Page 30 of Legacy Wolf: Semester One (Legacy Wolf #1)

ATTICUS

“We should go to board game night this week,” Phelan said out of nowhere.

We had both made the decision not to go last time.

I wasn’t sure what changed his mind, but something had.

It had been his idea to skip originally, if I recalled correctly.

And if it was a half-ass comment I made in passing about it not being worth our time, he was the one who made it a big deal, not me.

I’d have had just as much fun being there and making him and everyone else miserable, if I was honest.

But now that we had skipped without a decent excuse like being off campus, going felt like a sign of weakness—like we suddenly realized we’d missed out on the fun and wanted to join in. I was a leader, not a follower. Or possibly I was overthinking it all.

But the next board game night was also the Sable Hounds bid night.

I should be there when the seniors took the pledges to get their bids.

Last semester’s pledging included me. This would be so much different.

Watching a new pledge class was going to be so much more fun than pledging.

It had been worth it, but I was glad to have it done.

Did we have any pledges from Phoenix House? The official vote hadn’t taken place yet, but I couldn’t recall any names from here being batted around. I’d been zoning out the entire process since I couldn’t participate in the fun parts of it this year.

I could only think of maybe one person in our house that we were considering giving a bid to.

A bid didn’t mean they would pledge, just that they were given the invitation to pledge.

The Phoenix House member I had heard whispered about was Knox, and he was an upperclassman, making him an unusual case.

Giving bids to potential pledges beyond sophomore year was something rarely done because getting someone from pledge to full brother was time-consuming, so why waste it on someone who wasn’t going to stick around.

At our next Sable Hounds chapter meeting, I activated my plan to get Rawling to pledge only as a means to get him expelled. Sure, we decided to invite Knox to pledge because everyone genuinely liked him and he was funny as heck. But if we could let one person in for our entertainment, why not two?

Only in the case of Rawling, my amusement would be watching his sorry ass get kicked out when I made sure he was asked to do something that went against the school’s zero-tolerance plan, forcing the school board’s hand.

I still hadn’t figured out what would get him fully booted from school no questions asked, but I had a few half ideas floating around.

The next board game night, Phelan and I took a seat front and center. Phelan thought I just changed my mind and decided to join in. He wasn’t into the whole secret society shit, even though his father was a Sable Hound, and as a legacy student, he was offered a bid without question.

Knox, who had joined in the board game night, went outside with the Sable Hounds seniors who had arrived and came back in almost immediately.

I guessed he hadn’t accepted the bid, but I wouldn’t find out until the next Sable Hounds meeting.

He was nearly done with school, so why bother this late in the game.

I made sure we were playing the board game Rawling was facilitating.

It kept him on edge, which was an added bonus.

Seeing Rawling’s face as the seniors from the Sable Hounds returned and asked him to step outside was worth every second of discomfort trying to be jolly while playing his stupid game.

He probably didn’t have a clue what was happening, nor did the others playing, and with my spot at the table, I might be lucky enough to see what happened once they were outside.

After a moment’s hesitation, Rawling got up and walked out with the brothers after they whispered in his ear, “Brother Rawling, it’s time.

” I only knew what they said, because I had been in his position.

To the rest of the group playing their games and eating junk food, it just looked like someone needed to chat with him.

Maybe Rawling was simply following them because he thought he was supposed to. That was even better ‘cause he was caught unawares.

If he’d have been smart—and he wasn’t, though other Phoenix House students thought he was—he’d have taken a seat at the table, joined in a game, and told the seniors whatever they were playing at, he wasn’t interested.

But Rawling didn’t come back to game night.

That could only mean that he stayed through at least the first round of pledging.

One of the brothers returned and told the group they needed Rawling for a project they were working on and Rawling’s message was that everyone should enjoy the rest of the night.

No one paid the brother any attention except me, but I deliberately didn’t catch his eye. I understood why the others ignored him. The Sable Hounds had a reputation of being elitist, and there were rumors we had mystical powers. We didn’t, but we did nothing to curb those rumors.

But Phelan gave me a dirty look and mouthed, “What did you do?”

I shrugged and said, “Don’t be so uptight. It’s just a little fun.”

While I’d been disappointed to discover Jack wasn’t in attendance tonight, it was probably for the best. She might have made a scene or questioned the brothers as to what was going on.

I wasn’t invited to this part of initiation, and that was fine. Let the seniors have their fun. There was time for me to do my part later. And from a pragmatic perspective, having me nowhere near Rawling during Round One would lull him into a false sense of security. That was when I would pounce.

I heard Rawling come in after midnight, his door closing a little too loudly. I rolled over and enjoyed the best night’s sleep of my life.

