Page 31 of Legacy Wolf: Semester One (Legacy Wolf #1)

RAWLING

Fuck! I got out of that walking-the-fucking-plank hazing shit and raced to the athletics hall.

Luckily it was unlocked—someone would be in trouble tomorrow—but also in darkness, reminding me of the first time I was here with Phelan.

Not the sexy part but me being hesitant when I walked into a darkened building.

I turned on the lights. Seemed like I was the only one here, but I checked the bathrooms and equipment rooms, and unless someone had squeezed themselves into a cupboard or a modular drawer cabinet—and considering there were shifters at Sombertooth of all sizes, it was possible—I was alone.

I locked the front door, turned off the main lights, as they were visible from outside, and huddled under the brash fluorescent bathroom lighting.

While those lights were also visible from the back of the building, they were often left on because there were two switches, one inside the bathroom and one outside.

People often flicked one during the day, thinking they were turning the lights off, when they actually did the opposite.

My heart was still hammering so loudly it blocked out all other sounds; the distant traffic, the wind rustling the leaves, the muffled shouting of maybe Atticus, shouting at the other brothers for letting me get away.

I thought back to the last few days. The naked bit was wild, and while my ass was freezing, I did enjoy catching sight of Phelan who stood, open-mouthed, as I dashed past, my cock slapping against my thigh. I did an extra butt wiggle just for him.

While I couldn’t stop to chat, not that we ever chatted when we were together, the comments from Minotaur House students who admired my cock and ass had me puffing out my chest, especially when Phelan glared at them.

While the chicken costume bit was humiliating, when I was asked to walk between two buildings, on a narrow board high above the ground, I sussed out Atticus was behind it.

He hadn’t been involved in any of the other shit, but he was there, looking gleeful.

It wasn’t just that it was hazardous but none of the other guys had done it. It was for me alone.

And then there was the mention of Mika as I was making my escape.

“Maybe he’ll end up like Mika.” The guy died in mysterious circumstances.

Did they have something to do with his death?

Based on what they expected me to do, it was possible, but it was the reaction of the others when the guy said his name.

Their faces paled, and I got the sense they were terrified by what had happened.

Even Atticus who rarely showed any vulnerability was spooked at the guy’s name.

Nah, the one who said it was just posturing. They knew no more than any of us.

Thank fuck Phelan had the sense not to be in the Sable Hounds.

As I stood under the shower, the hot water warded off the goosebumps that had taken up residence on my skin.

I leaned forward, my head resting on the tiles, allowing the water to spill over me, not moving until my breathing returned to normal.

At least I wouldn’t have to pledge a huge chunk of cash to that fuck-ass secret society.

Maybe Atticus thought that was why I’d run off, ‘cause I didn’t have the funds.

I did. I had plenty thanks to the account I’d discovered.

At least he wouldn’t be able to crow about how I was chicken or a cheapskate, considering some of the students were not privy to the goings-on in the Sable Hounds.

Getting out of the shower, my fingers and toes wrinkled like prunes, I toweled myself off and put on the same clothes, as I had nothing else.

It was the middle of the night and most of the students were in their rooms asleep.

On poking my head outside, I sniffed the air, remembering how Jack had taught me to to scent shifters.

Their aroma was always present because Sombertooth was a shifter college, with one exception, but I couldn’t detect anyone nearby, especially the wolves who made up the bulk of the Sable Hounds membership.

Without looking back, I tore over the grass and flung myself into Phoenix House, not slowing down until I was in my room. Jack didn’t stir, and I jumped into bed, still fully clothed, and fell asleep.

The next morning, Jack was up early, but she was in a rush, and when I told her I had something big to share with her, Channon, and Bardoul, she said it’d have to wait until this evening.

Later while I was moseying along one of Sombertooth’s gloomy corridors, my mind on Mika, my money, and the shifters I was surrounded by, Professor Shaw appeared in front of me.

“Rawling. How are you?” His broad smile was a tiny lifeline out of the quagmire that was my thoughts.

“Professor. I’m… I’m… Could we speak in your office?” I glanced around. “So we can have some privacy.”

He led me into his little domain and closed the door.

He sat behind his desk but fiddled with papers, suggesting he was preoccupied.

Did he have a secret too? Well, technically he did, as he was keeping my humanity a secret.

And now he wasn’t aware I knew about shifters, and while I was tempted to tell him he didn’t need to hide it from me, I recalled his conversation with Coach.

Life at Sombertooth was murky, so many people were hiding parts of themselves. Jack was keeping my secret, Professor Shaw pretended I was a shifter, but latent, the Sable Hounds were shrouded in mystery, while someone somewhere knew how Mika had died.

I launched into a preamble about being in Professor Stanton’s storeroom, keeping my gaze fixed on his face. The tension in his jaw vanished as I bored him with details of dust bunnies. But when I said, “I found a photo, and I was curious about the guy who lived in my and Jack’s room last semester.”

He stood, his chair slamming against the bookcase behind him. “Do not mention his name,” he hissed.

I hadn’t, and there had been two guys living in that room.

I did my best not to inject drama into my voice as I raised a brow and asked, “Why is that? Was he expelled?”

