Page 21 of Caelum

TWENTY

NESTOR

A sigh of relief escaped Dre when he grabbed a hold of Stefan’s forearm and dragged it to his mouth. As he slurped up the blood, Eren and I turned our focus on the TV.

It wasn’t exactly an uncommon sight. Once we found our people, our Pack, we tended to feed in-house, or if we were fucking someone, then they’d be dinner too.

It was as necessary as breathing on the days when the Vampire held full sway, so we chilled, not thinking anything of it as Dre fed.

“I thought you said she was with Merry,” Eren mumbled a few moments later, breaking into my concentration as I watched a documentary on sea lions and how their colonies were too large for their territory now. Not because the colonies were growing but because their territory was shrinking.

My stomach churned at the sight, the proof of what we were doing to our world with our excesses—creatures included—and it took a few seconds to realize what he was even talking about.

When I turned my head and saw Eve was standing in the doorway, her nostrils flared as she watched Dre snack on Stefan who was lying back to facilitate the feeding while dicking around on his phone, I sensed her Sin Eater was in charge. Only two species watched. The Sin Eater and the gouille , and mine would have recognized hers. That it didn’t told me which soul of hers was under control.

Or not, to be more precise .

Her eyes were wide, the bright gems glittering as she watched and assimilated the scene before her. I could tell that assimilation wasn’t a positive one and I had a feeling that was because it was Dre doing the feeding.

He hadn’t been awake that long but somehow, the tit had managed to alienate her to the max. I didn’t blame her either. Dre’s attitude made an armadillo look sexy. I spent half my time trying not to throat punch him as well.

“Eve?”

I whispered her name cautiously, trying not to startle her. She wanted to protect Stefan. I could sense that. But he didn’t need protecting—and then I thought about today. When she’d been in the library and we’d been hanging out close by. Definitely not studying, and only there to keep an eye on her when Becky had walked up and had begun flirting with Stefan…

FML.

It was evident to us all that Eve didn’t realize she’d claimed Stefan. She didn’t have a fucking clue. But her souls knew. And it was her souls who would fuck Dre up if we weren’t careful.

She didn’t respond to my hesitant calling of her name, but her eyes flickered over to me and back to Dre. Stefan had tensed and was watching Eve warily; Eren, too, was eying her like a rattlesnake about to strike.

Dre ignored me like the dick he was, but I reached over and smacked him on the back of the head. “If you want to be on that plane the day after tomorrow, then back the fuck off,” I ground out.

He sneered at me as he wiped blood from around his mouth. “I’m still hungry.”

“You’ve been gnawing on him for a while,” I argued, my gaze still intent on Eve.

Female creatures were far more deadly when provoked than their male counterparts. We rarely involved them in any of the heavy fighting, but when they were being antagonized as Eve was—Dre was now making a show of wiping his mouth and licking his lips—females would skin men alive if they saw the need.

And considering her Sin Eater was in session?

Dre needed to watch his back.

“Eve?” This time it was Eren who spoke. She didn’t move. Still hadn’t since the first time I’d seen her standing in the doorway.

That preternatural stillness had my gouille surging to the surface as arousal hit me hard. Everything about her was geared to mess with my head.

We’d already had several indications that she was dominant. Not only from the strength of her attack on Reed, but our souls bounced off hers—meaning we didn’t try to dominate her as we might have done if she’d been weak-spirited.

It made sense to think of her as easy prey because she was quiet and innocent from the way she’d been reared. But she wasn’t.

That much was evident now, and my gouille responded in kind.

I surged to my feet and headed over to her, hands raised as I cautiously approached her. “Eve? You rely on bags of blood, but that’s not healthy. We’re encouraged to take directly from the vein.”

It was a testament to just how special her circumstances were that Nicholas, the principal, and Lori, the housemistress who looked after the boarder rooms in the part of Caelum where Eve lived, were still allowing her to feed from the bags. They kept us barely nourished on our Vampire days, and it was imperative that she switch over to the vein soon.

Not that I was about to tell the pissed Sin Eater that right at that moment.

Her gaze flickered to me at last as some of my words began to penetrate the thick shell that overtook us when we were in this mode.

“Hurt. Him?” she rasped unevenly, and I saw a flicker in her eyes that made me think she was coming back to us.

Knowing that this had to be one of the first times she’d responded like this, I empathized with her fatigue. It took a shit ton out of us when our souls overwhelmed us.

“No,” I comforted. “It’s natural for us.”

She shook her head. So slowly that it was painful to behold, but I knew to her, it would feel like she was whipping it back and forth. “Not. Natural.”

I made a fist with my hand. “All is well,” I reassured her, lying through my teeth at the same time.

I wasn’t surprised when she cut Eren a look and knew that he nodded because some of the tension dissipated from her shoulders.

“Don’t. Like.”

“That much is evident,” Dre rasped. “Am I allowed to continue feeding now?”

“Fucking douche,” Stefan spat.

I closed my eyes, predicting what was about to happen before it did.

In less than a second, I was shoved out of the way like I didn’t weigh over two hundred pounds, and Eve leaped over the sofa, every ounce of her Sin Eater backing her, as she hurled herself at the man she thought was attacking her mate. The mate she didn’t even know she’d Chosen .

Fuck, could this get more confusing?

Dre’s eyes flickered in surprise—the dick had a habit of underestimating her—before he was rammed back into the floor with a thud that had even me wincing as every single one of his bones connected with the hardwood.

When her hands went to his throat, he began to scrabble at her hold, but she wasn’t budging.

Stefan rushed to his knees and peered down at them both on the ground, but none of us tried to help Dre. Not when he deserved the punishment Eve needed to give him.

If she took things up a notch, then we’d put a halt on things, but maybe losing some oxygen would get Dre to smarten up. The bastard seriously needed to get with the program.

She’d pinned Dre to the ground and her pelvis was flush with his belly in a way that made me think of her on top of me. Holding me in a similar way but without the intent to murder on her mind.

When Eren elbowed me in the side, I grunted and stared down at my hard-on. He glowered at me. “Stop that. You think she’ll calm down with your hormones in the air?”

Because he wasn’t wrong, I thought of the nightmares that kept me awake at night, nightmares that were based on reality.

As expected, remembering being exorcised made my cock sink to half-mast.

“Loathe. You,” Eve growled all of a sudden, and her hands tightened around Dre’s neck to the point where he wasn’t just choking for air but practically suffocating.

Stefan was nearest so I let him touch her. Plus, he was her mate, so that should calm her down some. When his hands cupped her shoulders, before running down over her arms, she shuddered and I instantly saw the strain in her muscles dissipate.

“Hurt. You?” she whimpered, turning her head to the side so she could press her face into Stefan’s throat. When she inhaled his scent, the move had me thinking about Padre Jimenez once more because it was either that or get another hard-on.

“No. I promise, sweetheart,” Stefan swore, and Dre began to wiggle out from under Eve’s surprisingly tight pin.

She’d evidently been watching the rings while she worked out—something that shouldn’t come as a shock considering how bored she was in the gym.

When she relented and sat up on her knees, Dre shot out and backed off to the other side of the room. Because he was a dumb fuck, he didn’t leave, just sat there glowering as Stefan turned her into his arms and embraced her.

That it was their first true hug was just a bittersweet symphony. I saw the longing on his face, read it as easily as Eve read her books.

Whether she knew it or not, Eve had just set a timer on her freedom.

There was no way, no how, that Stefan was about to let them carry on the way they were.

She’d Chosen him and the time would soon approach where she’d have to Claim him too.