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She enters as I pack up my bag and sling it over my shoulder. “Do you really have to smoke in here?” she asks, dramatically waving her hand in front of her face. “It’s like walking into my grandfather’s house.”

“It’s part of my process.” It’s an argument we have every time she follows my shift. “And your grandfather sounds cool.”

“Trust me, he wasn’t.” She hangs her coat on the hook behind the door. “He was a recluse with no friends, rotten teeth, and black lungs.” She looks down. “Morning, Ares.”

Ares sits patiently and I grunt, giving him the approval to greet her. He pops up with excitement and nudges her with his nose. She strokes the soft black fur on his head. “My first news update is in fifteen,” she says, looking up at me, “but I saved room for any juicy tidbits you wanted to add?”

It’s barely been a day but word has already traveled about the new Barons. I know the King made an announcement, notifying the other Royals about our appointment. Despite the fact the Forsyth Greek system is formed of well-organized criminal enterprises ranging from the sex trade to running guns to torture, each house excels at one particular skill: gossip.

“No comment.”

“Including the fact that there were only two Barons listed instead of the traditional three?”

Armand. Fuck, I have no idea how that’s going to be handled, but until I’m told directly… “Like I said, no comment.”

“Be that way,” she grumbles, before clamping the headphones over her ears. I slip out the door, Ares at my feet, and head to my truck parked in the empty lot. It’s still dark outside, the sweet spot where the world is still asleep but a new day has begun. The Chevy’s heavy door opens with a creak, and I tap on the seat. “Hop.”

He jumps in, settling himself on the cherry red, leather passenger seat. Besides Ares, the truck is the most important thing in my life. I’d bought her from a musty old garage near Northridge. At the time it was a piece of shit, more rust than metal, but I could see the value in the old girl, and paid five hundred cash. Over the past two summers, I’d painstakingly restored her, inside and out. She’s a fucking beaut.

Pulling out on the Avenue, I spot the sun starting to rise over the east and the reality of the last thirty-six hours hits home. At this point yesterday, I’d seen a new brother die, watched a girl suck another man’s cock, and had just finished carving a pentagram into that same woman’s chest.

A woman, who for all intents and purposes,belongs to me.

It had been wild, no, exhilarating, I think, navigating the truck to the parking lot exit. Two blocks away is the highway that heads away from town. The House of Night is on the outskirts, an old stone castle transformed into a home.My home, at least for the next year.

I’d crashed most of the prior day, sleeping off the intensity of the night before. I woke up, ate, and came into the station for my Sunday night shift. Class starts in a couple of hours and I wantto at least change and check in before heading to campus on my first day as Baron.

Baron.

Fuck.That still blows my mind.

On impulse, I turn right instead of left, away from the highway, towards town, not ready to go back yet.

The whole experience, from finding the envelope tucked into the door at my dorm to going through recruitment, then being singled out as a leader… it doesn’t make sense. Not for a guy like me. I’ve got no royal ties. In fact, I’ve been pretty publicly dismissive of them on my show.

But then again… the Shadows? Nameless. Faceless.ThatI get.

I feel like I’ve already lived most of my life in the shadows. Invisible in a town that runs on prestige and elitism. We may not have had power or money but my parents doted on me, excused my strangeness as quirkiness or on some days, genius. Despite their encouragement, I knew I didn’t do much to help my cause. I was weird. Nerdy. Too focused on my hobbies and shunning the status quo. I was unathletic, and my feet were too big for my body–at least until I hit nineteen–when everything evened out and I saw the benefit in taking care of myself.

It’s not like I didn’t try to make friends, but if you didn’t have a certain last name and it wasn’t emblazoned on a building or the back of a jersey, much less stamped on a credit card at the age of twelve, then no one was interested. Not the guys anddefinitelynot the girls. Not when there were guys in the school with last names like Payne. Or Bruin. Or the worst… Ashby.

Now, by some twist of Forsyth fate, I’m one of them.

The truck engine rumbles as I roll past campus, which is as quiet as the cemetery at this time of day. I try to reconcile that newfound fate. It’s illogical for a kid who spent his lifetime alone, entertaining myself and finding projects that I could doon my own. ‘Hyperfocus’my school counselor called it. Fuck, the better word isobsession. I never had any control over the topic. Whatever it was at the time, came to me, and latched on tight, like I never had a choice. Trains. Puzzles. Bitcoin. Forging. Modifying cars. Experimenting with chemistry.

My dad often took me to work with him, I guess hoping that being on campus, around the non-stop energy of college life, would rub off on me. It didn’t. If anything it proved I was just as invisible there as I was in other places in my life. Even more so when I found the crawlspace.

I wasn’t just invisible. I washidden.

It ran behind the Forsyth dorms–low ceilings, pipe-bent corridors, ducts fat with dust and the smell of rusted copper. My dad was doing maintenance. Swapping out something in the boiler room. Told me to “stay near,” which for me meant “go explore.” I didn’t think much when I saw the warped vent cover. Or how the screws were already half-stripped, basically an invitation.

The space opened easily–tight and dark and humming with mystery. I crawled on elbows and knees, drawn by the faintest light bleeding through the slats ahead. And then I saw them.

A girl. College-aged, wrapped in a fuzzy towel, fresh out of the shower. I held my breath and watched her towel drop, revealing her soft, damp body. Tits small but perfect. Pussy bare. My pulse quickened in my veins, in my ears. A drumbeat of warning that I fully ignored.

There were vents to every room on the hall, a window into a world I’d never be allowed in on my own. I should’ve looked away. Should’ve been sick or ashamed or scared.

But I wasn’t.