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“Anything to get myself out of my own study.” I flicked through her text book, asking random questions which she already seemed to know the answers to, but my mind drifted constantly back to Napoleon Lancaster and the way he kissed me like I was his mirage.
I was so totally, royally, screwed.
CHAPTER NINE
NAPOLEON
"Nash. Aaron. Stanis." I winced internally at the last name.
Did his parents hate him?
More wannabes stayed around at the rest of the group, hanging on for more names, but that was as far as my list went. The Kingsman house only took a handful of pledges each year, and we weren't looking to bolster membership until the year that me and Beau left in eighteen months. When there would be a mass exodus of alumni, and an influx of pledges that would screw our culture to the ground.
"The rest of you can go." Reid clapped his hands like a fucking school marm and made a shooing gesture. "You. Dumb shits. You've got thirty minutes to get off the property. After that..." His smile read truthfully, though a little of his crazy glittered behind his eyes. "You’re fair game."
The kids shuffled fast, and I felt sorry for them in a way, though I hated that my brother made the cut. Not that the three young men before me meant they would be granted entry into the Kingsman frat. There were still a couple of little tests, with no small dose of revenge, that I needed to pass out with a touch of Beau’s flair, of course.
"I wouldn't smoke." Dylan, the goalie on Beau’s lacrosse team, sprawled out across one of the leather sofas, a beer lifted to his lips. He smiled over the rim at my brother and his two friends. If my brother had friends. "If you thought the last challenges were hard, they've got nothing on what’s coming at you right now.”
"What do we need to do?" Nash spoke up, spoke up, and I closed my eyes.
"Is that like praying for patience?" Beau laughed softly behind me.
I ignored the devil at my back and focused on the three young men in their jeans and concert shirts. Aaron watched me, his arms folded across his chest, his eyes are. Stan looked bored. Nash alone had the sort of calm both of us looked for in a pledge. As long as he didn't fuck up, my baby brother would end up sharing a house with me. And that would seriously fuck upmysenior year.
“Two remaining tests, and if you get those done, we’ll have a party in the honour of the last man standing.”
"What, you mean there's only one place available?" Aaron glared at me. "It would've been nice to have that information beforehand."
"Because you could have tried harder?” Beau’s smile was courteous and his voice soft, but his posture remained stiff.
I hid a smile behind my fist, faking a cough, and knew he didn't buy it. They were so damn alike, but it would be fun to watch them over the next few weeks.
"The Kingsman Frat house does things differently. We always have, and we've always been the elite." Aaron snickered, and Beau stopped speaking. "Am I wasting your time?"
He still didn’t lose his shit though I was already tired of the attitude. The next word the kid would hear would be is ‘be get the fuck out’if he wasn't prepared to grovel.
Aaron stops snickering. “No."
"No, what?” Beau’s quiet voice filled the house, much louder than any roar could ever achieve.
"No, sir."
“Damn right." Reid pushed off the wall and stepped up to three boys. "We have a problem with the Blackstone hockey team. They kidnapped our Captain, and we got him backsomewhat unscathed. We're not after revenge... but we need to inflict a little damage in return.
"You want to take out their goalie." Nash considered. " I’ll do it."
I stared. When the hell had my baby brother become a strategic genius?
The corner of Beau’s mouth quirked. "Astute observation. But we were going with something a little less violent."
I could see the question brewing in Nash’s eyes, but wisely he kept his little psycho tendencies to himself.
"Their mascot is a black bear. I want it for my wall.” Beau gestured to a vacant spot above the fireplace. That recently held a shield with the fraternity alumni on it. The hardwood slice of our history got moved to the entrance foyer leaving a little space for a big black bear costume head.
"And I want it by the end of the semester. I don't care how you get it. I don't care who you piss off. Here are your rules."
The three boys mumbled and shifted on their feet at that. They’d struggle later if they couldn’t deal with a few rules right now. The frat was full of the things, what we could and couldn't do in public, what the name meant. Who we represented. Dylan drank his beer on the sofa and rolled his eyes at me.
