Bonnie fluffed her red curls as she hurried across Dalcrest's great lawn. It was so pretty here. Little flagstone paths bordered the lawn, leading off to the various dorms and classroom buildings. Brightly colored flowers -
petunias, impatiens, daisies - were growing everywhere, by the sides of the path and in front of the buildings.
The human scenery was pretty awesome, too, Bonnie thought, surreptitiously eyeing a bronzed guy lying on a toWellnear the edge of the lawn. Not surreptitiously enough, though - the guy lifted his shaggy dark head and winked at her. Bonnie giggled and walked faster, her cheeks warm.
Honestly, shouldn't he be unpacking or setting up his room or something? Not just lying around half naked and winking at passing girls like a big ... flirt.
The bag of stuff Bonnie had bought in the campus bookstore clinked gently in her hand. Of course, she hadn't been able to buy books yet, as they wouldn't sign up for classes until the next day, but it turned out the bookstore sold everything. She'd gotten some great stuff: a Dalcrest mug, a teddy bear wearing its own cute little Dalcrest T-shirt, and a few things that would come in handy, like an efficiently organized shower caddy and a col ection of pens in every color of the rainbow. She had to admit she was pretty excited about starting col ege.
Bonnie shifted the bag to her left hand and flexed the cramping fingers of her right. Excited or not, al this stuff she'd bought was heavy.
But she needed it. This was her plan: she was going to become a new person at col ege. Not entirely new; she liked herself fine, for the most part. But she was going to become more of a leader, more mature, the kind of person who people said, "Ask Bonnie," or "Trust Bonnie," rather than, "Oh, Bonnie," which was completely different.
She was determined to step out of the shadows of Meredith and Elena. They were both terrific, of course, her absolute best friends, but they didn't even realize how terrifyingly in charge they were al the time. Bonnie wanted to become a terrific, ful y in-charge person in her own right.
Plus maybe she'd meet a real y special guy. That would be nice. Bonnie couldn't actual y blame Meredith or Elena for the fact that al the way through high school, she'd had plenty of dates but no serious boyfriends. But the simple fact was that, even if everyone thought you were cute, if your two closest friends were gorgeous and smart and powerful, the kind of guy who was looking to fal in love might find you a little bit ... fluffy ... in comparison.
She had to admit, though, that she was relieved that she and Meredith and Elena were al living together. She might not want to be stuck in their shadows, but they were stil her best friends. And, after al ...
Thud. Someone crashed into Bonnie's side and she lost her train of thought completely. She staggered backward. A large male body lurched into her again, briefly crushing her face against his chest, and she tripped, fal ing against someone else's side. There were guys al around her, shoving one another back and forth, joking around and arguing, paying no attention to her as she was jostled among them, until a strong hand suddenly steadied her in the midst of the turmoil.
By the time she found her feet, they were moving off again, five or six male bodies swiping and shoving at one another, not stopping to apologize, as if they hadn't even noticed her as anything more than an inanimate obstacle in their path.
Except for one of them. Bonnie found herself staring at a worn blue T-shirt and a slim torso with Well-muscled arms.
She straightened up and smoothed her hair, and the hand gripping her arm let go.
"Are you al right?" a low voice asked.
I'd be better if you hadn't almost knocked me down, Bonnie was about to say snippily. She was out of breath, and her bag was heavy, and this guy and his friends seriously needed to watch where they were going. Then she looked up, and her eyes met his.
Wow. The guy was gorgeous. His eyes were a clear, true blue, the blue of the sky at dawn on a summer morning.
His features were sharply cut, the eyebrows arched, the cheekbones high, but his mouth was soft and sensual. And she'd never seen hair quite that color before, except on the youngest kids, that pure white-blond that made her think of tropical beaches under a summer sky...
"Are you okay?" he repeated more loudly, a frown of concern crinkling his perfect forehead.
God. Bonnie could feel herself blushing right up to the roots of her hair. She had just been staring at him with her mouth open.
"I'm fine," she said, trying to pul herself together. "I guess I wasn't watching where I was going." He grinned, and a tiny zing! shot right through Bonnie.
His smile was gorgeous, too, and it lit up his whole face.
"That's nice of you to say," he said, "but I think maybe we should have been watching where we were going instead of shoving each other al over the path. My friends sometimes get a little ... rowdy."
