Page 83 of Caelum
TWENTY-FOUR
EVE
Over Dre’s shoulder, I peered at Stefan and Frazer. I was curious, I wasn’t about to lie about that, and watching as they killed the Ghouls who’d attacked us was enough to make me glad that once we erased the final Original, neither of them would have to do this stuff anymore.
Frazer’s method was the worst. He seemed to have to hover over them, his jaw almost dislocating as he did something weird that took the Ghouls’ souls away from them. There was no visual, nothing that made this scene make sense. I just saw his jaw get wider, his mouth twisting somehow before it closed up moments later and he moved on to the next.
Stefan’s was grosser, but he didn’t have to get as close. He squished both thumbs into the Ghouls’ eyes, did something that made those thumbs glow, and soot appeared, poofing out of the eye sockets and making the Ghouls instantly turn slack.
It was kind of cool if you liked horror movies. In fact, Nestor had made me watch a movie called Plunkett and Maclean which I’d really enjoyed until it had gotten to the part where the ‘baddy’ had gone around squishing people’s eyeballs.
It made perfect sense why the guys had started chuckling when I’d made mock-vomiting noises and had covered my eyes.
Sheesh, couldn’t they have warned me?
Jerks.
Still, everything felt better because I was in Dre’s arms. Any of my mates would have made me happy, but with Dre? Because he seemed to have the biggest issue with me? It just made this all the sweeter. Even if I was one big ache from having fallen down the side of a temple.
Gosh, talk about going big or going home.
In fact, Dre’s embrace even stopped me from complaining when he hefted me up until my legs had no alternative but to either swing down or cling to his hips, and he walked me out of the lot, away from the group of corpses and straight toward the hotel door.
“W-We can’t just leave them,” I stuttered, wincing when he didn’t even falter at my statement.
“They can handle it,” he growled, his anger so strong that I reared back. When I cried out when the move put pressure on a bruise, he glowered at me and spat, “Stay still.”
God, what was it with his moods? I felt like his words were a slap in the face sometimes. He’d said so much worse to me since I’d known him, had insulted me in ways that made this seem trite, and yet, I hurt more from his sharpness now because of the softness he’d just shown me.
Why was he doing this?
Why was he carrying me?
It was like whiplash, and I was too weak, too hurt to endure it.
“I meant the bodies,” I whispered, the pain from his verbal slap, as well as the ache in my bones, echoing in my voice.
He released a shaky breath, his eyes softening with an apology I knew he’d never utter. “Oh. Don’t worry. They’ll turn to ash soon.”
They would?
How had I not known that?
Clenching my eyes shut, I tried to refrain from snapping that they could have warned me… In fact— “Then why did we set fire to the bodies in London?”
“Because of the humans. Not the Ghouls,” he replied, his tone calmer now that we were approaching an elevator that would take us out of the parking lot.
Dre, Samuel, and Reed were at his back, and as we headed into the elevator, Nestor remained with Stefan and Frazer.
I carried on watching them slaughter the masses, and though I didn’t want them to, I couldn’t stop the images of what I’d just seen from flashing before my eyes.
Reed’s Hell Hound—a furious monster, all black leathery skin with long spikes down his spine and glowing red eyes. Dre’s bear—massive, covered in blood as his enormous claws raked at the Ghouls, and his maw drenched red as he bit the attackers. Nestor—his skin gray, his body moving like he was dancing, but his arms and legs whirling in ways that had meant the end for any Ghoul he’d come into contact with.
The others had fought too, but in a more ‘humane’ manner, and they’d have died if I hadn’t saved them. When I’d seen the wave of Ghouls surging into the lot from the hotel, the urge to sing had overtaken me?—
Wait!
“What if more Ghouls come?” They’d poured in from a door that had to lead to the hotel.
“They won’t,” Reed assured me. “Even if there are still some in the hotel, they’ll scent death and avoid the scene. They’re ruthless and selfish bastards. They won’t wade into any war that isn’t of their own making.”
My throat felt tight with emotion as I contemplated that. Pondered just how close I’d come to potentially losing my mates to an unexpected battle in a parking lot.
