Page 35 of A Knight’s Revenge: The Complete Series

BONUS SCENE

NOAH - THE FIRST DAY IN THE DINING HALL

Bennett threw open the dining hall’s heavy wooden doors, and every head in the cavernous room jerked in our direction. The loud chatter turned to reverent whispers as the three of us strode down the center aisle between the long banquet tables.

It was the start of another year at Holywell Academy.

Another year of playing the princes while the children of the City’s wealthiest families vied for our attention.

Another year of the smallest respite from our parents and the bullshit of the Families.

Another year closer to graduation, access to our trust funds, and the tiny kernel of freedom we, the three remaining Heirs of the Four Families, dreamed of.

I tamped down the pinch of suffocating anguish that always threatened to surface when I thought of Bennett, Zach, and me as the remaining Heirs .

“Fuck me, I’m tired of this already,” Zach groused as we climbed the short stairs onto the dais where our parents required us to eat our meals on display like zoo animals.

“Let’s get on the Hargraves jet back to the lake in Montana where we spent Bennett’s birthday, with no one to bother us but the fucking fish. ”

“Whining is not going to make getting through this meal any easier,” Bennett replied as he pulled his chair from the table and sat with the air of a CEO ready to be unimpressed by his underlings.

Zach flopped into the seat on Bennett’s left, loosening his already loose tie and conspicuously rolling up his shirtsleeves so his adoring public could ogle his tattooed forearms. I took my place on Bennett’s right and was promptly accosted by Annie Ling as she approached our table along with the usual group of top students who thought they deserved our attention.

“Hi, Noah,” she said with that breathy voice girls loved to turn on around all three of us.

She placed a manicured hand on the table so she could lean over as she spoke to me, allowing me an unobstructed view down the front of her silky blouse.

“How was the rest of your summer? I’ve missed you since our parents last got us together. ”

I smothered the eye roll that threatened to emerge, hanging onto my polite smile with the ease beaten into me by years of representing my Family.

I also managed to resist the urge to glance at the tits I was being freely offered—I liked tits as much as any other person attracted to women, but we had an audience, for Christ’s sake.

“My summer was good, Annie, thank you for asking. Is your father enjoying his spot on the board of Hargraves’ latest little venture? ”

She waved her hand with a little huff. “I’m sure he is, but I don’t want to talk about him . I was hoping we could get together again soon, Noah. I so enjoyed our conversation the last time I saw you, and I’m just dying to continue it.”

This was my penance for drinking two Manhattans to tolerate the rare presence of my dad in our home, which caused me to return Annie’s overtures with some light flirting of my own when she and her parents had come to dinner to kiss my dad’s ass a month ago.

Bennett snorted next to me, obviously listening in while he gave anyone who dared approach him a look that screamed, “Go fuck yourself, peasant.” I’d remember this the next time Harper Jansen decided to hang off his arm like a barnacle.

“I’m sure there will be plenty of opportunities for us to chat this year, Annie,” I replied, smooth as silk.

“Mmm, I can’t wait.” She turned to look over her shoulder at an approaching pair of freshmen girls I recognized from other Hargraves-connected Tier One families, and she practically hissed at them. They glared at her but turned on their sky-high heels and scampered back to their table.

Our small talk was interrupted when Chad Hendrickson, a Spencer-connected Tier One sophomore who wanted into the Heirs’ inner circle in the worst fucking way, hopped on top of one of the banquet tables below us.

“Greetings, new students of Holywell Academy! It’s that time again!” Chad shouted over the noise of the crowd, and the room quieted in an instant.

These sharks smelled blood.

“I hate this,” I muttered.

Bennett was still as a statue next to me. “My father was so thrilled when Hendrickson bragged about this shit last year,” he muttered under his breath. “If we kill it, I’ll never hear the fucking end of it.”

“The scholarship students need to get slapped with a cold, hard dose of the truth of what this place is, anyway,” Zach added in his lazy drawl. “If they can’t hack it, they can find somewhere fucking normal to go to college.”

I agreed with that, actually, but it didn’t make me feel like any less of an asshole.

