Page 11 of Caelum

TEN

EREN

“But what is it?”

I had to laugh as Eve stared down at the Dyson. She kept on pulsing the button making the turbo motor roar to life. Every time she did it, she jumped. She knew to anticipate the noise, but that didn’t prepare her.

Her innocence should have grown tiring, but instead it was amusing as all hell.

“It’s a vacuum,” I told her expectantly, wondering what shit she’d spew now.

“A vacuum?” She peered down at it. “It isn’t how I’d have imagined one. What does it do?”

“How did you imagine one?” I asked, surprised.

“A space entirely devoid of matter,” she recited blankly, her eyes spacing out as she repeated something she’d obviously memorized a long time ago.

My lips tightened as I thought about her childhood. I’d already come to see how voracious a reader Eve was. In three days, she’d devoured the Harry Potter series, for Christ’s sake. That was speed-reading to the max.

For someone like her, I couldn’t imagine how it had felt to be denied books. And although she didn’t speak often about the place that had been her home for so long, little tidbits would pop out from time to time.

Like the fact she knew the dictionary and the Bible verbatim because that was pretty much all she’d been allowed to read past a certain age.

A fucking disgrace considering how smart Eve was .

How many kids out there were like her? So smart, their potential unknown, yet denied a decent education so they couldn’t fulfil their destiny?

I had a shitty feeling that the cure for cancer was out there in a kid like Eve. Honestly though, that would be exactly what humanity deserved.

“This isn’t that kind of vacuum,” I explained after a few more seconds of watching her pulse the button. “This picks up dust and shit from the floor.”

“Like a broom?” she queried, her head tilting to the side as she pinned me with her quartz-like eyes.

“Yes, like a broom. But better.”

“I thought this was called a Hoover,” she said after few moments of watching me run the machine over her floor.

“Yeah, it is. Hoover is a brand, Eve.”

She hummed. “So, that’s its name?”

My lips curved. “Well, it’s not a name like Eve or Eren, but yeah. I guess. It’s like a title.”

“Now isn’t the time for an existential crisis, guys,” Nestor grumbled around a chocolate—the lucky fucker had found brigadeiros on the menu today and was on his tenth truffle. “Just vacuum the damn floor.”

She stuck out her tongue at him then took the machine from me and began to vacuum her space.

The noise had stopped making her jerk back, but I could tell she wasn’t comfortable with the device. I slumped back on the sofa in her room and watched her. It was surprisingly entertaining observing Eve.

I knew most of the guys liked watching the women around campus. Especially when they were training and wearing close to nothing. But Eve? She did nothing to attract that kind of attention, but she called to me like flowers did to a bee.

For someone who’d been trained, from birth, to be controlled and composed at all times, she was surprisingly sensual. She touched a lot. Running her fingers over something like she could learn it through absorption, almost like a child. But she wasn’t a child. Not at all.

After more time here, I wondered what she’d be like when she was well-read and capable of holding conversations that weren’t about the Bible. I was psyched to know just who she was.

Her memory was beyond incredible. I’d never seen anyone recount passages from the Bible the way she could. It reminded me of the Hafiz —people who knew the Quran word for word after a lifetime’ s study. And while it could be said that Eve previously had nothing else to study, it wasn’t the same at all.

Eve wasn’t religious.

Crazy, but true.

She’d followed the rules of her people but only to stay under the radar.

I had a feeling that when she was freed from the bullshit she’d learned—and she wasn’t a regular human, and her souls wouldn’t let her remain indoctrinated for long because they had their own shit to do—Eve was going to be a rebel.

Smirking at the thought because it amused me to imagine her in a leather jacket and Ray-Bans James Dean-style, I watched her and then became aware that Nestor and Stefan were watching me watch her.

I quirked a brow at them, not sure what the issue was.

In the real world, checking out a friend’s woman’s tits? Yeah, worthy of an ass-kicking. But in this world? We shared. And they knew that.

They also knew I was a goddamn virgin, and that most of the women on the campus did jack shit for my dick.

I guessed it was only fitting that Eve had said dick tied up in knots. There was more DNA material on my shower wall than in an episode of CSI.

“What do we do now?” Eve asked, breaking into my thoughts as she peered at the container that was loaded with dust.

