Chapter 2
Chapter Two
AUDREY
Sir Edmunds University
Sneering, I sauntered out of my last class of the day—the last period I would ever attend at this godforsaken university since graduation was in two days.
Nudging my elbow into Lexington’s side, I laughed caustically as all the students quickly filtered around us, casting longing glances at him and thinly veiled hatred at me.
Objectively, the man was attractive—tall, muscular from hours spent shooting pucks on the ice with his brother, and he had deep chestnut hair with the faintest undertones of mahogany red.
It was his eyes, though, that hinted at the wicked things he could do. The palest jade green captivated the attention of every passing figure and displayed every emotion, every desire, and every whim his brain played through.
Except to me, he was more like family, and I treated him as such by riling him up, antagonising him, and even in the small moments, providing a sibling-like comfort.
“Did you ever picture us here?” Lex murmured, eyeing me curiously like he knew I was hiding something. Like he could see into my mind and pick at the fraying pieces of my sanity after I received that ominous invitation last week on the way to my eight o’clock class.
Lexington Kenton was my best friend. The brother I never had, a piece of my soul, which was ironic since Lex, himself, had a brother the same age as us.
Wentworth was the light to the darkness that was Lex and I, the third piece to our quintet of misfits and royalty.
Similar in build and appearance to his older brother, the only shocking difference was his pair of heterochromatic eyes, which hinted at a line long since forgotten.
One a strikingly pale jade green, and one a ghostly shade of blue.
He could almost always be found with a puck on the ice.
From the time the brothers could walk, it was gossiped about how they would be the next set of Kentons to dominate the sport.
Lex had always seen right through me, which made it exceedingly shocking and stupid that I had tried to keep this invitation or summons a secret.
“Anything new with you? Any plans for sending this place one last ‘fuck you’?” Lex quietly mumbled under his breath, cognizant that the sheep surrounding us were always listening.
“None yet, you?” I replied in stride, hurrying to my locker to ensure no new unwanted envelopes had been taped to it in the time we had been in class.
“Worth and I were planning to hit the bonfire at the cliff edge tonight,” Lex said, hoping to stir one last bit of madness before walking the stage tomorrow.
“The others are already planning to guilt you into joining,” he admitted reluctantly.
Our friends in the Sextum Secretum1 had set him up to be the fall guy, and it was almost like he knew he wouldn’t be able to get it past me.
“I’ll see if I can make it. I have plans, Lex, ones I doubt I’ll be able to cancel this late,” I retorted, my eyelid twitching as irritation built just under my skin at their lack of foresight over something this important.
Over their ignorance surrounding something that could get us all killed if we were not careful in our approach to the initiation summons given by The Guilda.
Fury and gratitude mingled in my chest, knowing I was always the last in the loop—their version of trying to protect me, even if it was misplaced—but also with the realization that it sounded like none of the others had been invited yet to this secret I had been harbouring.
“Oh, and Ellery wanted me to tell ya, he knows about the Primrose. He said the black was right on the nose.”
I jerked to a halt, ice sliding down my spine.
If Ellery, our version of the court jester, meant what I thought he did, then my assumptions had been wrong. My friends had not been accepting of my sudden change in mood; they hadn’t been playing it off as nerves for graduation or worry for what was to come.
No. They likely all got an envelope last week and had confronted one another to see if we each had one ominously taped to our lockers.
I was the stupid one thinking I would be the only one selected for The Guilda Sanguis Venenati when in reality, the Kentons, the Remingtons, and the vonBermeres were all Alabastor royalty.
We were each born to unfathomable fortunes, skeleton-lined secrets, and blood-inked ties.
Sometimes, I forgot that we were each hiding things we wanted nobody else to know.
And with that, the plans I had been making over the last week burned to ash, and the daunting realization hit me that nothing would be the same after tonight, once the deadline to accept the invite ended at the stroke of midnight.
No, it was likely that the five of us would reluctantly be entering the games of the most feared secret society on the Eastern seaboard tonight.
Breaking myself out of my thoughts, I finally replied, “The gold was a little much, no?”
Lex, being Lex, gave me a blank look before a smirk creeped on his face.
“We all end where the other begins. And we all knew you wouldn’t fill us in unless provoked.”
1 Sextum Secretum (Latin): Secret Six