Page 143 of Ruthless Legacy

A dull hum starts up in the room. I’m standing here. I’m a joke. An outcast. An outlier. I shouldn’t be here because I’m not from hereandI’m a woman. I’m from a family that’s been nothing but an embarrassment to their precious league. They want me to drop out.

I raise my head, clenching the card in my hand to hide the way it shakes, and speak the name that makes this real.

* * *

Pax

The guy next to me asks his buddy, “Who do you think that Thea chick ended up with?”

The other guy says, “Oh, it’s definitely someone from the lower legacy families. Probably the Manheims. They’re the lowest ranked, right?”

“Yeah. That’s them. One bad investment away from financial ruin. Or the kid that pees himself. What’s his name?”

I know exactly who they’re talking about. He peed himself one time when we were twelve or thirteen, after we wrapped him in a blanket, dragged him through camp and scared the shit out of him. But he never lived that down.

“Whoever it is, will have his hands full, trying to manage his popularity and hers.”

The other guy snickers. “That’s for damn sure. Two losers. We should make sure she stays at the bottom of the board. Women don’t belong here.”

“But she’s not the only female prospect. We’d have to get rid of all of them.”

“Nah. The other ones know what’s up. They know their place and as soon as their companions get tired of them being unavailable, they’ll drop out, because being matched is more important. Even if they don’t quit, we know they won’t serve a position here, other than administration and cock sucking.”

My stomach knots as they laugh at the joke. Hearing those words is jarring. I said something similar to Thea, but this isn’t the way I meant it.

The first guy says, “We should give her a crash course on the cock sucking part.”

“She’s not our companion. She’ll never go for it.”

“We’ll convince whoever she’s matched with to tell her to do it.”

I turn to look at them and ask, “And how do you plan to do that?”

The first guy says, “We’ll put pressure on him, until he agrees.” With a casual shrug of his shoulders, he adds, “We’ve done it before. Or we go straight to her. The word’s out about her, anyway.”

“What word?”

“You know that shit on Mayhem Night? She was into it. Most of it was her idea, but then she blamed the sororities for it, because she’s a bitch and wanted to get back at Eloise for kicking her off the pledge line. I’m glad the Dean and the IFC saw through her lies. I’m not even sure why she’s part of this test group of females. The other ones I can see,maybe. But that one. She doesn’t have what it takes.”

His buddy nudges him. “Yeah, but think of how much dead weight she’s gonna be. Those are easy points going up for grabs.”

There’s a commotion at the front of the room. “First year prospect LaReaux. We’re waiting.”

From here, she looks serene. Calm, but because we spar in the ring, I can recognize little details that say otherwise. Minute movements of her body, and the focused look of her gaze when she’s thinking of a counterattack.

She adjusts the set of her shoulders. She’s settled on a course of action. Her voice rings out clear as a bell. “Second year Prospect, Paxton Cox.”

What. The. Fuck?

This isn’t how the matching process goes. There’s always a notification when you’re entered into the selection pool, and even if I missed the notification, I’m a Trium. I’m supposed to match with a higher ranked legacy line. Not the losing prospect of a disgraced family.

Who the fuck submitted my name, and how did this pass the voting body? There’s no way my father knew about this.

I don’t want a companion, but if I have to have one, it should be anyone but her. There’s no way we’ll get through being forced to spend time together without trying to kill each other. The hall erupts into loud gasps and chatter. Nobody can believe it. A lot of families will have problems with it. That’s on the council to deal with.

What’s the shortest amount of time you can be matched? I’ll look into it, because whatever the time limit is, that’s how long I’ll let this farce go along.

The guys talking shit about Thea gawk at me. I let my eyes do the talking for me, daring them to follow through on their threats to force me to let them use her.

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