Iris - The Intended Series - Book 1(Reverse Harem, N.A, Brothers)

Chapter One

CHAPTER ONE

Scarlett Age Seventeen

Ugh. My alarm was blaring beside me and the noise was cutting through me like a knife and waking me from another dreamless sleep. I hate Mondays. Oh and any other day that ends in a Y. Swinging my arm blindly, I mashed my hand on my bedside table in the hope of hitting the snooze button on my alarm. This morning I was off and instead of stopping the obnoxious noise, I sent my lamp tumbling to the ground. Caught by the plush thickness of my pink carpet, it barely made a sound but it was still enough to rouse my uncle next door. The pictures on my wall rattled as he brayed his meaty fist against the thin wall.

"Get your ass up Scarlett!" Came the muffled command from his lordships bed. "Yeah, yeah." I responded with my usual snark and eyeroll. My uncle became my guardian two years ago when my Mom was taken away from me by a drunk driver. Guilt gnawed away at me as I thought back to that night nearly two years ago. I blamed the drunk driver on the outside as I knew that was the rational response that everyone was looking for but on the inside, I knew that I was to blame.

Tammy Picata was the most popular girl in school and just so happened to be my best friend. From a young age, I had learnt how to be what everyone wanted me to be. I was able to become the perfect sheep to Tammy's dictatorship. WIth my long blonde hair and grey eyes, I was pretty enough to be included but plain enough to be unassuming. Pair that with my quiet nature and my ability to paste a believable smile in any situation made me the perfect, non threatening friend. But in truth, I wasn't this way. Inside, I was angry. I had a repressed rage from not being able to be myself and it burned within my gut with the intensity of a thousand suns. And the only thing that kept it at bay was the anti-depressants that I took every morning for as long as I could remember. I don't know what caused me to be this way, it was just how it has always been.

The week of my Mom's death, I was fifteen and had been going through a rebellious stage. I'd stopped taking my medication. It made me feel sleepy and hollow inside, and for once I was just desperate to feel anything other than the burning rage inside of me. By the time Tammy's sleepover came around that weekend, the drugs were out of my system and my tenuous hold on my anger slipped for just one moment. Tammy had been berating Briana for dating the new guy in school, telling her he was a loser and she was bringing the reputation of the group down just by being associated with him and although Briana really likes Will, she broke up with him not wanting to disrupt the status quo. That night, Tammy had casually brought up that she was now dating Will and showing her pictures of them making out. I'd known they had gone further, I was her number one bitch after all but it would never be spoken aloud to anyone else because you know... Reputation.

The heartbroken look in Briana's face snapped something inside of me and I told Tammy just to shut the fuck up! That one statement was enough for her to kick me out of her house.

I lived a good five miles from Tammy's house and rather than walk, I called up my Mom. Climbing into her blue Honda was the last thing I remembered before waking up in the hospital four days later. I've never missed my medication since.

I remembered waking up with a sense of comfort and flashes of strong arms surrounding me. Blue and green eyes staring intently into mine. The feeling lasted only five more minutes before the news that my Mom had been killed instantly and I was now on my own had been broken to me. I spent the next few months in the hospital, having multiple surgeries on my mangled right leg as CPS searched for any family that I may have. I didn't have a father stated on my birth certificate, my Mom had told me he'd left her the moment he found out she was pregnant so I was never interested in finding or getting to know him. And after months of physiotherapy, I was finally able to leave the hospital with the aid of a crutch and into the care of my Mom's estranged brother.