“It’s a new year at Holywell, and we have all been uniquely blessed to be able to attend school alongside the Heirs of the Four Families who, for generations, have been responsible for the incredible prosperity of our fair City!

” Claps, cheers, and a few wolf-whistles rang out, spurring Chad right along.

“And because we are so lucky to have the Heirs at the Academy, some of us felt it was a great opportunity for those of you who are here on scholarship to be able to personally thank the Families for providing someone of your station the rare opportunity to receive the finest education in the country while walking the same halls as the next generation of leaders of this City.”

“His head is getting too big,” Bennett grumbled.

Zach watched Chad with a penetrating stare, its depth obscured by his usual cocky smirk. “I’ll beat it out of him at Fight Night if it gets to be a problem.”

“And so, we will be continuing the tradition we began last year for all of you lucky scholarship students! When I call your name, come on up!”

We were treated then, just as we were at this time last year, to a parade of terrified or dejected scholarship students as they were made to kneel in front of us.

Chad called them up one at a time, his sadistic smile growing with every name, and he forced them to recite this bullshit oath to us, the Heirs, thanking us for the opportunity to mix with their betters and swearing to know their place here.

I was so fucking uncomfortable, but I’d done a lot of uncomfortable shit in the name of the Families. This was no different. I let my thoughts wander away from the spectacle in front of us, lest I slip and give someone a sympathetic smile.

After several long excruciating minutes of this, Chad hit a bump in the road that knocked me back into the present.

“Is there a Joanna Miller here? Freshman scholarship student, crew team, graduate of Southside High School….”

Interesting. Was someone refusing to kneel?

A shriek I recognized as belonging to Bennett’s would-be betrothed, Harper Jansen, rang out with a scandalized little gasp. “Seriously? They’re letting Southside trash in here now?”

The Southside was where the City’s poorest citizens lived. It wasn’t unheard of for a kid from what the City’s rich referred to as “the slums” to make it into Holywell, but it was definitely notable—and not in a good way.

“She’s over here, Chad!” a voice called from the middle of the room.

Everyone turned to get a glimpse of the Southside girl who apparently dared to defy Chad—and the Heirs—on the first damn day of school. Chad found her easily, as did I when I finally spotted the scowling girl, arms crossed defiantly over her chest and dressed way too casually in a T-shirt.

“Oh, I see you, Southside,” Chad said with an evil smile. “Hop to it. The Heirs don’t have all day.”

I thought I caught a smirk on her—fuck me, gorgeous —face before her challenging glare returned. “No, thanks!” she shouted at Chad.

“Well, this is interesting,” Zach said, perking right up in his chair. I didn’t doubt he’d spotted our Southside rebel and had the same thoughts I did about her looks.

I wouldn’t have said that Southside public high school was the vibe I was usually into, but the way this girl looked Chad right in his face with the confidence of an equal on her first day in this cesspool was impressive as hell.

Also really fucking stupid, but I couldn’t help but admire her tenacity.

Bennett had stiffened next to me, his intense stare now also directed at the girl.

Chad, for his part, was turning the shade of a tomato. “Wrong answer, Southside,” he barked. “Get up here and get on your knees, or you won’t like the consequences.”

The girl stood up from her chair, and for a split second, relief that she’d seen sense warred with an odd pang of disappointment that she’d given in so easily.

But then she tossed her backpack over her shoulder and shoved a pair of white earbuds into her ears, and I knew she wasn’t on her way up here to prostrate herself at our feet.

She marched into the aisle, giving us a better view of her lithe body draped in that soft-looking T-shirt and fitted, ripped jeans.

She’d pulled her dark hair into a simple messy ponytail, and her ratty sneakers were a faded purple.

The lean muscle of her pale arm flexed as she walked, and those jeans hugged a tight, perfect ass.

“Holy fuck, that girl is hot ,” Zach whispered, sounding almost awestruck.

She sure was.

As she reached the aisle, she turned, giving us her back.

The gasps from the student body were almost comical.

She paused, tossing one last insubordinate look over her shoulder.

