, and observed as her perfect eyebrows rose in interest. "Cardan Greenbriar?", she inquired.
Cardan gave her the kind of smile he gave photographers and adoring girls alike. "Clearly."
Nicasia wasted no time in getting close to him. She had a certain fragrance about her- like sugary vanilla and coffee, with a vaguely floral undertone. Carden knew that scent, because he'd smelled it on about two-thirds of the girls he'd taken to bed in the past few months. YSL's Black Opium. A generically delicious scent, advertised to make men drop at your feet and to send women into fits of envy. Maybe it had accomplished that once, before it had perfumed the neck of fifty million girls across America and lost its appeal.
"Those two are Valerian and Locke," she murmured, gesturing to the blond kid and foxface respectively. She looked up at him, her sleek navy hair falling elegantly out of her face. Her eyes, framed by long dark lashes, gazed up at him with calculated amusement. Cardan could see Nicasia doing the math in her head: he was rich, attractive, and a minor celebrity. She had much to gain from someone like him, and right that second, Cardan didn't mind being used.
"This is lame," she said breathily. "Let's go do something fun."
Cardan threw back one last look at Jude's sour expression as he let Nicasia and her friends pull him away.
End Chapter 1
