Page 26 of Legacy Wolf: Semester One (Legacy Wolf #1)

RAWLING

My world changed that night in ways I had never even fathomed possible. It was like a veil was lifted and suddenly everything I thought was real wasn’t and everything I thought was my imagination was real. Even my godfather wasn’t who I thought he was.

I kept waiting for anger to come about Rawlins.

He lied to me for so long. But none came.

I felt it in my gut that he did it to protect me and make sure I had the life he thought I deserved.

Would I have rather discovered the truth from someone I loved rather than eavesdropping on the jerk who made my life harder?

Absolutely, but time wasn’t on our side, and I refused to tarnish the memories I had by filling them with “what-ifs.”

If it weren’t for Jack, I wasn’t sure what I would’ve done—probably hide in the closet with a flashlight until Rawlins’s book made sense.

Or maybe drop out of school worried that the place was making me have a mental health crisis.

It was hard to say which, the discovery was so out of nowhere that I never saw it coming.

Or was it? From the first day there were hints, so many hints, and I’d picked up on none of them.

“I don’t know how to be,” I confessed to Jack in the morning. She had been great about telling me so many things, but I wasn’t foolish enough to think a four-hour conversation was enough to make me anywhere near an expert.

“You need to just be you.” She gave my shoulder a squeeze. “And Rawling, I wanted to tell you from the first time you took your ring off and I realized what was happening.”

I felt the change in her that day, and at the time it had made no sense.

Now, in hindsight, I understood it better.

Even then I could see her struggle. She wasn’t hiding things from me to be an asshat.

She had no choice. Why? I didn’t know, but it didn’t really matter.

Jack was Jack, and we may have gotten off to a rocky start, but I would do anything for her, and I was pretty sure she felt the same about me.

“I know, and I don’t hold anything against you. I promise. I’m just trying to navigate everything. It’s like I put on glasses for the first time and everything’s different, you know?”

She nodded, and I gave her a hug.

“Thank you for helping me. I don’t know what kind of a mess it would be if I didn’t have you here.”

Her stomach rumbled.

“Sorry.” I chuckled. “I guess I better feed you.”

And by feed her I meant walking over to the dining hall with her.

I grabbed my satchel, bracing myself for the walk. It was silly. Nothing had actually changed overnight. The halls were the same, the people were the same, and even the schedule was the same.

Only when I stepped outside, it was all different. As we walked past other students, I saw them in a different light. Were they a bear or a lion or maybe a squirrel? Were squirrel shifters even a thing? If they were, was I ever truly alone outside?

And then there were the tattoos. Were they their animals?

They had to be, right? But also, would they really just put it on display like that?

The more I saw, the more questions I had, and I couldn’t ask any of them.

Not with ears around that could hear. Not only was it bad for me, it was dangerous for Jack.

She hadn’t been free to tell me about herself or shifters in general. Letting others see that she had could only bring badness upon her, and I never would. She was too important, and honestly, she was already treated poorly enough here.

I didn’t understand it. She was latent and her bear wouldn’t come out.

It was basically a shifter disability from what I could tell, and yet they treated her like less than and as if it were some sort of character flaw.

Not as badly as when we first came, but still, she wasn’t accepted the way others were.

I thought back to the way everyone used to scent us and sometimes still did.

That wasn’t just because of me. It was her too, and that sucked.

How long had she been living like this? I had the ring, sure.

Of course, when I arrived here, I hadn’t realized it was covering my ass and making me scent latent and not human.

Had it not been for Jack, I still wouldn’t know.

We walked through the doors and into the morning air, a squirrel running past me, and for a split second, I wondered if it was one of my professors.

Jack

I couldn’t imagine discovering one day that my entire life had been a lie, that the person I loved most had been keeping a secret from me, and that the world I knew was only a fraction of what was there.

Somehow Rawling took it all in stride. Either that or he was going to have it hit him all at once and have a meltdown.

Only time would tell, and if it was the latter, I would be there for him and hold his hand.

I could see his eyes open for the first time as we worked our way to the dining hall.

It wasn’t so overt that others would pick up on it, but I did.

My guess was that he was trying to figure out who had which beast. At least that’s what I would be doing.

I could easily fill him in later if he wanted, but for now, it would continue to be a mystery.

“I hope they are serving waffles,” I said as we reached the doors to the dining hall. It was a waffle kind of day.

“That sounds good to me.” We opened the door and were nearly run over by Atticus and Phelan.

I wasn’t in the mood to see Atticus, not knowing he was going to be shitty to Rawling. But I was even less happy to see Phelan. He was going to break my roommate’s heart, I just knew it, and it sucked. Not that Rawling would listen to me.

“Looks like we left just in time.” Atticus scowled, his eyes directly on Rawling.

To his credit, Phelan didn’t add anything to the conversation, just kept walking.

“It’s a sausage morning,” I said as the aroma hit me.

“Ewww, don’t, just don’t.” Rawling walked in ahead of me. I went to correct him and tell him I was referring to the food we were about to eat and not the alpha I was screwing because of his huge cock, but I decided to let him figure that out for himself.

We walked through the food line, and I barely contained my giggle as he saw the sausage and pieced together what I had meant earlier.

Waffles were a bust, but we had French toast which was sort of close.

At least the way they did it. Instead of cooking the egg-and-milk-soaked bread on the grill, they baked it.

So the texture was more waffle than French toast. It would do.

We took our normal seats and started our meal. Channon wasn’t there yet, and it was a shift that Bardoul was working. I hadn’t seen him yet, which probably meant he was on dish duty. I didn’t know how he managed to work as much as he did and still pull decent grades, but he did. Impressive.

“I have so much I want to talk about.” Rawling shoved some French toast into his mouth.

“And we can. Maybe we can sneak off to town later and get away from here for a bit?” It wasn’t like we could talk freely in the coffee shop there or anything, but on the way we could chat, and it might give him somewhat of a breather from all of this.

“I wouldn’t say no to grabbing more snacks for game night. They were a hit last time.”

I still couldn’t get over how his nerdy notion to play a game had turned into a house-wide activity people looked forward to.

It said a lot about Rawling and the kind of person he was.

Even the shifters who were raised to look down on him for his suspected latency couldn’t help but have fun around him when they let their guard down a bit.

The same wouldn’t be true if they found out he was human.

He needed to keep that ring on at all costs.

I wasn’t sure how it worked, but it did, and it was imperative to his ability to survive Sombertooth.

I didn’t know what would happen to him if the truth got out, but it wouldn’t be good, and being latent, I’d have no way to protect him. He’d be on his own.