“Throw it out,” I said, watching as Nestor climbed to his feet, grabbed the machine, detached the insert, and then emptied it into the trash.

She frowned, stared down at the floor, then pursed her lips. “Electricity is handy, isn’t it?”

My nose twitched as I tried to stop myself from laughing. “Very handy,” was all I allowed myself to say.

A hum escaped her, and I watched as she grabbed one of the books from her enormous stack that was growing every time she passed the library then headed for the sofa where we were sitting.

I was honestly surprised she was comfortable with us in here. I figured she’d want this space to be her own and that being around us would disconcert her. But, again, she wasn’t human. And her soul undoubtedly recognized Stefan’s presence and that soothed her.

Was it horrible of me to wish that my soul and hers were the bonded ones?

Probably.

But Eve was a prize, and she didn’t even know it. I had started to enjoy the time we spent together, reveled in those moments where I could just watch her read at my side.

I wasn’t sure what had changed between then and now. Just knew that I had. That something about her got to something inside me. It was both terrifying and exhilarating at the same time.

“What are you reading?” I inquired with a rasp, trying to focus on the documentary Nestor was making us watch rather than on her sweet expression as she smiled up at me.

“ War and Peace .” She patted the book after she’d shuffled nearer to me on the sofa. “I did that thing you told me to do.”

“Which thing?” I’d told her to do a lot of things. I was her walking Alexa.

“That thing with the Google.”

“Just Google,” Stefan corrected. “No ‘the.’”

“Nit-picker,” she grumbled.

“What did you Google?”

“’Literature you have to read before you die.’”

“You’re not dying,” I reasoned. “Won’t be for a long time.”

That had her clearing her throat. “I have to divide up my reading time.”

“Why?”

She shrugged. “Some time is for pleasure, but most is for study.”

“You can chill a bit, Eve,” Nestor argued, melted chocolate clinging to the sides of his mouth like he was a damn toddler. “You don’t have to read the whole library before you graduate.”

I kicked his foot. “If that were a prerequisite, Dre would never graduate,” I joked, and Stefan and Nestor laughed with me.

“Doesn’t he like to read?”

Stefan snorted out another laugh. “Nope.” Then, at Nestor, he groused, “Do we have to watch this shit?”

“I like it,” Eve declared. “It’s quieter than all those guns you like to watch.”

Nestor extended chocolate-covered fingers toward her. “Want my last one?”

Her eyes rounded. “You wouldn’t mind?”

He grinned. “Nope.”

I knew for a fact he wouldn’t have shared that with Stefan or me, but I wasn’t pissed. I was glad, actually. It was yet more proof of the effect Eve had on Nestor, which was all for the good. He could be weird around girls, but Eve seemed to relax him. Enough to share his last treat with her, apparently, and I watched as she took the chocolate truffle covered in brown sprinkles and raised it to her lips.

Nestor’s sacrifice was more than worth it when she released a soul deep moan as she savored the treat.

“That tastes so good,” she purred, her voice smoky. When she saw we were watching her, her cheeks turned pink, but her smile was bright. “That was delicious. Thank you, Nestor.”

“You’re more than welcome,” he stated, his tone so heartfelt I was hard-pressed not to laugh out loud.

Instead, my lips curved and I lifted my arm and curled it over the back of the sofa. Nerves filled me, wondering if she’d move away from the touch. Hell, I wasn’t even sure if she’d recognize what the move technically meant!

When she did nothing but open the book and begin reading, I averted my attention to the screen, but not before I glowered at Nestor and Stefan who were smirking at me like the douches they were.

But they were the ones who were left hanging when, after five minutes, she turned into me, leaned against my side, then curled her legs up so the book was on her lap.

Did she recognize what that meant?

I didn’t think her Succubus was in charge today, but some days, she didn’t present. Unlike the rest of us. It was pretty easy to sense which soul was taking the lead, but Eve’s weren’t that discernible. She kind of went from zero to a hundred where that was concerned. All or nothing.

Swallowing, I felt my Adam’s apple bob at her proximity, at the scent of chocolate that lingered in the air from her treat, as well as from her scent. It was clean and fresh and delicious too. Inside, I was tense, uncertain, but when she relaxed, I did as well.

There was something about her, something that eased an internal ache I’d never known I had.

Whether that was for good or bad, we’d find out eventually.