I pick up the folder and scan the names of the incoming college freshmen. “Dude. Mona is on here.”
“Ah,” Ax guffaws. “So that’s why her ass was dragged back too. Good. I’m glad. She deserves a summer like that.”
But Lars laughs. “Mona? A Swan? That’s hilarious. Whose practical joke is that?”
I laugh too. Can’t help it. The Swans are the Feather side of the Fang and Feather Secret Society at High Court College. The Fangs are… well. Us. The Kings. “That’s actually funny,” I say. “She’s probably sitting next door right now going, ‘Ax, Lars, and Cooper? Kings? Never!’”
We all laugh. We have to laugh. It’s the only way to cope with the punishment we’ve just been handed.
Then, as if on cue, Lars and I both look down at our bare chests, both of our shirts lost some time during the Cadee Hunter kidnapping. We have the same huge tattoo spanning the entire width from pec to pec. A double lion rampant—mouths open, hind legs clawing at the enemy, facing each other—with the High Court coat of arms between them.
It’s all very… whatever. Ruling class? Pretentious? Necessary? All of the above, I suppose. Because secrets, man. They make the world go round.
Even though it’s called Fang and Feather, there’s a subgroup called Fang and Claw for men only. Then the girls—the Swans—they have their own little club within the society too. We call that Wing and Feather. Their mascot is a swan with upstretched wings and long, arched neck.
Fang and Feather is secret only for what’s kept inside the tomb out in the woods, because everyone at High Court College knows this society exists.
I’m already a member. Technically. And so are Lars and Ax. But initiation is a full, four-year process and you’re only truly inducted—meaning you don’t get access to any real society secrets—until after graduation in senior year when you go through the final rite of passage.
Which, for us, is next spring. And that’s something I do not want to think about.
Lars blows out a breath. “It’s only eight weeks. We’ll have almost a whole month at the end to do something fun.”
Ax sneers at him. “Always Mr. Brightside.”
“What else are we gonna do?” Lars says. “Might as well make it a glass-half-full kinda thing.”
“We should’ve just… pretended. Ya know?” I look at Lars and Ax. Picture all the ways we’ve been rebelling against our lot in life through the years.
Ax and his violence and drugs. He’s been in rehab six times since he was thirteen. Only two of them were actually about the drugs. The rest were just a way out of juvenile lockup, thanks to his father, the Judge. He’s clean for now. But for how long?
Lars and his suicidal antics. He’s been in the hospital for dirt bike stunts, jumping into pools from third-floor rooftops, and waterskiing wipeouts more times than I can count.
Me and my careless indifference about… well, pretty much everything. Grades, people… sex.
“That’s why we’re here,” I say. “We should’ve played the game from the beginning. Kept our heads down, did what they wanted, and then we’d be free now. They would’ve just assumed we’d go along in the end.”
“Fuck that,” Lars says. “We’d be in deeper.”
“Yeah,” Ax agrees. “We’d have fallen for it. We’d have given in by now if we’d played the game. Just like everyone else.”
“But now they have their eye on us,” I counter. “We’ve done nothing but put a target on our backs.”
“We just do the job,” Lars says, sighing. “Be the bully kings and in eight weeks they’ll have their new crop of minions and we can take off for a little bit. Then one more year, you guys. One more year and we get the trusts. Then we’re free.”
Ax and I both look at each other.
We don’t believe it.
Oh, that’s the stipulation in the contracts. All we gotta do is graduate High Court College as members in good standing of Fang and Claw and we get the money.
But it’s just never that easy.
It won’t be that easy.
CHAPTER EIGHT - CADEE
When they start fighting out in the hall I just back away from the door until I bump into the bed and have to take a seat. I stare at the door, wondering which one of them will win.
But then I hear Lars and Ax and it’s pretty clear that Dane will have to back off or risk getting his ass kicked by all three of them.
I mean, that’s the whole point of having friends like Ax and Lars, isn’t it? So you can’t get jumped in a hallway. You can’t ever be outnumbered. Someone always has your back.
It’s a good plan. I have to admit that much. And if I had known how things were going to turn out, I’d have formed my own tight-knit circle of back-havers.
But I’m starting to wonder about my life. Have been wondering for the last two weeks. I am not naïve. I know what people think of me. I’m the good girl. The smart girl. The weird girl who used to live in the gardener’s cottage in the woods and now lives in the attic of the Alumni Inn.
But I grew up at High Court. Maybe I didn’t participate in all the wild things the girls my age have done over the years. But I saw it. I watched it from a distance. So I have an idea of what the outside world might be like.
Ruthless. Cutthroat. Runs on status and money.
Yeah… I sigh. I’m not gonna lie. That scares me. So even though that whole meeting with the Chairman was weird—and that’s putting it mildly—and even though I suddenly find myself in the lair of the enemy, I’m gonna stick it out and see where it goes.
Because I don’t have much choice.
All my things are gone. That makes me sad.
I turn and look at the room. It’s all very nice. A large queen-sized canopy bed with a lavender velvet duvet and matching curtains hanging down the sides. Which is kinda cool. Very… royal treatment. There are a lot of pillows on the bed, both the kind you use for sleeping and the pretty, decorative kind with beaded designs depicting medieval scenes and gold tassels hanging from the corners.
The curtains covering a set of French doors are really drapes, very heavy and pulled aside with more gold tassels, and sheer white ones underneath. The walls are a light gray, the floors are dark slate with a large room-sized carpet in the middle, and the trim is black. Very nice. Very high-end. Very… not me.
There’s a loveseat, a chair, two bedside tables, and a small writing desk with a computer on it. Glancing to my left I spy an en suite and a closed door, which is probably a closet. I can’t resist flipping the light on and taking a look at the bathroom.
And… yeah. Jaw-dropping. The bedroom design continues with the same floors, paint, and trim colors, but the sink and all the finishes are gleaming gold. Which normally I find tacky, but rich people always seem to be able to pull it off.
The soaker tub is freestanding on the far side and there’s a walk-in shower too.
I back out and take a long breath. Things have quieted down in the hallway and all the men have moved to other parts of the house, so I allow myself a moment to just… let my guard down and lie back on the bed.