Burrowing my face in Dre’s hair, I tried not to think about it, but how couldn’t I? Only an insistent buzzing in my body had made me awaken, and if I hadn’t in time, they’d have been Ghoul stew for dinner.
The buzz had been unusual. Almost like I was being zapped by an electric shock above my chest and knees, on my arm, and palms. It had disturbed me from my slumber, and when I’d heard the carnage outside the car, I’d had no choice but to wade into the fight.
Scared wasn’t the word, but that was nothing compared to the terror that had flooded me when I thought about losing my men.
“You got the keys?” Dre asked.
“Yeah,” Samuel stated. “Fourth floor.”
The elevator buzzed into life, and silence fell among us. It was uneasy, loaded with ‘what-ifs’ and concern, as well as a real fear for the next few days.
If this second loss of life amid the global population triggered a destructive wave among humans, then how the heck were we supposed to get to wherever we were supposed to go to find the next Original?
The room, when we arrived, was fancy. Gold carpets, low leather sofas, rich burnt orange accent chairs, and ornate gilt console tables topped with matching amber lamps.
The view outside the windows disturbed me the most.
There were fires that had spun into being from whatever destruction we’d wrought by killing that second wave of Ghouls, and the noise once Reed opened the French doors told me that something was going down because there were three different kinds of sirens bursting my eardrums.
When I shivered, Dre called out, “Shut the door. It’s freaking Eve out. ”
He wasn’t wrong, but I didn’t thank him. Instead, I mumbled, “You can let me down now.”
His hands tightened like he didn’t want to, like he wanted to keep me close to him, but I needed to get away. I was tired from what had happened at Tula, but more than that, I was tired from the fight I’d just seen, and my fear and concern was multiplying into a fatigue that made me want to drop where I stood. And, worse than that? The way he made me feel, the way he responded to me, clinging to me like I was his oxygen then shoving me away as though I were poison, just added to my emotional turmoil.
When my feet collided with the carpet, I mumbled, “I’m heading to bed.”
“No, Eve. Wait,” Samuel instructed, heading over to me.
I blinked at him. “What is it?”
“We need pictures for Bartlett.”
Grunting, I stood there, letting him and Eren reveal the flesh that was marked. They unfastened my shirt and took a picture of the ink on the upper curves of my breasts, belly, and sides. Then, as Eren buttoned me back up, Samuel took a photo of my hands after he turned them so the palms were showing. Next came the ones on my legs, which he captured after dragging down my yoga pants, then helped me out of them.
When the pictures had been sent to Bartlett, I turned my back on them without another word and headed for the bedroom. No one said anything, and I was almost surprised when no one tagged along, but it figured they’d want to discuss what had just happened, and, to be quite frank, they could.
I just needed a pillow. Stat.
I didn’t undress farther, didn’t even turn down the covers. I headed over to the window, drew the floral curtains to a close, and then face-planted on the bed. Of course, I regretted that the instant my aching bones hit the mattress.
Seconds, minutes, hours later? I woke up because there was a furnace at my side. My body told me it was Dre, and I kind of hated that I knew that without even having to twist my head to the side to look at the mattress invader.
How did I know?
His scent, I guessed. But his feel too. It was like his energy was saturating the room, and had I not been running hot because he was boiling, I would have carried on sleeping like a baby.
He didn’t utter a peep when I slinked out of bed, managing to contain the gasp that came as my aches made themselves known. The darkened room, with no light coming in from under or around the curtains, told me it was night, and I headed for the bathroom, hoping running water was still a thing.
I mean, the apocalypse hadn’t really hit, but I wasn’t sure what was going on with the humans. They had to be scared, and were they clamping down on basic amenities?
They had to realize that this was no orchestrated attack. No one place had been targeted, but a body of people had . I could see why that would cause mass panic, but surely it wouldn’t affect major services?
I could only hope that was the case.
When I turned on the light to the connecting bath, the amber marble gleamed under the warm glow and the fan whirred into being as I headed over to the matching vanity.
As I stared into the mirror, eying the dark circles under my eyes, I saw a different woman looking back at me.