He glanced past her, and Bonnie looked back over her shoulder. His friends had stopped and were waiting for him farther down the path. As Bonnie watched, one of them, a tal dark guy, smacked another on the back of the head, and a moment later they were scuffling and shoving again.
"Yeah, I can see that," said Bonnie, and the gorgeous white-blond guy laughed. His rich laugh made Bonnie smile, too, and pul ed her attention back to those eyes.
"Anyway, please accept my apology," he said. "I'm real y sorry." He held out his hand. "My name's Zander." His grip was nice and firm, his hand large and warm around hers. Bonnie felt herself blushing again, and she tossed her red curls back and stuck her chin bravely in the air. She wasn't going to act al flustered. So what if he was gorgeous? She was friends - sort of, anyway - with Damon. She ought to be immune to gorgeous guys by now.
"I'm Bonnie," she said, smiling up at him. "This is my first day here. Are you a freshman, too?"
"Bonnie," he said thoughtful y, drawing her name out a little like he was tasting it. "No, I've been here for a while."
"Zander... Zander," the guys down the path began chanting, their voices getting faster and louder as they repeated it. "Zander... Zander... Zander." Zander winced, his attention slipping back toward his friends. "I'm sorry, Bonnie, I've got to run," he said. "We've got sort of a..." He paused. "... club thing going on. But, like I said, I'm real y sorry we almost knocked you over. I hope I'l see you again soon, okay?"
He squeezed her hand once more, gave her a lingering smile, and walked away, picking up speed as he got closer to his friends. Bonnie watched him rejoin the group of guys.
Just before they turned past a dorm, Zander looked back at her, flashed that gorgeous smile, and waved.
Bonnie raised her hand to wave back, accidental y clunking the heavy bag against her side as he turned away.
Amazing, she thought, remembering the color of his eyes. I might be falling in love.
Matt leaned against the wobbly pile of suitcases he'd stacked by the entrance to his dorm room. "Darn it," he said as he jiggled the key in the door's lock. Had they even given him the right key?
"Hey," a voice said behind him, and Matt jerked, tumbling a suitcase down onto the floor. "Whoops, sorry about that. Are you Matt?"
"Yeah," Matt said, giving the key one last twist and, just like that, the door final y opened. He turned, smiling. "Are you Christopher?" The school had told him his roommate's name and that he was on the footbal team, too, but the two of them hadn't gotten in touch. Christopher looked okay. He was a big guy with a linebacker build, friendly smile, and short sandy hair that he scrubbed at with one hand as he stepped back to make way for the cheerful middle-aged couple fol owing him.
"Hi there, you must be Matt," said the woman, who was carrying a rol ed-up rug and a Dalcrest pennant. "I'm Jennifer, Christopher's mom, and this is Mark, his dad. It's so nice to meet you. Are your folks here?"
"Uh, no, I just drove up by myself," Matt said. "My hometown, Fel 's Church, isn't too far from here." He grabbed his suitcases and lugged them into the room, hurrying to get out of Christopher's family's way.
Their room was pretty smal . There was a bunk bed along one wal , a narrow space in the middle of the room, and two desks and dressers crammed side by side on the other wal .
The girls and Stefan were no doubt living in luxury, but it hadn't seemed quite right to let Stefan use his Power to get Matt a good housing assignment. It was bad enough that Matt took someone else's slot as a student and someone else's space on the footbal team.
Stefan had talked him into doing just that. "Look, Matt," he'd said, his green eyes serious. "I understand how you feel. I don't like influencing people to get what I want either.
But the fact is, we need to stay together. With the lines of Power that run through this whole part of the country, we have to be on our guard. We're the only ones who know." Matt had to agree, when Stefan put it like that. He'd turned down the plush dorm room Stefan had offered to arrange for him, though, and taken what the housing office assigned him. He had to hang on to at least a shred of his honor. Plus if he was in the same dorm as the others, it would have been hard to say no to rooming with Stefan. He liked Stefan fine, but the idea of living with him, of watching him with Elena, the girl Matt had lost and stil loved despite al that had happened, was too much. And it would be fun to meet new people, to expand his horizons a bit after spending his whole life in Fel 's Church.
But the room was awful y smal .
And Christopher seemed to have a ton of stuff. He and his parents went up and down the stairs, hauling in a sound system, a little refrigerator, a TV, a Wii. Matt shoved his own three suitcases into the corner and helped them bring it al in.
