Page 2 of Legacy Wolf: Semester One (Legacy Wolf #1)

RAWLING

I wasn’t close to ready for class. I’d been to the campus bookstore to get the required materials and most of them were sold out or on back order.

Why they didn’t use ebooks like a normal school was beyond me.

But suffice to say, I didn’t have the bare minimum needed to get through the weeks until the back-ordered items arrived, and that had my sleep last night pretty much non-existent.

After hitting snooze a few thousand times—fine, four times—I rolled out of bed and headed into the bathroom.

I’d half heard Jack get up earlier, but the door was open and I needed to pee, and I didn’t bother checking where she was.

I wanted to get in there before my neighbors did.

Sharing the space with another room was going to take some getting used to.

In my haste, I nearly forgot to lock the door on the other side.

I took care of my business and then popped in the shower. It woke me up, but not enough. Today was going to be a multiple-coffee day.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

At least the knocking, or banging as the case might be, was coming from my side of the room. I’d rather my roommate Jack be mad than to have pissed off both our neighbors.

“I’m almost done.” I grabbed my toothbrush.

“Hurry up.” As if I hadn’t already told her I was doing just that. Ugh.

“I am.” Although it came out a gargled mess. With her in a rush to get in here, I didn’t want to stop brushing my teeth long enough to answer.

I glanced in the mirror. Great. I looked worse than I felt. What a good impression I was going to make.

“I’m done.” I swung open the door, remembering I needed to unlock the other one. That was going to take some getting used to.

When I finally made it into our room, Jack was sitting on her bed, her leather backpack beside her and a very pissed-off glare focused on me. “We can’t be late.”

“We?”

“Yeah, if we are living together, we are sort of in this thing together, you know?” She shrugged. “I mean, it would be better that way, right?”

“So you want to be friends?” I wasn’t opposed. It would be a thousand times easier than having my roommate hate me, that was for sure.

“Friends is a strong word, but maybe like teammates?” She slid off the mattress, her shoes thumping on the floor, loud enough the people below us were going to be awake, if they weren’t already.

Hopefully they weren’t people who scheduled all their classes in the afternoon so they could sleep in.

The last thing the “new kids” needed to do was piss off other residents.

“We work together to make it through our first day and reevaluate from there.”

Jack held out her hand, and I shook it.

“There. Done.” She grabbed her backpack.

“Don’t forget your tie. They are assholes about that from what I heard.”

I had completely forgotten about the stupid thing. What college has a dress code? Sombertooth, that was what kind.

It took me a few seconds to find the ugly piece of fabric and get it sort of put on.

I’d never been one for dressing up, not that a uniform was fancy.

But the skill required to get the darn thing on would’ve been acquired had I done a lot of formal events growing up.

Instead I fumbled with it until Jack dropped her bag and came over.

“Let me do it,” she sighed.

Jack had it not only ready to wear, but taught me how to take it off without ruining it so that I could put it on again the next day. If this was what she was offering as a sign of peace, I accepted. Maybe we got off on the wrong foot. I hoped so. It would make for a much better semester.

“Let me see your schedule again.” I grabbed it off my desk and handed it to her. “Good. We’re in a lot of classes together. I hope you’re good at math. It’s first, and I suck at it.”

She shoved the paper back at me and grabbed her backpack. Halfway out the door, she turned around and called, “You coming or what?”

I snatched my satchel and ran to her. Jack knew which building we were heading to and how to get there, so I let her take the lead. No sense being lost when I didn’t have to be. We stepped outside, the ground still kissed with dew. It was far too early for this shit.

“Breakfast first.” She made a beeline straight toward the dining hall. There weren’t a ton of people out and about, but they all appeared to have a similar notion—eat.

It was my first time at the dining hall, and I wasn’t sure what I expected, but it wasn’t this.

First we had to stand in line to scan our dining passes—perfectly normal.

It was when we got to the scanning part that things started to get weird.

The person monitoring the entrance leaned in and inhaled deeply before mumbling something about the place letting anyone in.

It was odd that everyone seemed to want to smell me, but probably weirder that I was already used to it. It was the Sombertooth way. See a new guy—smell them. Kind of like a dog does, only better because at least they weren’t sticking their noses in my ass.

“I hate this,” Jack mumbled and grabbed my arm, yanking me toward the cereal station.

People laughed as we went by, probably because Jack was being so bossy. Or maybe because I didn’t stop to smell them. I didn’t know which, but we each grabbed a bowl of cereal and sat down. That was when I took the entire room in.

Unlike the dining hall at the school I transferred from, these tables were formal, almost too high-quality for a bunch of college kids.

In fact the entire space was bordering on fancy.

It probably made sense in the same way the ties did—I wasn’t sure what that way was, but still…

there had to be a method to all of this.

Maybe they subscribed to the “treat them the way you want them to act” philosophy.

I wasn’t sure that would work with a bunch of college kids, but what did I know?

We ate, not paying attention to anyone else or each other, instead focusing on our mission to eat.

People walked by, giggles continued, and I ignored it.

There was no point in allowing whatever this cultural weirdness that was Sombertooth’s smell-your-neighbor program to get the best of me.

I had enough important things to worry about.

“Can we go?” Jack whispered, her bowl not quite empty.

“Yeah.” I’d finished, and while I was still hungry, I’d rather eat more of the protein bars I’d been consuming the past couple of days than deal with being the new guy in the dining hall. We gathered up our dishes and put them into the busing rack before heading outside.

“Sometimes I hate being like I am.” Jack marched toward the math and science building, and I kept pace without comment. I didn’t love the way things were at breakfast, but it hit her differently, and I didn’t want to make it worse.

We were the first people to arrive at our math class.

We were ahead of the professor, which was good.

It meant I could look at the textbook, one of the few I’d been able to snag.

I was far from being a math whiz, and being from another school, it was almost guaranteed I’d be “behind,” even if it was less about not having enough knowledge as much as it was the correct knowledge.

“You’re doing work already?” Jack had us sitting far in the back, which worked for me. I didn’t want to be noticed any more than I already had been. I quickly discovered that blending was not my gift.

The professor came in before I could answer Jack and started asking us both questions, a habit that they would continue throughout class, although the nature of the questions would go from personal to mathematical formulas.

Our English class went much the same way. By the time we were ready for lunch, I’d answered more questions from professors during the two morning classes than I had in the entire semester at my old school. I wasn’t sure what it was about me, but they sure liked to call on me.

“I’m starving.” Jack let out a long sigh. “I’m not sure I’m up for the dining hall.”

“I have more protein bars in the room.” And I’d need to order more if things didn’t start getting less uncomfortable around here.

“I don’t.”

“I meant, would you like to eat gross bars of health with me?” They weren’t gross to the point of inedible, but they weren’t good either.

“Yeah, thanks.” She readjusted her backpack. “Let’s go out the back way to avoid the—just to avoid everyone.”

I agreed, and the two of us wove through the building.

Just as we were about to leave, my attention was taken by a photo of my godfather and some other students when Rawlins was very young.

He wore the school colors and held a bow and arrow in his hands.

Leaning in, I tried to read the small brass plate screwed into the frame but could only make out a few words.

Archery. My godfather had been on the archery team.

“You interested in the sport?” Jack pushed open the door. “Or just old things?”

The picture wasn’t that old, nor was my godfather when he passed. The picture, however, looked ancient—like it had been ignored for decades and left to gather dust and decay.

“Neither. I just thought I recognized someone.” I stepped into the afternoon sun, wondering not for the first time if coming here had been a mistake.