In the compound, there’d been no mirrors. I’d only ever seen my reflection in the glass windows at the church or in the school or communal rooms. Sometimes, I’d seen a distorted image in a puddle of water as I washed. But when I’d gone to Caelum, I’d seen myself for the first time.
It hadn’t been astonishing. Why would it? I had seen myself before. Burnt chestnut hair, gleaming brown eyes, pale skin, and a body that was way too round for its own good.
But as I looked at myself now?
It was like seeing someone else.
Someone awakened.
My body was still curvy, but it was tauter from all the exercise I’d had to do. Not just at the Academy but here as well. I had dust in my hair and on my face, dirt too, and I even had a bruise on my chin. Then there was the fact that my skin was flushed from the sun, and my eyes had circles underneath them from lack of sleep. Deep in their core, however, there was a knowledge that had never been there before.
It came from a welter of sources.
I knew what sex was now.
I knew what the world looked like—had been to several major cities in the span of a few weeks. Some people probably hadn’t seen that number in their lifetime!
Then, there was seeing death. At the hand of the Ghouls, but also, their perishing from God’s plan.
I was different now. No longer a girl and very much a woman.
Pinching my cheeks to get a little bit more color in them, I stared at myself again then shrugged off the melancholy. There was no point in questioning what it was about myself that could keep six guys to me and somehow totally alienate a seventh.
It wasn’t on me. It was on him.
Dre.
The bane of my existence.
Okay, slight exaggeration, but the pain in my chest said otherwise.
He’d come to my bed like he had every right to be there, and sure, he did. I’d Chosen him, hadn’t I? But Claiming was another matter entirely, and to be frank, if he kept treating me like this, I wouldn’t want to.
Wasn’t it crazy how a sharp, bitten off retort was the straw that broke the camel’s back?
He’d insulted me worse, treated me worse, and yet to hug me and hiss at me in the same breath was more than I could take after what I’d just gone through.
Sure, he had to be feeling the adrenaline, but me? It was decimating me.
Barely holding back tears, I grabbed a towel from inside the vanity, slung it over the shower door, then headed into the glass cubicle.
The water was hot and plentiful, telling me that not all services were down, thank goodness. I washed myself all over, wincing at the bruises blossoming over my body, and used the complimentary products to soothe my myriad aches and pains. I dried off and coated myself in the matching lotion that smelled of a flower I couldn’t name and tried to massage taut and tired muscles.
I was feeling much better by the end—a lot fresher and happier, truth be told.
When I hobbled into the bedroom wearing the white robe that hung at the back of the door, I saw that Dre hadn’t moved.
A part of me wanted to push him off the bed just to be spiteful, but instead, I walked over to the curtains, pushed them aside, then squeezed into the opening I made so I could head out onto the terrace.
The world was still crazy, and some of the fires hadn’t been put out by the firefighters. There were sirens and the throb of panic was literally in the air. I could feel it. My heart responded to it, making it pump harder, faster, as though I were running even though I was still.
Was I surprised when a few moments later Dre followed me out here?
No.
Did I welcome him?
Did I look like a fool?
We were silent for only God knew how long, and then he whispered, “I’m sorry. ”
I didn’t say anything for a second then murmured, “Why do you think it’s okay to snap at me? To talk to me like you do?” In the grand scheme of things, he’d said worse to me since I’d known him, but today? His meanness as he carried me away from the carnage, holding me in loving arms while berating me with a sharp tone?
No.
I wasn’t going to take this anymore.
I wasn’t his whipping post. I’d been one before for my father, and that wasn’t about to happen again.
Not in this lifetime or the next.
“I don’t mean to,” he rasped, and his elbows plunked down on the silver rail beside me. He hunched his shoulders as he stared over at the same view that entranced me.
“But you still do. Today wasn’t the first time, but Dre, it will be the last because I won’t deal with that from you. Today was hard, and you were what I needed you to be until you weren’t?—”
“I was under pressure.”
“Bull,” I snapped. “The pressure had gone! We were safe. I’d just saved us!”
“How do you think that made me feel?” he ground out. “We’re supposed to protect you. If we don’t, then what the fuck is my purpose in this world?”
