Page 36 of Caelum

THREE

REED

As I flowed into downward dog, I tilted my tailbone to the sky and pressed the palms of my hands and the soles of my feet into the earth.

It felt good.

In fact, it felt better than good. Yoga grounded me in a way that very little else did. My temper was difficult to control at the best of times, the Hell Hound demanding that it be allowed a free reign over me, but of all the things I'd learned here at Caelum, one of them was that yoga was better than most things the faculty had taught me.

The actions of having to control my breathing by pressing my body into a pretzel actually helped.

I didn't know why, just knew that it worked, and some days, I really fucking needed it to work.

There was no rhythm or rhyme as to why my Hell Hound would surge to the fore. I couldn't even explain it. Every day, until I graduated, a different soul would overtake me, be at the forefront of my being as I went about my business. That was the way for all creatures.

Until we were of age, the seven souls played with us as if we were their toys, and the older we became, the nearer graduation approached, it became more and more difficult to control them. To have control over ourselves.

My Hell Hound was a little different than most though. I'd known from the very beginning what I'd become, unlike other students here. The day I'd facilitated my mum’s death, I'd known I was a monster, and when I'd come to Caelum and had learned I had six other monsters living inside me, I'd known which was which, and which one I was—I was a Hell Hound.

Yoga wouldn't make me a better man, nor would it make me a kinder person, but at least it tempered the aggression flowing through me on a minute-to-minute basis. And after Eve had Chosen me, seemingly unknowingly, I needed that calmness more than I needed my next meal.

With the African sun beating down on my back, warming me through, my spine tingled as I pushed and pulled my limbs and joints into the varied positions that somehow worked their magic on me. Even my skin prickled with the heat, and after a lifetime of living under such intense, desert sun, the sensation made it a pleasure to be out on the beach.

We’d never lived near a beach back when I was a kid in Oz, so to be at Caelum was actually a privilege. Not a day went by where I didn't work out on the beach, go surfing, or run on the shore. They were the three activities that helped me control myself, helped me contain this monstrous beast living inside me.

As I inhaled and exhaled, closing one nostril off with my thumb, breathing in through the left nostril, I used my fourth finger, my ring finger, to press the left nostril closed so I could breathe through the right. Practicing breath control helped ground me further, and it was the reason I didn't throw my cell phone into the approaching tide when it began to buzz.

I ceased the one nostril breathing exercise, choosing instead to blow out a grunt. As I stared ahead at the rippling shore, letting the pure white bubbles at the tips of the surf soothe me, I reached for my cell and groused, “What?”

Frazer snorted. “So polite.”

“If you wanted polite, then you should have called Samuel. What do you want? I'm working out, Frazer.”

He hummed under his breath, and when he spoke next, there was an apologetic note to his tone since he knew the importance of my exercises. “Sorry, bro. But this is important. I need you to come to my room.”

I scowled. “Can't it wait? I've almost finished.”

“No. This is...” He sighed. “Sounds extreme, but it’s life or death.”

This time, my grunt was more than exasperated—Frazer had a habit of exaggerating shit. I growled but started gathering my stuff together as I mumbled, “Be there in five.”

Cutting the call, I took a second to press my hands together into a prayer pose and touched the tips of my fingers to the center of my forehead then my heart, giving thanks for the practice .

Loping off the beach, I rushed through the crumbling sand and back toward the stairs that had been cut into the cliff face a long time ago. There were over two-hundred steps, but I made the climb, without complaint, a few times a day. Sometimes, I thought the ocean was the only thing keeping me sane, and for somebody who dreaded insanity, it was a blessing to be here and so close to the sea.

I was barely out of breath by the time I reached the top, but as I ran the half-mile toward the Academy, my skin was a little red because I didn’t have a chance to cool down after practice. It was still boiling hot, and switching from yoga to a swift run was a faint jolt to the system after those stairs.

I slipped in the back of Caelum, and not wanting to see anybody or have to talk to anyone on my way to Frazer's quarters, I stuck to the back passages, using the back stairs that were darker and narrower because they'd once been servant’s quarters. Amid the shadows, and more at ease since I was inside now, I made my way to the attic where Frazer had lived for the past five years.

