Chapter One
Twelve shots. Twelve shots stood between Sam Dubarry and getting everything she ever wanted. And no matter how much her stomach revolted at the sight of the clear tequila lined up in haphazard twin lines on the eighteenth-century long-table before her, she would not back down now.
She couldn’t. Her life was on the line here.
Well, maybe not herliterallife, but the life she wanted. The life she needed.
Tension twisted the entire room, slicing the air like the score from an Alfred Hitchcock movie. Across from her, the gentlemen of the 183rd class of the Oxford University Animos Society stood in wait, their eyes hungry for her failure and their lips curled in waiting laughter. In America, they would have been frat bros, but in England, they were in control of one of the most storied clubs in England… And one day, whether as political masterminds or heads of finance or members of the landed gentry who desperately clutched the power that the House of Lords gave them, together, they’d probably rule the country.
They were cruel. Entitled. Secretive. Destructive and everything that was bad about the world, everything that Sam had hated for most of her life.
And she couldn’t wait to be one of them.
At the head of the table, holding an egg timer and a fading sheet of paper with the Animos Society crest emblazoned on it in fading gold leaf, the leader of their little dinner party sat in the high-backed chair usually reserved for the most senior member of the household. Everyone in Animos had their own nickname, but the spindly man with a too-large head had inherited the flattering title of Captain from his predecessor once he’d ascended to the position. Sam thought “Upside Down Exclamation Point” or “Cabbage Patch Doll” probably would have suited him better, but she didn’t have a say in her own nickname, much less anyone else’s.
The eyes of the room settled heavy on her shoulders, but she felt Captain’s especially, drilling into the side of her head as if he wanted to unravel her from the inside out. It took every bit of strength she had inside of her to maintain her posture under the weight of his piercing gaze… And to keep from retching at the scent of the tequila wafting up from the glasses before her.
“Are you ready?” he asked after a long, silent moment.
“Yes.”
Not that she had any choice, of course. They would have sent her off to her final task of her Rage—the last weekend of humiliating activities that stood between her and one of those shiny blue-and-white coats of theirs—whether she liked it or not. But even if she hadn’t been ready, she wouldn’t have let them see it. As her brother always said, these men were bloodhounds for weakness, and if she wanted to join their ranks, they could never be allowed to sniff her out. With slow, deliberate motions, Captain twisted the egg timer, putting two minutes on the clock, before slamming it down. Two minutes. Ten Questions. Twelve Shots.
She could do this… Right?
“What is your name?”
The first shot scorched its way down her throat.
“Samantha Renard Dubarry.”
The name was almost entirely true, but it hadn’t always been. Two years ago, a brother she didn’t even know she had suddenly showed up at the library in New York City where she was studying for the last of her community college exams. Thomas had told her he’d just discovered her existence in his father’s old files and wanted to make things right, that he wanted her to come and take her rightful place as an English lord’s daughter. After that, she’d left Samantha Green, a nobody who’d spent most of her teen years slipping through the foster-care system, behind.
But, again, no one in Animos needed to know that.
“And what is your school and your degree?”
Shot.
“Blavatnik School of Government. War and Peace Studies.”
“Why War and Peace Studies?”
Shot.
“I want to make a difference in the world.”
As she threw back her next mouthful of tequila, her answer received an echoing chorus of guffaws from the Animos audience around her. It wasn’t exactly the best answer she could have given—they all would have been more sympathetic to some answer about power or wanting to spit on a statue of Lloyd George—but it was certainly a better answer than the truth, which was:I signed up to study politics because I thought it would earn my father’s acceptance, and when that clearly didn’t work, I signed up to join your stupid little club.
“Blavatnik is a new school, not one of the Old Houses. What makes you think that you deserve to be here?”
Shot.
“I don’t,” she answered, the words coming to her mind easily, if not to her tingling lips. Some of the questions were hers to answer, and some of them she’d had to study for. That one was the standard Animos reply expected of a new initiate.
“Whatisthe Animos Society?”
Shot.