I spun around to gape at him, stacking my hands on my hips as I glowered at him. “What are you even talking about right now?”
“You’re my mate. My woman. I’m supposed to keep you safe. Instead, you had to save mine and six of my brothers’ asses? That’s not how this should work, querida .”
For a second, I could do no less than sputter at him. “Are you being serious right now? I mean, of all the sexist crap you could have spewed at me, you’re telling me you were pissy with me because I saved you ?”
He clenched his jaw. “It isn’t sexist,” he spat. “It’s what I… What is my purpose if it isn’t to protect you?”
“How about not to treat me like a piece of shit?” I countered, swearing at him even though he knew I didn’t use curses like the guys did.
“I didn’t mean to,” he insisted, his hands flaring out as his exasperation seemed to rattle inside him. “It just came out. You were worried about them and not yourself… It just…” He swallowed. “I wanted to do better by you, and I failed.”
The words hit home, and I stared at him, wondering what he meant.
I didn’t have to wait long because he turned away, bowed his head, and whispered, “My parents left for America because of me. They wanted more for me, more for us. They went because I’d busted my knee in a car crash when I was ten, and then the year after, I was sick and they couldn’t help me, couldn’t get any medications for me. They thought, in America, it would be better. I was getting worse. I’d just turned eleven, and the souls were taking over me in a way that I couldn’t even…” He sucked in a sharp breath. “I started hitting out at them, slapping them if they tried to get me to calm down. It was bad. And for a long time, I thought they left to get away from me because I was a hideous son.”
“But they didn’t?”
He shook his head. “No. They were scared for me. America is the solution in some parts of this country. If you have no means of providing for your family, it’s like, let’s go there. It’s the land of opportunity for too many of us, and my parents were desperate. They let themselves go with this coyote, a man who takes people across the border, for too low a price.
“My grandmother shouted this at me one day. Told me her son had died because he was desperate to send money for me, desperate to get me what I needed because I was, in her words, a fuck-up. That day, when she was hurling abuse at me, I snapped. The Hell Hound was in charge, and, I admit, I just went for her.” He gulped. “She escaped, hid in her room, and had the local lawman come around and haul me to jail. It saved my butt though. That was where I was recruited.”
I thought about what he’d said, ignored the latter part because this wasn’t the first time I’d heard this story. But it was the first time he was telling me it. “Why did it matter that the coyote was cheap?” I asked softly, not understanding what he meant.
He blew out a breath. “He was cheap because he was hiding his journey from the cartel he worked for. He undercut them, and then my parents and the others he was transporting paid the price when he learned the cartel was after him.
“If they’d found him with any hidden bodies on his truck, they’d have killed him. As it is, he lived to see another day by destroying the lives of those he was supposed to be transporting.”
My mouth tightened, and I stared at him for a second before looking over the view once more.
Humans had a lot to answer for.
They were starting to taint things for me, and that wasn’t useful considering I was actually, in a small way, their damn savior.
Scowling at the chaos ahead of me, the smoke that stained the air like a low-lying blanket, the frenetic sounds of cop cars and the toots of cars still stuck in traffic, with a few neighborhoods in the city in the dark as though the electricity had been cut off in those areas, I mused, “If you could, would you kill that coyote?”
He didn’t even wait a second to think about it. “In a heartbeat. The cartel too. But they’re everywhere here. They’re like a spider’s web. It spreads all over, and we’re just the flies they want to eat.”
“Would you have enlisted in the cartel?”
“I’m not sure,” he said honestly. “I mean, I want to say no, but to get away from my grandmother, maybe. But she was sick and poor, so she might have died and left me her farm. If the farm had started doing well, then the cartel might have come to me and made me pay a kind of ‘protection’ money, but I wouldn’t have been actively involved with them, you know?”
I licked my lips and shuffled closer to him. “Is this why you’ve been a jerk to me all this time? Because you’re scared of caring for someone?”
“I’m a guy. We don’t talk about this shit,” he said blandly.
“If you ever want to be Claimed by me,” I retorted, “you’ll be talking about this stuff on a regular basis. I’m not having you treat me like trash because you have some boogeymen in your past, Dre. We all do. We all have things we shouldn’t have experienced.”