Why he liked it up there, I'd never know. My place wasn’t exactly bright and airy, but his was just creepy.

I was Australian. My continent was hardcore. Most of the animals there wanted to kill you, and the ones that didn't weren't scared of you. If anything, humans were scared of them. Even so, I'd never seen as many insects as what Frazer had to deal with up in the attic, but he said he liked it, and who was I to question his reasoning?

The freak could live wherever the fuck he wanted, especially now that he was twenty. Two months ago, he used his birthday as a means of declaring Sammy, himself, and me as Pack. Because of that, he could have moved rooms since having a Pack was the first stage in officially becoming an adult in the faculty’s eyes, so we were all granted more freedom than before. But he'd been more than happy to stay in the attic, and even if I didn't get it, I could appreciate the fact his room was larger than most.

The floorboards creaked underneath my feet as I walked because this was one of the oldest parts of Caelum. Some portions had been built back in the 1800s, with most recent additions being only a couple of years old. Caelum, in many ways, was a fixer-upper. Whenever it was decided that a new annex was required, a new section was patched up, stuck onto the side of an older part of the building, and an extension was made so there was access. It didn't make for a particularly pretty building, but it grew, as did our army, to a point where it was almost symbiotic.

Above the creaking of the floorboards, I heard the rumble of conversation, and I didn't bother knocking as I walked into Frazer's room, but that didn't stop me from hovering in the doorway at the sight of so many people in there.

I understood why he wanted to be here, in the attic and not a common room, when I saw there weren’t only six other guys in the bedroom, but Eve as well. The only person who was missing was Nestor.

Funny, wasn't it? How one person could change your life? How one day, you were without purpose, fighting the good fight, and had no other reason to live except for the purpose the people who had saved you had given you, and then, out of nowhere, you had her.

I touched her once.

My hand brushed hers, almost by accident, as she touched one of the suits of armor lining Caelum’s many hallways. Just that, and out of nowhere, it had happened.

Such an underwhelming moment, but in the grand scheme of things, my life had changed.

She'd Chosen me.

Me. The monster. A creature even the faculty feared. I saw the way they looked at me. I was aware they knew how powerful my Hell Hound was. Even Damon, one of the recruiters and a top Enforcer, looked at me funny sometimes. I sensed his caution around me, and though many would find satisfaction in that, especially with Damon’s record, I didn't. I knew what I was capable of, and so did he, which made me the monster I'd always believed myself to be. But when Eve had touched me, everything had changed.

My entire world had shifted axis, and I'd been reeling ever since.

“What’s going on?”

At my demand, the chatter stopped. Stefan scowled at me, muttering, “How is it for a Hell Hound you can be so silent?”

Eren laughed a little. “It’s all the yoga,” he teased, surprising me with the fact he’d noticed I supplemented my workouts with the practice.

His head tilted to the side at that, and I sensed Stefan’s amusement as he cocked a brow at me and repeated, “Yoga?”

At any other time, I might have launched myself at him, but Eve was here looking like a rabbit in the headlights, and Dre broke into my irritation with a grumbled, “This isn't ‘question and answer’ time. Let’s get this shit show on the road.”

“Ever eloquent,” Eren stated with a scowl. “If you can't say anything nice, Dre, don't say anything at all. You understand me?”

Dre rolled his eyes, but he kept his mouth shut. That, more than anything, told me this wasn't the first warning he'd received, and knowing the piece of shit had a mouth on him, it wasn’t a shock.

Dre had one of the worst attitude problems in the entire school. In an academy of four hundred students, his rep was the worst.

We all had attitudes, had all come from shitty backgrounds, had each been stashed in too many asylums to count. We’d had to handle genuine crazy people, and I was sure that along the way, there’d been abuse and only God knew what other kind of treatment, but of us all, Dre was the worst. The biggest jackass south of the Equator.

An uneasy silence settled after Eren’s warning, though, and I hesitated over trudging deeper into the room.

