Chapter 1 - Sarai

Sighing, I drop down upon the ground, my hiking bed barely giving me any give against the hardness. "Have I told you that I hate you, yet?" I grumble, feeling every ache and sore muscle in my body after the eight-hour-long hike.

Laughter echoes around me. "It's not that bad, Sarai, and you know it. We have been at this for two weeks now, only three and a half more months to go," Jaxx snorts next to me on his own hiking mat. His eyes sparkle with mirth as he taunts me, knowing full well I wasn't prepared for this four-month trip like they were.

Hurphing, I punch him in the shoulder. "I don't have extra abilities like the ten of you do to keep me moving at such a pace. Did you not see how I nearly died while climbing those rocks?"

I'm not being dramatic in the least bit. My ten best friends have been preparing for this northern tier trail hike for months now. I wasn't planning on going. Instead, I'd been giddy about relaxing at the beach sunbathing.

That plan went to hell two nights before they were set to leave.

At the age of twenty-five, I think I have a pretty great life. My love life sucks, but there's nothing I can do about that right now out here in the wilderness.

I've grown up with a clear head from a dark past with an abusive stepmother, a neglected father and two stepbrothers. Sean loathed me. If I could have died the year his mother married my father, life would have been peachy for him. Patrick, the sweetheart saved me on more counts than I can remember from his brother and mom's brutal hits and kicks.

I was seven when I went to school for the first time with cracked ribs, a black eye, and a broken wrist. Since Sean is my age, he had his friends yank my book bag off my shoulders, ripping it open and dispensing all my school work all over the ground. It was a windy day in fall and all my papers began to fly away.

That is until a group of males stepped up to help me.

I don't know what they saw in me, on my knees, heaving and trying to snatch my homework up before it all blew away, but to this day, I'm thankful they stopped. My little eyes couldn't believe they'd captured all the pieces of papers and fixed my book bag. Back then, I didn't question it. All I was happy for was friends that weren't trying to get to Sean through me.

Blaze helped me up off the ground, an arm around my waist. It was then I whimpered in pain with the sudden pressure on my broken ribs.

That was the start of their protectiveness. Drake lifted me up into his arms and carried me to a vehicle that had been idling by the sidewalk. Without so much as speaking to the person in the front seat, Logan opened the door and crawled in with Drake right behind him.

The driver drove us to a mansion high up on the hill in a secluded area where only the rich live. I, of course, freaked out and said I couldn't be here. I'm a nobody.

Pavan, I wouldn't learn until years later what his name actually means, told me I was more important than anyone could ever imagine. I didn't believe him, but at seven, I went along with it as all I wanted were friends. It's not like my father or step-mother would care if I up and disappeared from their lives.

If this group of guys was my chance to feel loved and cherished, I wanted to follow them. In reality, I wasn't a smart seven-year-old. Thankfully, they weren't pretending to care about me.

Pavan wasn't lying, the man had actually seen how important my life would be to theirs.

Once inside the house, Drake's mother–one of the top resident doctors of our small town of Port Orchard–rushed to my side.

When I say she had her son carry me into a fully stocked medical operating room after Pavan whispered something to her, might I add, I'd be lying. She had everything she needed to perform open heart surgery if needed.

I, once again, didn't know about the true reason behind it all until two days before leaving on this hike with my best friends.

After doing all sorts of labs on me, my chest was wrapped up and I was given medicine.

I woke up four days later in a bed, not mine.

Drake's mother Viv had said my body needed to heal and the only way to do that was to keep me sleeping.

I wasn't worried about sleeping for such a length of time, and it being reported to my stepmother through the school that I'd missed. Drake explained to me that his mother set up a school field trip and the paperwork from my parents had been turned in with their signatures.

I wasn't missed at home.

That was the start of our friendship. Over the years, they covered for me. How? I had no idea and I didn't ask. I knew they'd never harm me. It wasn't just because of how they treated me, either. An instinct told me I was safe and I always trust it. It never led me wrong until two weeks ago.

While growing up, I rarely spent time at my birth home. Bouncing around from one of the guy's home became a natural habit. They always knew where I was. It didn't matter if I hadn't talked to them in a few hours and went out running in the woods, they always knew.

I once accused them of being some kind of wild animal or wizard. At one point it got to the point I thought they put a tracker on my phone.

There was no anger towards them, to be honest. They knew when I needed someone and when time alone was my sanctuary.

After high school ended, we all went off to community college. Or I should say, I did. I'm still unclear what the guys do all day when I'm at school. There's typically one waiting for me when my class is over with to either walk me to my next or drive me home.

Over the past eighteen years, they've been rather possessive of me as their sister. No one is good enough to date me. During high school, I actually ignored them for three weeks when they spooked the only guy brave enough to ask me to prom.

It was the same way during college. Dating guys wasn't part of the plan to get my degree.

I don't want to say I was used to their way of steering me away from other potential friends, but I knew it would happen and just went with it.

Some of the females in my classes would murder me with their eyes, throw rude names at me while seated, or downright say I was screwing all ten of my best friends. I never told any of the guys, but I knew they knew somehow.

Either the female would stop talking to me or shopped showing up to classes all together.

"What are you thinking about, Sarai?" Logan asks, handing me a plate full of juicy steak and dehydrated noodles with vegetables.

They'd hydrated enough food to last them all four months. At first, I questioned where they'd get any of the meat. Not anymore.

Taking the plate, I scarf down the first bite of meat with a moan. "Just thinking of the past eighteen years."

"What about them?" Max crosses his legs and sits down upon my mat in front of me. All ten surround me, I'm in the middle once again.

Protected and safe according to them.

Shrugging my shoulders, I keep my eyes down.

Pavan bumps my shoulder, producing a violet flower to me. "I know what I saw Sarai. You have a mate. His face wasn't clear, otherwise, I'd have tracked him down and you'd have grown up with him as well."

It's not that I don't believe Pavan, it's just, I don't want to be a virgin for the rest of my life. They explained it to me when I wouldn't settle down. They had to. I'd told them they could screw off and our friendship was over if they didn't tell me the truth.

That was the night everything changed.

"You sure about this, Sarai?" Bently whispers, his eyes searching the dark street as if someone was going to jump out and kill him.

Snorting, I grab his hand and weed our way through the short bout of trees before coming upon the private beach the guys and I found on vacation. For three weeks, we've been swimming, eating, and exploring to our heart's content before they go off on a four-month hike, leaving me all alone for the first time in eighteen years.

I wasn't afraid, but they worried about me.

This is why what Bently and I are doing is one hundred percent risky right now and we both know it.

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The new and Improved start of A New World #1 in Rejected Series.

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Book #2 Rejected First, is completed and ready to read on patreon.