"We'l share the fridge and the entertainment stuff, of course," Christopher told him, glancing at Matt's bags, which clearly contained nothing but clothes and maybe some sheets and towels. "If we can figure out where to put it al ." Christopher's mom was prowling around the room, directing his dad on where to move things.
"Great, thanks - " Matt started to say, but Christopher's dad, having final y managed to wedge the TV on top of one of the dressers, turned to look at Matt.
"Hey," he said. "It just hit me - if you're from Fel 's Church, you guys were the state champions last year. You must be some player. What position do you play?"
"Uh, thanks," Matt said. "I play quarterback."
"First string?" Christopher's dad asked him.
Matt blushed. "Yeah."
Now they were al staring at him.
"Wow," Christopher said. "No offense, man, but why are you going to Dalcrest? I mean, I'm excited just to play col ege bal , but you could have gone, like, Division One." Matt shrugged uncomfortably. "Um, I had to stay close to home."
Christopher opened his mouth to say something else, but his mother gave a tiny shake of her head and he closed it again. Great, Matt thought. They probably thought he had family problems.
He had to admit it warmed him a little, though, to be with people who acknowledged what he'd given up. The girls and Stefan didn't real y understand footbal . Even though Stefan had played on their high school team with him, his mind-set was stil very much that of the Renaissance European aristocrat: sports were enjoyable pastimes that kept the body fit. Stefan didn't real y care.
But Christopher and his family - they got what it meant for Matt to pass up the chance of playing for a top-ranked col ege footbal team.
"So," Christopher said, a little too suddenly, as if he'd been trying to think of a way to change the subject, "which bed do you want? I don't care whether I take top or bottom." They al looked over at the bunk beds, and that's when Matt saw it for the first time. It must have arrived while he was downstairs helping with Christopher's luggage. A cream-colored envelope sat on the bottom bunk, made of a fancy thick paper stock like a wedding invitation. On the front was written in cal igraphy "Matthew Honeycutt."
"What's that, dear?" Christopher's mom asked curiously.
Matt shrugged, but he was beginning to feel a thrum of excitement in his chest. He'd heard something about invitations certain people at Dalcrest received, ones that just mysteriously appeared, but he'd always thought they were a myth.
Flipping the envelope over, he saw a blue wax seal bearing the impression of an ornate letter V.
Huh. After gazing at the envelope for a second, he folded it and slipped it into his back pocket. If it was what he thought it was, he was supposed to open it alone.
"I guess that's fate tel ing us the bottom bunk's yours," Christopher said amiably.
"Yeah," Matt said distractedly, his heart pounding hard.
"Excuse me for a minute, okay?"
He ducked out into the hal , took a deep breath, and opened the envelope. Inside was more thick fancy paper with cal igraphy on it and a narrow piece of black fabric. He read:
Fortis Aeturnus
For generations, the best and brightest of Dalcrest College have been chosen to join the Vitale Society. This year, you have been selected.
Should you wish to accept this honor and become one of us, come tomorrow night at eight o'clock to the main campus gate. You must be blindfolded and dressed as befits a serious occasion.
Tell no one.
The little pulse of excitement in Matt's chest increased until he could hear his heart pounding in his ears. He sank down along the wal and took a deep breath.
He'd heard stories about the Vitale Society. The handful of Well-known actors, famous writers, and great Civil War general that Dalcrest counted among their alumni were al rumored to have been members. To belong to the legendary society was supposed to ensure your success, to link you to an incredible secret network that would help you throughout your life.
More than that, there was talk of mysterious deeds, of secrets revealed only to members. And they were supposed to have amazing parties.
But they were just gossip, the stories of the Vitale Society, and no one ever straight-out admitted to belonging to it. Matt always figured the secret society was a myth. The col ege itself so vehemently denied any knowledge of the Vitale Society that Matt suspected the admissions people might have made the whole thing up, trying to make the col ege seem a little more exclusive and mysterious than it real y was.
But here - he looked down at the creamy paper clutched in his hands - was evidence that al the stories might be true. It could be a joke, he supposed, a trick someone was playing on a few of the freshmen. It didn't feel like a joke, though. The seal, the wax, the expensive paper; it seemed like a lot of effort to go to if the invitation wasn't genuine.
The most exclusive, most secret society at Dalcrest was real. And they wanted him.