He sighed. “You’re right.”
“And yet, you’re the worst. I know things happened to Stefan, the things that happened to Nestor, too, were beyond reprehensible, and Eren as well… but they don’t treat me the way you do.
“You hurt me, Dre. You really hurt me. You seem to wield the sharpest knife and are capable of making the most precise cuts that get to me the worst.”
I heard him gulp. “I’m sorry, Eve.”
That had me shaking my head. “No. I don’t accept it. Sorries are too easy. Sorry is just a word. I need you to mean it, to live by it, or it’s just another statement without intent.”
“You’re right,” he rasped. “And even though you think it’s just a word, I genuinely mean it. I-I have been a shit these past few months, but that’s because you changed everything. I know it’s no excuse, but you did. You came into my world, a world that had order, that made sense, and suddenly, nothing did.
“Years ahead of schedule, I was turning into my beast, I was having to leave my cacti behind, having to forge a new life with men who’d been enemies until you came along…” He grunted. “It’s been hard. For someone who can’t stand change, who doesn’t trust easily, you can’t even begin to understand how hard it was for me, Eve. ”
“No, I can’t, but I can understand how hard it was for me too. Stop being selfish, Dre,” I ground out, calling him on his nonsense. “You weren’t the only one dealing with stuff. I came into a crazy new world, one where I knew no one, but was embraced by three guys who made me feel safe. Secure. Wanted, even. You came along and wrecked that. Any stability I thought I’d found, you destroyed.” I released a shaky breath as I remembered how terrible I’d felt in those days after he’d awoken from the deep sleep he’d been in after he’d been knocked unconscious by Reed. “You made things so much harder on me, Dre.”
“I know I did,” he whispered. “And if I could kick myself, I would. I swear I would, but it wasn’t…” He cursed under his breath. “Okay, it was intentional at the time.”
“I know it was,” I grumbled.
“I just mean that the Dre of before isn’t the Dre standing here today.”
If there was anything that could have made me listen, it was that statement.
Why?
Because hadn’t I just been thinking the exact same thing in the bathroom?
Hadn’t I looked in the mirror, stared at my reflection, seen the same girl looking back at me, and yet also seen the infinitesimal changes that made me feel like a completely different Eve?
One so overwhelmed with knowledge and experience that she felt like Eve 2.0?
I could have carried on railing at him, demanded more apologies, made him promise never to treat me so badly again, but I didn’t.
He was right.
He wasn’t the same Dre, but that didn’t mean the Dre of old wasn’t still inside.
“The next time you speak to me the way you did today, I won’t talk to you again.” I didn’t put a time frame on it because I didn’t know how long it would take for me to ram the lesson home.
“I deserve that.”
“You’re not a child. I’m not punishing you by not speaking to you. What I’m saying is that I will have no desire to speak to you because if you treat me like a turd, then we have nothing to say to one another, do we?”
He grunted. “No. And I won’t do it again.”
He would.
It was in his nature.
He might be a different Dre, but that didn’t mean his personality had made a complete reversal. He wasn’t suddenly nice and friendly. That would, in all honesty, never be Dre.
And I was okay with that.
Each of my men had weaknesses and strengths, and that was what made them unique. That was what made them a joy to be around.
“Good,” I told him in a quiet voice. Then, I reached out and grabbed his hand and entwined my fingers with his.
“How are you feeling? You took quite a fall today,” he inquired, changing the subject.
I was aching, that was true. “When I fell, I…” I winced. “It’s weird but I did something. It means I’m aching but not as badly as I might.”
He hummed. “That’s not weird. You called on a creature.” Another hum. “Probably the gouille. They have the toughest skin. Not even the sharpest knives can get through it.”
A relieved breath escaped me. He accepted my stuttered sentence so easily. “I didn’t call on the creature though,” I admitted.
“I’m not sure that’s how you work anyway, Eve. You’re very instinctual. I think, to some degree, you control them as much as they control you.”
Huh.
Well, that wasn’t something to fret about, was it?
Because I didn’t want to think about seven creatures, each with distinct mindsets of their own, controlling me, I asked, “Is it good at all to be back home?”