The next morning I went about my normal routine, including breakfast. I sat with Phelan and made sure I was the one facing the brothers running today’s “pledge activity” so that I could watch as the pledges waited on the juniors and seniors.

They brought them their food, their drink, and their cutlery.

They even patted their mouth clean between bites.

It was amusing and degrading all wrapped up into one. The best part… Rawling was with them.

I could tell he hated every moment of it. His forced smile, and polite but defeated, “Yes, Brother Todd” and “No, Brother Todd” didn’t fool anyone. But we didn’t expect the pledges to be happy. We just wanted them to obey.

I didn’t see him doing any other pledging activity until the next afternoon when he was serenading a squirrel…

a real squirrel, not a shifter. That in and of itself wouldn’t be too terrible of a task.

But the brothers amped it up a step by having him do it wearing a chicken costume.

I didn’t look at him, of course. He didn’t need to piece together that I had anything to do with this. Not yet, anyway.

The way the squirrel was sticking around while he sang, you’d have thought the squirrel was a shifter enjoying Rawling’s embarrassment.

The best part was the longer the critter stayed, the longer Rawling did.

There wasn’t going to be an undergrad around who didn’t see Rawling’s costumed poultry ass.

I fucking loved it, but not as much as I loved his next task. It was the one that had him at my mercy. He was assigned bathroom cleaning duty for a handful of rooms, including mine. Had it been his first task, he’d have surely dropped already, but he was too far in now.

The rule was, we couldn’t actively make it harder for him to clean once he started, and I didn’t, but I sure as fuck made sure to miss the toilet, spill conditioner on the floor, and leave soaking towels everywhere for him to wash.

It wasn’t as satisfying as I hoped it would be, but he’d hate it for sure.

Finally, after over a week of pledge “tasks” including a naked run, it was the day, the one that was going to make or break my plan to get him kicked out.

The pledges had to cross a board from the new math and science building to the old one, which was now storage, approximately four stories above the ground.

From there, they would break in through the roof entrance.

It was each pledge on their own. They had a specific item to steal, and once they had accomplished that, they would move on to the next level of pledging.

Only while the other students were assigned stealing a bottle of bathroom cleaner or an old desk chair, I rigged Rawling’s envelope to have him breaking into the old records room.

He couldn’t do anything, as the youngest boxes of files were a good twenty years old.

But messing with grades and records was an automatic expulsion. He’d be done.

The first five pledges had already had their turn. Unlike the other activities, this one was not done by pledge class, it was individual and each task a bit different. I’d heard rumors that the others had all broken in via a propped side door instead of walking across from one building to the next.

When I arrived on the roof, I discovered why. The plank we used was in two pieces, neither of them long enough to get to the other building.

“I guess we let him in the side door too,” one of the brothers from my pledge class said.

No,” I barked out a bit too loudly. “We’ll find something that will work.”

The one we used wasn’t nearly as wide as the original board, but it was long enough, and it should hold Rawling’s weight as long as he didn’t jump up and down.

If Rawling had a decent relationship with his beast, this first part, crossing over, would be a piece of cake. But he was latent, and this challenge was going to suck. He deserved it. Mr. Archery couldn’t be good at everything.

“I don’t know. It’s awful thin,” the pledge master said, but before we could finish the conversation, the brothers escorting a blindfolded Rawling arrived.

The roof was now full of brothers and one pledge. It was designed to intimidate, but if it did, Rawling didn’t show it, not with his blindfold, nor without it. He stood there, shoulders straight, ready for directions.

“Pledge Rawling, your task this evening is two fold, the first is to cross over to the old science building and go inside. The second half is on the envelope from Brother Atticus. You may not open it until you are inside.” The pledge master nodded for me to step forward and give it to Rawling.

To the latent’s credit, had I not known he already despised me, I wouldn’t have had a smidgeon of a clue based on that interaction alone.

“And how do I cross?”

The pledge master walked him to where the plank sat.

“That is not going to happen. The other pledges didn’t have to do this part.”

A few of the brothers flinched, knowing that Rawling had inadvertently ratted on his pledge class.

“And I’m not crossing on that mega-long toothpick. Try again.” He pushed past us and ran toward the stairs.

“Hey, come back,” Todd yelled, not making a move to follow Rawling.

“Seems like a bad egg,” another brother mumbled before yelling, at Rawling’s retreating back, “Maybe he’ll end up like Mika.”

Shit. That name rattled me, and that fucker Rawling glanced back, staring at everyone and then straight at me. If I was right, he saw how on edge I was. Damn him!