Page 43 of Caelum

TEN

EREN

As I stared out the window of the common room and onto the yard, I kept an eye on Eve, who’d just been approached by Reed. They were talking about something that had him tensing up and her looking so unbearably sad I wanted to scream.

It felt like she’d been sad ever since we had returned from Aboh, and considering we’d experienced one mess after another since our return, I couldn’t exactly blame her.

Things were tough right now, and it didn’t seem as though they were going to let up anytime soon.

Our keeping her under the radar had just gotten a whole hell of a lot harder. She was going through foundation faster than a fashion model on the runway would as she used it liberally to cover her hands, and wearing gloves in eighty-degree weather just looked bizarre.

With Nestor still in bed recuperating, if shit hit the fan, we couldn’t exactly get off the island with ease.

That claustrophobic sensation, which had me feeling like I was choking, wasn’t something I was experiencing alone; I just knew it would be harder on me than most.

Dark spaces and I didn’t exactly get on well, after all.

Almost in response to the thought, I could feel the tiny muscles in my face freeze as my mind unwillingly took me back to that day. It was a long time ago now, but it might as well have been yesterday.

I forced myself not to remember the scent of my sweat, piss, and shit as I roasted alive in the rubble of my family home deep in Istanbul. I tried not to remember my mother’s screams before they faded into whimpers before she faded out of this world and into the next.

Clenching my jaw, I watched as Reed cupped Eve’s shoulder, but was surprised when she let him haul her into his embrace. The guy had evidently been surfing, but Eve didn’t seem to mind that he was clammy from the sea. He curved his arm around her and squeezed, his face intent as he spoke to her while Eve remained silent.

I’d admit to feeling protective of Eve. She was Pack, and that was all the excuse I needed, but equally, that wasn’t enough to explain the strange sentiments she inspired in me. And considering only Samuel and myself weren’t mated to her, it was either going to go down one of two ways.

Either we were the unlucky pricks who’d be without a mate in our Pack—even though that was normal, our Pack was turning out to be anything but—and Eve would still be ours regardless.

Or, we were just waiting on Eve’s eighth soul to pick us.

I wondered what triggered the selection process, but I wasn’t fretting about it too much. There was so much more to worry over. Dre could shift now, and considering what Eve could do, we were just waiting on Nestor and Reed’s souls to become dominant.

What Eve had done with Dre had changed everything for us. Everything. If she could force our souls into claiming dominance, then we didn’t have to wait here for the portal.

Didn’t have to stick around like sitting ducks just waiting to be shot at by the faculty.

The prospect of my Lorelei taking control of me a few years ahead of schedule didn’t perturb me. At eighteen, I’d been ready, but the way creatures developed had me stuck in this stasis, along with the other men in my class and the year above.

There were certain things nobody had an answer for, and while we were here, waiting, the unknown, oddly enough, gave me hope. No one knew why the portal existed. No one knew how a female picked her Chosen, and no one knew what the mark meant.

That language that appeared on a male’s back?

We knew it was tongues , the language we all spoke after we crossed the portal on our arrival at Caelum, but the words?

We had no idea what they meant.

No one recognized them, and as far as our records ran, we knew we’d been around since the beginning. Back when Noah had flooding issues and King David needed a haircut.

Some things, no matter how much time we put into research, could never be explained, and in truth, that was what gave me hope.

If we couldn’t explain that stuff, things that were intrinsic to life here at Caelum, then why should we be able to explain Eve?

Maybe other creatures were like her, but they’d just never come to Caelum.

Maybe she wasn’t destined to become a Ghoul at twenty-one…

That, naturally, was my biggest fear.

“She’s safe with him.”

I jolted in response to the words then turned to nod at Samuel in greeting. “Didn’t think she wasn’t,” I told him earnestly.

The other guy shrugged. “He’s Hell Hound. I know what their reps are. Damon is scared of him?—”

Damon was one of the facility’s top Enforcers. Only the best could go out and recruit on Caelum’s behalf. Damon was one of them and Merry, another Enforcer, had been the one to bring Eve back to the nest.

“I’m sure he is, but he’s her Chosen. It’s different.”

“I’m glad you realize that,” he replied, and there was a stiffness to his tone that had nothing to do with the hint of the Queen’s English accent that colored his words.

Samuel often came across as pompous. Not just because of his faint accent, which even years here hadn’t destroyed, but it was his manner too.

Dude could be an asshole.

“I do,” I assured him.

“Why are you watching them together then?” he asked quietly, cutting me a look that I sensed rather than saw. My attention was back on Eve.

“I’m not. I’m watching Eve. Reed just came back from surfing. Eve went out because she saw a parrot in that tree.”

“And you let her go out there alone?”

“She doesn’t realize it, but she’s got cabin fever.”

Sam grimaced. “Shit. Yeah. We’re keeping a tight lockdown on her.”

“It’s only going to get worse,” I murmured sadly, knowing that was the truth.

There was no way we couldn’t watch over Eve constantly. If we did, only the fuck knew what would happen.