Were her eyes purple?

“Shove it up your ass, Chad,” she said with a little tilt of her chin.

Then she turned and marched right on out of the hall.

I stared after her, trying not to gape.

The scandalized whispers began immediately.

“I think I’m in love,” Zach announced to Bennett and me.

“Cut the shit, this is a fucking disaster,” Bennett snapped between clenched teeth.

“And Chad’s about to go off like a geyser,” I added, gesturing to where he still stood on the table below us, glaring daggers at the doorway. “What was she thinking? Is she that clueless?”

Zach chuckled. “They make them scrappy on the Southside, man. And apparently hella sexy. Maybe we should take a sightseeing trip down there sometime.”

Chad finally turned to us, pasting an apologetic look on his flushed face. “I won’t let this sort of blatant disrespect for the Heirs stand,” he declared. “Dane, Cameron, and I will drag her back in here and fucking force her onto her knees.”

“Yeah!” A chorus of cheers went up at the tables nearest to us—the students with the highest status and closest connections to the Four Families.

Dane and Cameron hopped to their feet like good little soldiers. My stomach knotted.

Fortunately, even Bennett was hiding a hint of restraint under his five-thousand-dollar suit. “Hendrickson,” he rumbled, commanding the attention of the entire hall. “Leave it.”

Relief washed through my veins. Standing by while those three meatheads physically assaulted a girl was not something I wanted to have to do in the name of the Families, though I had a sneaking suspicion it was going to come to that if this Joanna Miller continued to walk these halls with her head held high instead of cowering to her “betters.”

I didn’t exactly want to see that pretty face—or that vibrant spirit—broken.

She really did not belong here.

“I…. Seriously?” Chad asked.

Bennett continued to stare at him like he was irritated to even be breathing the same air. “Did I stutter?”

“Fuck, sorry. Got it, Spencer. I’ll just… carry on.”

And he did. The rest of the scholarship students did as they were ordered without question.

When the torturous ritual finally concluded, the students went back to their meals, and Zach decided to poke at Bennett—one of his favorite pastimes.

“Didn’t know you were such a bleeding heart, Spencer,” he said, tossing his last piece of bacon into his mouth. “Or did that little spitfire actually wake your dick up? I’m still half hard over her telling Chad to his actual face to shove it up his ass. She might be worth breaking our rules for.”

I resisted the urge to pout. We didn’t date or fuck our peers and classmates anymore, all three of us having learned some hard lessons in the past, but that girl was tempting—especially for me.

Fuck, I would’ve loved to tame that brat.

But if I didn’t get to have her, Zach didn’t either.

Luckily, Bennett, ever the cautious one, put his foot down. “That’s the worst idea you’ve ever had. She’s clearly here to cause trouble.”

“Admit she’s hot,” Zach goaded.

“I’ll admit it,” I chimed in lightly, fueling the fire.

“She’s trouble,” he said again, then he sighed. “There is something about her though. What the fuck is it?”

Wow, even Bennett Spencer was ensnared. There were attractive, well-bred girls under every rock at this Academy—hell, in this City—who would get on their backs for him with a snap of his fingers, and I’d never seen him look at one twice.

As the worry crept back in, I said, “They’re going to destroy her in this place. That thought is… concerning to me.”

“I think it’ll be quite the show,” Zach said with a lazy shrug of his shoulder.

Bennett was quiet for a few seconds, all three of us watching as students began to file out of the hall, the clock having announced five minutes until the start of classes.

He stood up, adjusting his tie and smoothing his jacket as he looked between the two of us.

“We don’t allow trouble and bullshit in this Academy.

It will piss our parents off and fall on us to fix it.

She’s out of here if this gets any worse. ”

I sighed. “Agreed.”

“I’m ready for the fireworks,” Zach said.

Bennett and I both just stared at him.

“Fine,” he said, holding his hands up in defeat. “Agreed.”

We began our own procession out of the hall, and try as I might, I couldn’t pull my mind away from the beautiful girl from the slums with the sad, defiant purple eyes.