fucking hate that asshole. He better watch his back.”
I pace the length of the kitchen, which is located on my end of the great room that faces the lake. One side is all high-end industrial appliances, black soapstone countertops, and gray cabinets and the other side is the sitting area with a massive stone fireplace flanked on either side by built-in bookshelves with several seating areas in the middle.
There is an entrance to the main part of the house on either side of this room. And that’s what I’m focused on as I pace. Checking to make sure that Dane doesn’t go back to the wing where I put Cadee.
He doesn’t. And finally, after about ten minutes of this—long after Ax and Lars have made themselves at home with snacks and are watching a baseball game on the huge ninety-eight-inch TV mounted over the fireplace—I hear the front door slam and I take a seat in a chair.
I sit on something, realize it’s the glossy blue and gold folder my father gave me, and pull it out of my back pocket.
“What’s in there?” Ax says, stuffing cheese puffs in his mouth.
I slap the folder onto the coffee table in front of me, then smooth the crease down and open it up. Lars plops down on the couch opposite the table and Ax joins him.
We study the papers.
“Well, this doesn’t look good,” Lars says, probably thinking about our own rush three years ago.
It was a fucking nightmare. Dane was running it that year. He was King and I was just a little princeling who needed to be put in his place.
“No,” I agree. “It doesn’t.”
Ax leans back into the couch cushions with a sigh. “I thought that shit was behind us.”
“Apparently not.”
“So where’s Cadee fit in?” Lars asks, taking the folder and shuffling through the papers.
“I think she works for us. Kitchen help? I think.”
“Oh, hell yeah.” Ax perks up. “I’m gonna have some fun with that little tart this summer. If I have to be stuck here, I will make everyone pay for it. It’s gonna be senior year of high school all over again.”
Lars chuckles, then slides the packet over to me. “Could be fun. How many?”
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