Not only was she a loose cannon where we were concerned, but with the rest of the staff?

None of us knew how long she’d be able to keep this shit that was going on with her under wraps, and the extra pressure she was under? Creatures didn’t work well under that kind of thing. We had a tendency to blow up first and then regret the aftermath later.

Knowing that, I’d let her go outside, let her feel some freedom. What harm could she do in the yard, I’d figured. And I hadn’t been wrong. She’d just been watching the bird until Reed had come along, and now he was caring for her.

“I think we need to bury the hatchet,” Samuel commented, breaking into my musings.

My top lip quirked up. “In each other’s skulls?”

Sam smirked. “We can go that route if you want, but we both know how this is going to go down.”

“You waiting on a mark too?”

He nodded. “Yeah. I’m thinking that’s how this is going to pan out.”

“Out of curiosity,” I asked, my voice quieting to make sure no one could hear, “why do you think that?”

“Because it’s too uncanny that both of our Packs contain one of each soul.”

“That’s my logic as well.” I couldn’t deny that hearing Samuel confirm my belief buoyed my confidence.

There was nothing, I’d come to realize, that I wanted more than to be Eve’s Chosen. Even if she already had five of them.

Five.

God, who knew that was even possible?

“Do you think she’ll turn Ghoul?”

At his question, everything inside me tensed. “No. I don’t think so.”

“Maybe all Ghouls have this eighth soul?—”

I shook my head. “No. No way. We’d have heard about that in Ghoul Theory.”

Yeah, that was one of the classes we had to take here at the Academy.

No one ever said the faculty was imaginative with their courses.

“Yeah, that’s true,” Samuel conceded, and I sensed his relief.

“This eighth thing, it’s too out there. If it was a regular thing, we’d know about it. Plus, there’s no way Nicholas wouldn’t have put a tighter watch on her when she admitted that she had eight to him?—”

“Maybe he did. Maybe you four were his idea of guardians. Let’s face it, you’re loyal to the cause, and Stefan would lick Caelum’s boots if it had feet,” he countered. “Everyone knows how much he loves this place. He’s like the only dude who’s happy about having to pay a tithe when we graduate.”

To support the Academy for future generations, all soldiers had to pay a part of their salary to Caelum. Stefan, who’d been born and raised with nothing, whose first home had been here, had been beyond dedicated to the cause. Samuel was right.

The more I thought about it, the more his words made sense. “You’re not wrong.”

Sam snorted. “That’s just another way of saying I’m right.”

My lips curved, but I kept my focus on Eve, who Reed was dragging over to the outside shower area.

“Perhaps,” was all I said to Samuel.

“No perhaps about it. If Stefan hadn’t been her Chosen, and he’d found out about all this shit?”

Slowly, I nodded. “He’d have told the faculty.”

Samuel folded his arms across his chest, and now that Reed and Eve had disappeared together, he turned so he could lean against the wall to my right. I glanced his way and asked, “What do you want, Samuel?”

“Honestly?”

“Of course. No point in lying to me.”

“Peace.”

“You want peace?”

“Don’t you?”

“Don’t answer a question with a question,” I retorted waspishly.

“That’s the only answer I have. I want peace, but I’m not going to get it. Eve has proven that. However, that doesn’t mean our Packs have to remain at war.

“Things have been neck and neck between us for a long time, and I know we could carry on perpetuating the animosity between us, but for Eve’s sake, for all our sakes, I want to let things simmer down.”

“Why did you come to me about this? Why not Stefan?”

“Because he’s a hothead. It’s in his nature.” Samuel’s lips curved. “Loreleis and Vampires are far more sensible.”

Loreleis were cooler tempered than Incubi and Succubi. It came as part of our talents—we were manipulators. You couldn’t do that if you weren’t, by nature, intrinsically apt at monitoring situations with a rationale that few of our kind possessed.

But just because he was right didn’t stop me from narrowing my eyes at him in consideration.

“I’ll bite,” I said, mocking his Vampiric soul. “What’s your game?”

Samuel shook his head. “No game. We have a mate now, and she comes with a war of her own. Fighting battles among ourselves will only weaken us in the long run. ”

I frowned, knowing that was the truth. Eve brought with her a whole host of complications that I knew she didn’t even begin to comprehend. Christ, I didn’t understand it myself and this was my world. Eve had been here for fewer weeks than I had fingers, dammit.

“Truce?” I stated, but it came out as more of a question.

“Truce.”

A thought popped up. “Since when are you so strategic?”

His lips tightened. “I always have been. Most things I do for a reason.”

“You like chess?” It was a random question, but I was curious.

He nodded.

“I do too. Care for a match sometime? Dre is better at it than me though,” I said critically.

His brows rose. “The Were plays chess?”

“He’s not as stupid as he likes everyone to think he is,” was all I told him.

Samuel eyed me for a second then dipped his chin. “I’d like that.” Then, he paused, hesitated some more, and asked, “In your Pack, who’s the strategist?”

My lips curved. “You were right on the money. Me.”

His arms tightened a second before they relaxed. “Speaking of… who deals with money?”