Cutting me a look that said he knew I was prevaricating, he released a breath that told me he’d let me. For the moment. From the corner of my eye, I could feel him scanning me as though trying to discern whether or not this was the end of the argument for now. But to my mind, this wasn’t an argument.
If he hadn’t spoken to me that way, hadn’t repeatedly treated me badly, we wouldn’t be needing to have this conversation period.
“No. This isn’t home.”
His simple words struck a chord. “Where is your home?”
He fell silent at that, but his gaze was back on the city that was the capital of his home country. “A few weeks ago, I’d have said Caelum. But now…”
“Now what?” I pressed, my tone husky since I had a feeling I knew what he was about to say.
“It’s where my Pack is.”
Good answer.
I didn’t even feel like he was playing me because the words were torn from him, ripped from his vocal cords as though they were poisoning him to utter them aloud.
He didn’t want to need us.
Didn’t want to think of us as family, and yet, deep down, he knew that was what we were.
I could take that, and I’d accept it as a win.
Nuzzling into his side, I murmured, “I feel the same.”
“I’m glad. Everyone should know this feeling,” he rasped, and I heard the pain in his voice. A pain that was years old and forged in a time when his souls had come out to party and had destroyed his life in the process.
Being majnūn meant having a lot to answer for.
In some people’s eyes, they might view it as a gift, but it wasn’t. Even now, after I had come to appreciate the abilities we possessed, I could find no joy in being able to do what we did.
It came with too high a price; one I wasn’t willing to pay.
“Are you still mad at me for Choosing you?”
He snorted. “No.”
“Why not? You were angry before.”
“I sometimes think I was born angry,” Dre admitted, twisting so he could look at me. “I think I should have been a Hell Hound. Reed is too chilled half the time, and I feel like I make up for his rage.”
I had to snicker at that because I knew what he meant, and he wasn’t wrong. When the beast had him twisted around his finger, Reed seemed enraged to his core. But when the beast let him loose? He was relatively calm. Something he exacerbated by yoga, which meant I got to see his tight tush high in the air as he twisted his body into a pretzel.
I needed a bowl of popcorn when it came down to those twenty minutes of mindfulness, as Reed called his yoga practice.
“Do you hate me?” My voice was small now because I wanted the truth, and I still wasn’t sure if I had the answer.
“No. I don’t think I ever truly did,” he disclosed, and when I snorted, the left side of his upper lip quirked up. “No. I mean it. I didn’t like you, and I still think you’re trouble, but you’re… Eve, I don’t think I could hate you.”
My throat felt thick, and I nodded then curled my hand through his and cuddled into him as we stared into the mayhem we’d helped create.
“Any news from Bartlett?” I asked, the emotion in my voice coming from his answer, but I knew him enough to know that this was a good time to change the subject.
“Yes. ”
I tensed. “Good or bad?”
“Turkey.”
“Turkey?” I scowled at him. “What is this? Let’s visit everyone’s home country?”
He snorted. “Seems like it.”
“What’s there?”
“Samuel is looking into the clue. It’s more unusual than the others.”
“Why?
“Three wishes this time.”
That made me shiver. “So, this one is more powerful?”
“Maybe, maybe not.” He tilted his head to the side, gently knocking it against mine. “Ever just want to go to sleep and wake up when everything’s over?”
Because he seemed like the kind of guy who never backed down in a fight, his statement had my lips curving. “Sometimes, yeah,” I admitted. “The clue’s that bad, huh?”
“Not really. I don’t understand half of it.” He closed his eyes. “I had a migraine, so I stopped focusing when Bartlett was halfway through his monologue on what the markings mean.”
I’d have been blind not to spot them on my body when I’d showered. “One for each of my mates and then the tree’s back in business,” I stated softly, closing my own eyes. “They’re what woke me up.”
“Huh?”
“When I was in the SUV, and you guys were… Well, the marks were tingling almost.” I shuddered. “It was like pins and needles there. I didn’t realize until I showered though.”
“Built-in alarm system,” he mused. “Could come in handy.”
A huff escaped me. “It could if you guys intend on getting into some more danger?”