Frazer's quarters consisted of a double bed that was too small for him, a sofa, and a TV. He was a minimalist, which came as a surprise considering his past. He was, I knew, wealthy as fuck. Samuel had been managing his money since Frazer had turned eighteen when a part of his trust fund had opened up to him. Because Sammy was a whiz kid with anything attached to a dollar sign, it made sense. But the number of zeros in Frazer's bank account in no way fit with the state of his room.

I'd seen jail cells that held more decoration, and that was no lie.

There were no personal photos, no bookshelves with books, no photographs or paintings on the wall. It was literally three pieces of furniture. That was it. It was depressing, to be honest. I really didn't like being in here, and actually preferred hanging out in the common room, but there was something going on that apparently necessitated our worst enemies being in one of our bedrooms.

The phrase ‘worst enemies’ might have sounded a little dramatic, but Stefan, Nestor, Eren, and Dre were the only Pack in the year—hell, the school—who actually had the ability to best us, and had. Several times, to my shame.

Stefan’s and my Pack were close to being ready for true battle conditions. The second our souls manifested was the second we’d be out on the front line.

Funny that until Eve had come along, that was all I'd hoped for. The day I could actually be useful. When the monster deep inside me would have a purpose, would have a means of expressing himself.

I wasn't scared of dying, but I was scared of the beast inside me. Hell, it was more like a demon. I loathed that side of myself, and being able to liberate it on the battlefield was the only thing that kept me going, kept me thriving. Until her.

Eve had changed everything, and she didn’t even fucking know it .

“I have something to tell you,” Frazer murmured softly, breaking the awkward silence that had descended on the room. He winced then continued, “In fact, several things...”

“Get on with it,” Dre ordered with a growl. When there was more hesitation from my Pack leader, he grunted, “If you want something doing right, do it your damn self. Stefan and Frazer are Eve’s Chosen.” He sniffed. “Both of them.”

If he'd told me unicorns existed, I'd have been less surprised.

As I was standing in the doorway, with the door closed behind me, I staggered back against it, grateful I'd shut it so it kept me upright. “You can't be serious,” I wheezed. That meant she had three Chosen. Three.

Frazer nodded when I caught his eye. There was a strain in his face I didn't recognize, but it made me confirm, “You're marked?” Another nod.

I cut Eve a look and saw her alabaster skin was paler and peakier than when I’d walked into the room. She was also trembling, and every five or so seconds, she'd shiver like she was cold. But it was warm in here—hell, it was always warm at Caelum. We were on an African island, for God’s sake. We didn't exactly get blizzard conditions. Still, the fact she was shivering told me how nervous she was, and having spoken to her several times, I was well aware that Eve wasn't like normal girls.

She dealt with the world a tad differently than most, not just because of her background, but she saw things in a way that was unusual to me. Not in an uncomfortable way, just one that spoke of her innocence.

To be honest, it was refreshing.

Most of us here at Caelum were jaded. Experience taught us that the naiver we were, the more danger we were in. Innocence didn't last long in a place like this. I didn't just mean mentally, but physically as well. Sex was a common part of life here, and though that was great for me, it was a whole other world for Eve. It was why I left her alone—as much as I was able to, even if it fucking killed me to deny myself her presence during my days.

I allowed myself more access to her than the faculty would permit if they knew what she was to me, but that was it. Nothing more, nothing less.

“Eve?” I called, trying to break her out of whatever thoughts she was lost in. At her name, she blinked up at me, and her beautiful face was filled with so much bewilderment I just wanted to go to her, take her in my arms, and tell her everything would be okay.

But how could I?

How could I do that?

It wouldn't be okay.

It wasn't possible. Having three Chosen mates at Caelum? Anything that was outside of the strict parameters of life here, rules we all rigidly lived by, was grounds for annihilation.

And as hard a word as that was, it was the truth. There was no way the faculty would allow Eve to survive.

“Yes, Reed?” she whispered.

“Are you all right?”

Her smile was tight, pained almost. “I've been better.”