“No.” I felt sympathy for his teeth, he was grinding them so hard, I imagined them whittled down to nubs. “But you will learn as you grow older that some topics are best buried and forgotten.”

Buried like poor Mika. Not once did the professor say Mika had died, but he was so freaked by me bringing up the guy’s name, I didn’t push any further. He wasn’t going to spill any details.

I changed the subject, and he visibly exhaled as I talked about my money and did Rawlins ever tell him about it. He dismissed me with a shake of the head and wave of his hand as if he were banishing me, not only from the room but also his thoughts.

“I know nothing about your or my friend’s finances. It’s none of my business.”

I left him and sat through the rest of the day’s classes with my mind on Mika.

Atticus was seething whenever he caught a glimpse of me, and I sniffed, raised my chin and ignored him which seemed to piss him off even more.

Maybe no one had ever told him no, they weren’t going to perform tricks like some poor circus animal in order to gain entry to the Sable Hounds.

By the time Jack and I got together, it was after dinner, and she insisted on having a shower before I told her what I knew. I minimized the Sable Hounds part of the story, though she’d been in the forecourt when I did my naked run, and she did ask me why I’d gone alone with it.

“I don’t know. I think I wanted to prove something to myself, and knowing Atticus was part of the group, I wanted to show him I was as strong and capable as him and his cronies.”

“And did you?” she asked.

“I did.” I had no idea what the asshat was thinking, but I showed courage, persistence, tenacity, and good judgment when I refused to walk the plank. That was what I told myself anyway. “But that’s not what I want to tell you.”

“If this is something to do with you and Phelan, don’t.”

“It’s not.” I filled her in.

“How do we uncover this mystery if no one wants to talk about it?”

I wondered if anyone else had died while at the college.

“The best place to start is the library. They have a collection of yearbooks going back decades,” Jack informed me.

“Or…” I got out my laptop. “We don’t have to sit there and search through musty yearbooks. They’ve all been uploaded.” But I grabbed Jack’s arm. “No, would they mention the person had passed away or was deceased if they died like Mika? Look how they react when we say his name.”

“Good thinking.” She chewed a nail. “But if we look through each year and see if anyone disappears and is never spoken of again, that might give us a clue.”

“Right.”

We sat cross-legged on the bed, each of us scrolling through our laptops, searching different years.

We called Channon and Bardoul, and the four of us spent hours staring at former students.

Jack and Channon’s folks had been students here and they kept stopping, and oohing and ahhing over either of their parents’ yearbooks

They’d forgotten our purpose, and we were getting nowhere fast until I was looking at semester photos from about twenty years ago.

It was the year below Rawlins and Professor Shaw.

I’d scanned the second-semester pics, but my concentration was fading and I almost missed there was one fewer student compared to the previous semester.

“Wait. I might have found something.” The other three crowded around my computer as Jack brought up one class photo on her laptop and I studied the other. She read out the names, and I checked that person was in the pic I was looking at. Until there was one who wasn’t.

“Sasha.”

We flipped through the next year, thinking he may have been ill and had to skip a semester, but he’d vanished.

Channon took my computer and pointed out a guy at the back. “That’s my dad’s cousin. I can ask him about Sasha.” The three of us stared at him. “Oh, you want me to message him right now?”

“Maybe it would be better to call him,” Bardoul suggested. “If Sasha’s peer group and professors reacted as everyone did about Mika, better not to leave evidence on his phone.”

Channon made to go into the corridor, but Jack yanked him back. That was odd, him wanting to make the call in public. The mention of Sasha must have put him on edge. But considering how he and Bardoul had made us go to the football field to discuss Mika, it was best he phoned from the room.

We listened to the one-sided conversation, but Channon wasn’t saying much. The man at the other end of the phone was doing all the talking. At least he hadn’t clammed up as Professor Shaw did.

When he finished, we all leaned forward, eager to hear what Channon had found out. But he slumped onto Jack’s bed, blood draining from his face, the phone clutched so tightly in his hand, his knuckles were white.

“That bad, huh?” I asked and received an elbow in the ribs from Jack.

“He says much like with Mika, no one was allowed to talk about the incident.”

Wow! If I died unexpectedly, I hoped people would show more emotion and not refer to my untimely death as “an incident.”

“So tell us, what did he say?”

“He saw blood.”

There was a sharp intake of breath from the three of us, and we reared backward.

“George, that’s my dad’s cousin, had been away for the weekend and he came back late.

The gates were locked, and there was no one to let him into the Sombertooth grounds.

” He continued by saying George had climbed over the fence, but as he rounded a corner, professors were cleaning up a pool of blood.

He’d backed away, and they hadn’t seen him. “The next day Sasha had vanished.”

Bardoul shuffled over my mattress and clung to me. “I’m scared. Can I sleep here tonight?”

Jack and I walked the pair down the hall to their rooms, reassuring them we were safe, though I had no way of knowing if that was true. We vowed to continue investigating but to keep it to ourselves.

“Out late, aren’t you?” Atticus stuck his head out his door. “Jack, do you?—”

“Not in the mood,” she told him and slammed our door behind us.