“Danger’s coming for us, carino , not the other way around.”
I hated that he was right but couldn’t argue.
The thought of whatever it was we were heading into, Turkey our ultimate destination, made me curl up into a ball deep inside.
I wanted to hide from the future and all it represented but couldn’t.
This was my destiny, after all.
But before I faced that, Dre and I had unfinished business.
“Want the truth?”
He tensed. “Of course.”
“I really don’t feel like sex. ”
I knew whatever he’d expected me to say, it hadn’t been that because he started snickering. “Good to know, querida .”
I shrugged. “But I want to Claim you.”
“Such a quandary,” he stated in a singsong voice that had me shoving his arm as I pulled back. I was laughing, though, and relaxing. Something I’d never thought I’d do at the same time with only him in the vicinity.
The truth was, we both had a long road to walk together. But I did with all my men. We’d only known each other a handful of months, and we had a lifetime together if we survived whatever the third Original could throw at us. But that was something only time could afford us, and I had to admit that it was starting to feel like it was beginning to run out.
Even though I wanted to curl into him, maybe drink some tea and watch the world go by in all its madness, I didn’t. Because deep inside me, in my blood and bones, whatever it was that made me Eve, be it the Jannah or the creatures under its control, was making demands.
Demands that overwrote the human.
“Dre?”
He hummed. “Yeah?”
“Kiss me?”
He tilted his head to the side. “Thought you weren’t in the mood?”
My lips curved. “I like that you won’t take any shit. You know that?”
“Thought you were cursing me out over it a moment ago.”
“Only when it hurts my feelings. This isn’t hurting my feelings.”
He curved an arm around my waist and hauled me into him. Our bodies brushed as he stared down at me. I’d never appreciated his height more than I did at that moment, and it was only then, curved into his embrace, that I realized he was bigger than before.
“You’ve changed,” I murmured, staring up at him, the city lights and the hotel’s floodlights illuminating the entranceway four floors below us, the only things marring the night sky.
“I have?”
“Your bear has made you bigger. Bulkier.”
“All the better for hauling you around,” he teased, and I mock-gasped in response.
“Was that a joke?” I whispered in faux horror.
He snickered, dipped down, and did the damnedest thing.
Nipped the tip of my nose with his teeth.
Whatever I’d anticipated, it wasn’t that, and somehow, for whatever stupid reason, it made me melt. I sank into him like a pile of goo, loving the playfulness that had just sprung to life between us. Loving it because it heralded so much promise.
He was so serious, so grumpy all the time, mean with it too, and it hurt. It hurt so bad. But this? This gave me hope, and hope was both a beautiful and a dangerous thing.
Before I could second guess myself, I tipped my head back as I surged onto tiptoe. The move had our mouths brushing, and I took advantage, nipping his bottom lip so I could swipe along it with my tongue. He grunted, opening up for me and letting me slip inside so I could thrust mine against his.
I wasn’t sure what I’d expected.
Him to take over the kiss?
Him to dominate me?
But he didn’t.
He let me explore. Let me taste him, let me fire myself up, and it worked. I couldn’t believe how much it worked because, God, it did. The fire burned inside me, so damn hot and heavy that I wasn’t sure where it came from or where it would go. From nothing to outright need, I plunged my tongue against his, thrusting into his mouth as I wanted him to thrust into my body. My breasts heaved as breath soughed from my lungs, urgency overwhelming me until I didn’t know where I ended and he began.
Hooking my leg onto his hip, I arched my pelvis against him, well aware that the knot of my robe split open and that my bare leg rubbed up against his thigh. There was crisp hair there that had me shivering in response, and the movement enabled me to feel his hardness right against my softness.
Exactly where I needed him.
How long he let me do that, I wasn’t even sure. I didn’t know why, but I was so lost and confused as I wandered into the labyrinth that was Dre, that I didn’t realize he had me exactly where he wanted me.
My hands clung to his chest, my nails digging into his pecs, before I tore away from his mouth and rasped, “Kiss me back.”
