Chapter 1
Chapter One
AUDREY YATES
Sir Edmund University
My day began with an unwanted invitation taped to the outside of my locker. This had to be a prank. A joke. Curious, I cocked my head and quickly spun around, searching for the Kenton brothers.
This was exactly like something they would do, but they were nowhere to be found.
No one was waiting outside of their eight o’clock class, no one was lingering in the hall or standing by their locker to see my reaction.
My hackles rose, the hairs on the back of my neck prickling as a sense of dread filled me.
The assumption that this mysterious envelope was left in a poor form of a jest slowly diminished the longer I stared at it.
It couldn’t be…I would have heard if they were hunting again.
I snatched the envelope and quickly opened it, an unwanted chill skittering down my spine.
There was an old rumour that this university had once been a breeding ground for a society so secret, so coveted, that only a few of the town’s heirs were chosen to join each year.
The Guilda Sanguis Venenati, it was called—a cautionary tale that made up most of Alabastor Cove’s lore, if you chose to believe, that is.
It was utterly impossible that the society rumoured to hunt its initiates, to stalk them in this town and the woods surrounding it, could be seeking new members again, though the invitation was suggesting otherwise.
I tried to convince myself of the slim likelihood of it, since I had yet to hear of it whispered among the elite—the founding families and heirs of this town… even when gooseflesh peppered my skin.
The envelope was thick with crisp, silvery-black colouring, the first sign that it was not from the average person trying to crack a joke. A golden wax seal with an imprint of intertwined snakes around a primrose sat unbroken on the back.
The ouroboros and the Primrose of Eden—the crest, or sigil, really, of a secret society so selective and horrifying that only a few had ever met a living soul who bore the brand of initiation. Myself, now, being one of those unlucky few.
There was a fraction of a second where the sign of the ouroboros almost winked at me as I broke the seal, which confirmed my suspicions.
This was no prank. No one would dare to fool me this way, especially if they chose to opt out of watching how I reacted upon seeing it.
This was a warning; it was a sign that The Guilda Sanguis Venenati was active again.
The invitation was damning, a promise of death for anyone they had set their attention on, to anyone who would be idiotic enough or even willingly choose to take part. A truth known to me since my foster family had been one of the four founding families.
That was, until a fifth and final one had moved to town.
It demanded death not only from the secrecy it entailed, but because it dealt with skeletons, secrets, and truths that the rich always loved to hide.
Now, I would finally be forced to claim the title I had been denied my whole life, since that dreadful night fifteen years ago when my family's plane was shot out of the sky, leaving me, a child who had to hide, the sole heir of my birth family's name.
The silence in the hall was so still that even the thud of my pulse seemed thunderous.
Not one soul in this insipid nesting ground of angst and family rebellion was brave enough to stand and watch their unofficial queen open this letter.
Not even the so-called leaders of this university, my friends, my family.
I thought back to all the horrible ways the Kenton brothers had played with the minds of those who wandered these halls. Not even for a brief second did I think they would do this to me.
No.
Lexington and Wentworth might fuck around with the students here…they might even mess with the hierarchies and unspoken rules between the separate grades, but they would never dare to manipulate or screw around with something this twisted or sinister.
At least not toward one of our six—five now, since our final member had disappeared suddenly five years ago, and especially not to me, the one they had anointed ‘queen’.
That title I had found ironically fitting at first, but over the years, the weight it added to my already heavy shoulders became unbearable.
The way our friend group always turned to me in the wake of upheaval…
or question was just one more burden I carried.
No one would think it was okay to taunt me, the girl who went from orphan to one of the country’s wealthiest adopted heirs.
The only remaining twin daughter of the Ellsworth line.
Everyone believed I had everything handed to me on a silver platter after that night—my sixth birthday.
That crash ended my brief life in London, making me a transplant in America, the adopted daughter of Edward and Sonya Yates.
A child who promised the continuation of their fucked up, debauched line.
So, no.
The sheep, best known as the regulars—the people beneath the heirs, the students who shrank when I walked by—weren’t brave enough to do this.
And the Kenton brothers wouldn’t plant this without being around to watch their chaos unfold.
The brothers were practically family to me, revelling in the pranks they could pull but also understanding the role their family had in this town.
Sons of one of the founding families, their power fell directly underneath that of my adopted one.
Even if they still were unaware, they had an inherent knowledge of what lines could be pressed and which to steer clear of—in my regard, at least. So, this envelope, this letter—this must be my own worst nightmare coming to life.
While anyone and everyone, including my four closest friends and the remaining founding members of this town, would jump at the chance to join one of the world’s most secretive and exclusive societies Alabastor Cove has ever known, I wanted no part of it.
I wanted no chance for the vultures and wolves who stayed hidden among the influential figures in town to have a reason to dig deeper into the Yates and Ellsworth lines.
I had carefully avoided planting any ideas in their heads of revealing the skeletons that the sole surviving daughter of British nobility and American blue blood royalty had hidden in the closet.
For my secrets were worse. The deceits. The deceptions. The games I had played while attending both Alabastor Preparatory Academy and Sir Edmund University were both infamous and a secret only known to me.
So no, I had no desire to make unimaginable connections or gain the unfathomable perks that being a member would bring me.
I, Audrey Yates, had something even worse hunting me. The Guilda Sanguis Venenati had no clue of the viper they had just invited into their midst.