She was curled into the side of the sofa the closest to the window, but Stefan was on her right side, and though Frazer was pacing, he hovered to her left. I understood the need to be close to her. It had been something I'd been fighting for weeks now, but I'd always managed to keep away, considering the consequences.

Was this the moment to share what I was to Eve? Or would it just make things worse?

“What are we going to do?” Stefan growled out before I could say anything, and his proprietorial tone pissed me off as it had been doing since she’d Chosen me. My Hell Hound tensed inside me, and I had to ball my fists to contain the sudden swell of possessive anger bubbling away in my core.

She’s mine too , I wanted to hurl at him, but before I could, Eren’s soft reply had me tensing: “We have to keep this among ourselves.”

Dre snorted. “No shit, Sherlock. Unless you want lover girl to lose her head, then we’d best keep things beyond quiet. That means no asking for advice, no looking for information in the library. Even asking about the possibility of a female having more than one mate...” He cracked his knuckles. “It’s the start of a slippery slope.”

Because I agreed with him entirely, I nodded and added, “He's right. It’s in our nature to seek answers to the questions we have, but we have to ignore them.” I ran a hand through my hair, pulling at the longer strands in frustration. “The only trouble is, what do we do and where do we start?”

Frazer moved around the sofa and squatted down in front of Eve. One of his hands slipped over to her knee before sliding up so he could grasp a hold of one of Eve’s hands.

I studied the move and analyzed how it made me feel, and when the Hell Hound didn't react, didn't try to rip off Frazer's head, I released a shaky sigh of relief. The Hell Hound recognized Frazer was his Alpha. The trouble was, if Stefan touched her, I wasn't sure what the beast’s reaction would be. The creature reacted poorly to his words , so God knew what it would do in response to his actions.

“Eve, you need to tell us what’s going on here,” Frazer urged. “Talk to us. You've learned quite a lot since you've been here, and I've seen how much you read. Do you know anything, anything at all, that could clarify this situation?”

Her brow puckered and she shook her head. “I've been reading, yes,” she whispered softly, “but the books never mentioned anything about a mating. Nothing about being Chosen. I didn't even know that was possible. So, the reading list that Nicholas gave me...” Her voice trailed off, but the mention of our principal, Nicholas, had us all stiffening with dread.

Nicholas may have appeared to be like any other administrator in a school, but he wasn't.

He was old. Over three hundred years old—at least, that was the gossip. He'd survived more Ghouls than most humans had hot dinners. He'd singlehandedly brought down one of the biggest Nest Leaders in the world—Emmanuel, a female Ghoul who’d had over three thousand in her nest. He’d dismantled hers from the bottom up and had earned his position at Caelum as a result.

“I wonder why he didn't give her any books on the mating?” Eren mumbled. “We all learn about that stuff in our second year.”

He shot me an uneasy look. One I understood because it didn't make sense. “I mean, Eve, I've seen the books you're reading. You have to be up to date with the syllabus,” I mused, wondering what in the hell was going on.

She shrugged. “I’m ahead, but every time I go see him, he gives me a different list.”

“Do you have the latest list with you?” I pressed.

Eren waved at her and said, “Give me your phone, Eve.” To us, he explained, “I started photographing the reading lists because she kept losing them.” When she passed over the cell phone, he swiftly found what he was looking for. When he scanned through the list, he nodded more to himself than to us. “There’s a lot of general knowledge books on here. He's obviously been teaching her things about the world at large, not just about us.” He passed it to Frazer who’d held out his hand for it.

When my Pack leader scanned over the list too, nodding in agreement with Eren’s declaration, I murmured, “Because Eve is so innocent, he probably never imagined she'd be interested in things that a lot of girls her age would be. They’re obviously trying to ease her into our world.”

Samuel shot me a glance. “Don't you think you should tell them?” he encouraged, and there was a warning in his tone that told me he wouldn’t let me remain silent.

My mouth pinched—I should have known he'd say something. I was surprised he hadn't by now, if I were being honest .

Stefan glanced at me. “Tell us what?”

“You’re not the only two males that Eve has Chosen.” And with that, I shucked off my shirt and twisted around to show them the way of it.

I wore her mark too.