There was danger in his eyes, his bear was present, and before I knew it, I was slammed into the side wall of the narrow terrace, but oh God, it felt so good. His hands came to my ass, and I felt the robe parting as he hauled me up and I spread my legs, cupping his hips with nothing except for his briefs in between us.
A grunt escaped us both as my slickness hit him through the thick fabric, and when he nipped at my bottom lip, hard enough to sting, he ground out, “You’re mine, Eve. ”
The words sent quick-fire through me, sending soaring flames into my system until I burned up so fast that it was a wonder I wasn’t a pile of ash that joined the millions of other piles of ash the world over.
“Say it,” he demanded. “Tell me you’re mine.”
I stared into his dark eyes, punch drunk from surprise at the need he’d inspired in me, all by letting me seduce myself. He was a sly one, this mate of mine, and I knew that was exactly what I needed.
Dre would never bore me.
Never.
Because he was too sneaky.
“I’m yours,” I whispered, my own eyes gleaming as I spoke the words. But though they were a declaration, they weren’t a surrender.
Before he could find too much joy in them, I slipped my hands through his hair, grabbed a tight hold of two large chunks, and forced him back down, not stopping until we were kissing once more.
We devoured each other’s mouths as he rocked his hips into me. Only my robe saved me from scraping my back against the wall, but it would have been worth it. So worth it. The power of his kiss was enough to make me thank the Lord when he finally pulled away from me, his hips arching back so he could reach between us, drag out his cock from his briefs, then press it against my slick folds.
As he powered into me, my head rattled against the wall, and though it hurt, it was nothing compared to the exquisite agony storming through me as he hit home.
This, he was perfectly correct, was home.
When we were together.
When I was with all my Pack.
This was home.
And home involved him taking me to the stars as he screwed me silly amid the chaos of a disaster-strewn city that was of our forging.
The heat between us was off the charts, and the mark that belonged to him tingled and tickled until I pressed it to him, let the beast meet the bear. When I did, he growled, his mouth sinking to my throat and his teeth gripping me there as he began to pound into me. Each thrust took me higher, made me soar, let me fly as he found his release in my body.
With the splash of his semen deep inside, I felt the connection forge tighter between us, and then, my eyes widened as something happened.
He grew bigger.
Harder .
And he began to pulse.
Not his hips, but his cock.
It throbbed inside me, made me feel like I was too small and he was too big, like I was… “What’s happening?” I choked out, my head tipping from side to side as my body dealt with the repercussions of this moment.
He nipped my throat, his voice a low growl as he whispered, “Knotting.”
“Knotting?”
He rocked his hips, but instead of his cock sliding in and out of my tight, wet heat, there was no movement. No budging. He was lodged in me. And just before I could even begin to panic, before I could worry if we were stuck like this forever, I felt his heartbeat.
Inside me.
“Sweet Jesus,” I choked out again, my eyes flaring wide as his pulse felt like an intense vibration deep inside me. Within fifteen seconds, I came. I hadn’t expected to, not really. My body had enjoyed the journey, but getting to the peak? After the day I’d had?
Not likely.
Or so I’d thought.
And with each pulsation, it seemed to go on and on until I was crying, until my body was one tense bucket of need and want and desire. “What’s happening?” I cried out as I felt the power of my release surge through me again.
“You’re my mate,” he rumbled.
Like that answered anything .
I wiggled on his cock, hoping that was it. That we were done, but he was stuck fast.
“H-How long?” I whimpered as the vibrations powered up again, like some kind of machine! Was this torture? Was it heaven… or hell?
“A few hours?”
My eyes felt like crossing right there, right then.
Before I could even squeak out a complaint, he hauled me away from the wall and into his arms. With each step he took as he walked us off the terrace and into the bedroom, I sagged into him, growing limper and laxer as my body went into a true meltdown.
But as he lay back on the bed, me atop him like a whimpering, mewling, orgasming blanket, he hushed me and clung to me. Soothing me even as he was the source of my torment.
God, I should have known this was how it would be with him .
Everything was a surprise, everything a fight.
And even though this was a delicious torment, I wouldn’t have it any other way because he Claimed me as much as I Claimed him, and finally, finally , my Pack was complete.
A tight circle that no one, and nothing, could ever render asunder.