My brows rose. “Why?”

He snorted. “Don’t tell me you’ve all been wasting your allowance since you got here?”

The day we landed in Caelum, be it at thirteen or seventeen like Eve, we each were handed a credit card with funds we were allowed to spend on whatever the hell we wanted.

The funds weren’t limitless, but they were more than ample. And for kids like Stefan, Nestor, and Dre, who’d been raised without a pot to piss in—not literally, but still—the cards were hit hard when they were first received.

For me, I hadn’t been raised that way. My parents had been quite wealthy by comparison, and after their deaths, when my sister and brother-in-law—may he rot in hell—took me in, again, money hadn’t been an issue.

“No,” I told Samuel, though I wasn’t happy with the line of questioning. “We don’t waste it.”

“Good. I thought there was no hope for you yet.”

The truce we’d only just declared settled uneasily inside me. I wanted to trust his words, trust in what he was saying because it made sense, but years’ worth of distrust wasn’t easy to combat. Even if the fact that Eve had selected her Chosen from among our brothers was more reason than any to declare peace between us, loathing each other was going to be a difficult habit to break.

Samuel winced. “Sorry.”

“For what?”

“As strategic as I am, I usually fuck shit up with foot-in-mouth syndrome.”

I knew this wasn’t BS. Samuel was about as popular as Dre in school. He had the nasty tendency of keeping shit real in a way that was mean as hell.

Not saying anything, I let him carry on. “I was just trying to say that if you have some money to play with, I’ll gladly incorporate it into my portfolio.”

I cocked a brow at him. “And why would I want to do something like that?”

“Because money is security for people like Dre, Nestor, and Stefan. More of it, the better. I know for a fact that Frazer and Reed would be freaking the fuck out were it not for the fact that Frazer got partial access to his trust fund at eighteen, and that I’d been managing his payouts since.”

“You’re like their financial advisor?” I wasn’t even joking. The way he was talking? It was exactly how it was.

He nodded. “Yes. I’ve always been good with the stock exchange. My dad taught me.” Pain flashed across his face. “He worked in the city for a while.”

“London?”

Another nod. “Yes. He worked as an analyst for two years until he’d raised the capital for his true passion.”

“What was that?” I inquired, curious as to whether he’d answer or not. What I knew about Frazer, Reed, and Samuel was limited to pretty much what I’d learned ever since Eve had brought them closer to us.

Sure, years of surveying one another in the common room taught me shit like Samuel had a fetish for BBC News and Frazer loathed anything that wasn’t sports related and had a hard-on for Formula One racing, but still… nothing as personal as what Samuel was sharing now.

Samuel tensed a little but admitted, “Jewelry. His father had a diamond place in Hatton Garden in London.”

“A diamond place?” I queried. “Like where they were traded or cut?”

“Both. My grandfather lost it thanks to a bad loan, and it kind of killed him. The shame, you know?” He gulped. “My dad went to work for that bank, raised the capital to start up again, and that’s what he does now. ”

“That’s kind of cool,” I replied gently.

“Yeah. I guess it is.” His smile was tight. “That’s my dad, though.”

“You miss him?”

“Without a doubt. Every damn day.” Samuel released a taut breath. “Don’t you miss your folks?”

“Yes. But mine died, you know that.” There was no heat to my words, but Samuel winced.

“Yeah. I did. Sorry. I didn’t mean?—”

“I know you didn’t,” I instantly countered because Samuel hadn’t been prying. Everyone, apart from maybe Eve, knew about my past. “I miss them, but it’s a different kind of ache.”

“We’re unusual.”

“Yes, we are,” I admitted, and I wasn’t throwing bullshit either.

Creatures with love for their parents were few and far between.

“You still have family though, right?”

I shrugged. “Kind of. My sister is still alive, but after what I did to my brother-in-law before I came here, I doubt she’d ever want to see me again.”

His brows rose. “What did you do?”

I couldn’t stop myself from smirking. “Mohammed was gaining ground in the government. He was ultra-conservative, ultra-traditional. Muslim to his core. I was a piece of shit to him because he thought I was sick, you know?”

“Yeah, I can believe it,” Samuel replied edgily.

“When Rastri, one of the recruiters, came for me,” I informed him, “he knew what I was, what I could do, and my Lorelei held the fort that day.”

Samuel’s brow furrowed. “What did you do?”

My smirk morphed into a grin. “Enticed a reporter to Mohammed’s office.”

“Why?”

“He had a lot of affairs. A mistress here, a lover there.”

“The reporter caught them in the act?” he guessed.

“Best day of my life.”

“He hurt you?”

I nodded. “Made me miserable…” Understatement of the century. “…so I repaid the favor.”

Samuel pursed his lips. “We can cripple him financially, you know?”

“My sister… she’s conservative too. I doubt she ever divorced him. It would hurt her too if I did that, but thanks for the offer.” I grinned at him, and suddenly, out of nowhere, my distrust di sappeared.

Any dude who was willing to ‘financially cripple’ someone you loathed was a friend in my eyes.