Page 17 of Caelum

SIXTEEN

STEFAN

“Stefan! I didn’t see you at the party last night.”

I frowned at Genevieve. “Why would you? I never said I was going?” I unpacked my shit from my gym bag and dumped it on the bench in front of the ring I was due to train in today.

We were assigned a ring and a sparring partner who matched our level. That meant my Pack was usually always butting heads with Frazer’s. Only they could best us.

The pricks.

As I looked around for Reed, I saw him warming up on the treadmill two down from Eve. He was watching her from the corner of his eye. That might have seemed like a stretch, but I’d done it often enough myself to recognize the signs. His head was tilted just so, his gaze on the mirror opposite as he looked at my woman.

“Stefan!” Genevieve whined, drawing my attention from the smackdown I was silently promising Reed the second we jumped into the ring.

“What?” I snapped, making her jump as I focused on her once more. When her hand came up to touch my arm, I shrugged her off. “I didn’t want to go, so I didn’t go. It’s not mandatory, Genny.”

She bit her bottom lip. “I just thought you’d be there.”

I gaped at her. “Why would you even think that?”

She shrugged, but her cheeks blossomed with heat. It almost reminded me of Eve, but there was no comparison. Eve’s blush was truly innocent, and it was hell-sent to make me suffer because I always thought the worst stuff when she turned pink. Genny? Not so much.

“You looked psyched when we were talking about the party, and I said I’d be going.”

I frowned, thinking back to that conversation which had to have happened weeks before. When I pinpointed it, I grimaced—that had been before Eve.

My life had become that way now.

Split into two parts—pre-Eve and post-Eve.

I wasn’t sure if that made me the luckiest man alive or pussy-whipped to a woman who didn’t even know what a pussy was.

Aside from the ones that went meow.

Running a hand over my face, I murmured, “I’m sorry, Gen. I forgot.”

“It’s okay.” Her bottom lip wobbled, making me think she was going to cry. She peered over her shoulder and shot a nasty look at Eve. “You’re hanging around with her a lot.”

I narrowed my eyes at her. “She’s my girlfriend.”

Gen’s mouth dropped wide. “Girlfriend? You don’t do girlfriends!”

I hadn’t. Until now. I’d never wanted to become attached because I refused to let anyone down, and I always would. It was in my nature to constantly be looking for something else, to be seeking something more.

Until Eve.

Nature itself had given her to me to curb my wicked ways.

Well , I thought wryly, a dirty smirk creasing my lips, to a certain extent.

The second I felt she was ready to understand what she’d done that day, what her soul had done, then I’d be telling her because no way could I jack off in the shower for much longer.

“She’s my girlfriend,” I reiterated, not wanting to get into any more of this petty shit with a woman whom I’d fucked, sure, but I’d made no promises to.

I didn’t get it. I never had. There were fewer females here, and the men danced around them like flies around shit, but they always hung on me.

Did that make me the luckiest prick in the world? Or did it mean I had the worse luck?

I wasn’t sure, and yeah, I knew I was a wanker for even letting that thought cross my mind.

Genny’s mouth tightened. “She’s a priss.”

I shrugged. “My priss.”

Nostrils flaring, she ground out, “I’ll be sure not to let you know the next time we have a party. ”

Smirking, I told her, “Thanks.” She retreated with a huff, and I didn’t even watch her tight ass sway away. Instead, I turned to Eve and saw that her focus was on me.

Instantly, heat hit me.

Sweet Jesus, what she could do to me without even fucking knowing it.

It was crazy how easily I could get a hard-on. Only the jock strap protecting my family jewels was going to get in the way of that.

Because I hadn’t seen her since breakfast—see, pussy-whipped—I headed over to her and asked, “Hey sweetness, why are you on the treadmill? You hate it.”

She winced. “Coach said I have to.”

When I saw Coach’s reflection in the mirror at her back, I glowered at him. Not that he saw. And if he had, he wouldn’t listen anyway.

No one would listen until I was twenty-one.

Which sucked.

“How long?” I empathized instead, but I knew she’d seen my grin and she was beaming at me as a result.

My heart went boom, dropping straight to my stomach at the sight.

“Forty minutes,” she said with another wince.

“Ouch. Well, you can watch me beat the shit out of Reed. So that should be entertaining.”

“Fuck you, Divosec,” Reed retorted, not even pretending that he wasn’t eavesdropping.

“Pace yourself, yeah?” I told her, ignoring him. “Even if he wants you running HIIT, just take it easy. Forty minutes is a long time when you still don’t have that great a stamina.”

She nodded, and her face was flushed but not from embarrassment this time, just exertion.

With a small smile, I left her and heard the beep as Reed’s treadmill stopped working.

Within five minutes, we were both in the ring. We knew the drill, so Coach left us to it. He had some of the younger years in here today and was teaching them some of the basic moves that Eve would have to learn soon.

Annoyed that he’d been checking Eve out, I enjoyed the sparring. Even though he was a Hell Hound, we were evenly matched when he wasn’t angry, and it was a fun workout.

In the background, I kept myself attuned to Eve. It wasn’t something I actively did, more something that my souls did, and I was relieved the claiming worked that way ten minutes later.

I took a hit to the shoulder and then the belly when Eve, who was the only person running in the gym, shut off the treadmill earlier than she’d said.

Reed took advantage of my distraction, of course. The prick. And I grunted as I dropped to my knees when I took the heat of his punch. Even though it hurt, my focus switched to Eve who had run from the treadmill, over to the water fountain, where she was puking into a wastepaper basket.

I grimaced at the sight as I turned from Reed to her.

“She won’t appreciate you watching,” Reed rasped, his voice husky with how hard I’d been working him over.

“Just making sure she’s okay.”

“She will be now that she’s puked.” He shrugged when I glowered at him. “Coach has set her up for too much. If she doesn’t level out within the week, I’d have her talk to Nicholas. He wants her to be at the same fitness level as someone in her year, but she isn’t.”

No, she wasn’t. Reed was right.

And Coach was being hella shortsighted with his training plan for her. Something else Reed was right about.

“You’re taking a lot of notice in my—” I wanted so fucking badly to say Chosen, but instead tacked on, “friend.” Said friend had wiped her face on a paper towel, guzzled down some water, but was retreating to the treadmill to carry on with her workout.

What she didn’t have in stamina or endurance, she made up for in resilience, that was for damn sure.

Or was it obstinacy?

“Figure she needs as many friends as she can get with your Pack around her.”

Reed’s words had my eyes widening and my focus shifting squarely to him.

Before he could do no less than blink, I was on him, pounding the shit out of him until Coach hauled me back and away.

Seeing his double black eyes an hour later made it totally worth having to clean out the guys’ locker room as punishment for whacking Coach in my efforts to get back at Reed.