And I had no idea why, but somehow? That made me feel a whole heck of a lot better.
Go figure.
❖
Dre
Have you ever met someone that just rubs you the wrong way, and not in a good way either, from the very first moment you met?
That was Eve for me.
She just irritated me. In fact, that was an understatement. She irritated the shit out of me.
With the sun beating down on my head, the ocean at my back, the wind whipping against me, and in my favorite place—the garden—I should have been happy, and I would have been if I was alone.
But I wasn’t.
Eve was here.
As I stared at her earnest features, I recognized her beauty. Maybe she wasn't a pinup model kind of gorgeous, and with her ass and tits, there was no way she'd be walking down a catwalk, but she was wholesome. The all-American girl, I figured.
With cheeks like apples, ripe with color even when she wasn't blushing—which seemed like all the fucking time—her skin was pale and creamy, contrasting beautifully with her chestnut hair. Auburn highlights burnished the dark brown, making it glimmer in the sunlight. Her eyes were like amber, and they glittered, sparkling gold whenever she was amused, then dappled with darker overtones of bronze when she was sad. She was beyond curvy, and in that, she wasn't to my taste. I far preferred the lithe and limber shapes of most of the girls at school, but I'd admit I could see why the guys liked her. Not just because three of them were her Chosen either.
But even though I could appreciate her physically, what went on inside her head disturbed me.
Not just because she was a freak either. But something in her stirred something in me, and after a lifetime’s lessons in control, I didn't appreciate that one little bit.
As she stared at me now, that same earnest expression did nothing but irk me. Maybe fastened on the others they'd have melted, but not me.
I wasn't there to like her, I was here to protect her. And I begrudged every fucking minute of it. We were a month away from declaring Pack. The second I hit twenty, I was about to make my friendships with Nestor, Eren, and Stefan public.
Official.
I wasn't about to change things just because of her. Our friendship had been years in the making, and though I wasn't as close to them as I could be, something in me had always made me hold myself back from them.
I considered them brothers, even if they didn't share the sentiment. Eve was Stefan’s, and I had to go through this shit, deal with her crap, for him. Not for her.
“I've told you what to do,” I growled, trying not to totally lose my patience with her. “You just have to focus.”
She blew out a breath, but I ignored the plea in her eyes, and instead pursed my lips, folded my arms across my chest, and waited her out.
Her eyelids fluttered shut, and I watched as her hands balled into fists then relaxed slowly.
There were so many things that boggled my mind where she was concerned. Not only had she somehow gained three Chosen, which should have been impossible, but what shocked the shit out of me the most was the fact she said she had eight souls. Even more than that, she had no control over them.
Now, don't get me wrong, none of us truly had any control over our souls. If anything, they controlled us, but there were things that developed over the years. For my part, I developed them before I'd even come to Caelum.
Every morning, before I rose from bed, I'd close my eyes, and after a few deep breaths, I’d connect with that part of me that housed the souls.
I knew that sounded odd, and to a human, it would. A soul house? It sounded like a shit name for a nightclub. But it wasn't. It was like a pocket in my brain, and the seven creatures inside struggled in the tight space. Over the years, the war had grown fiercer, harder, until the Were had begun to grow, taking over the others’ space, and revealing its dominance.
Now, the Were was always there. Even if the Vampire was in control that day, or the Lorelei. Beast was always waiting, and I didn't mind that. I found it rather comforting, in fact.
Over the years, I'd come to learn that this means of connecting with the creatures wasn't unusual. We all developed a kind of safety gate where they were concerned. A means of shuffling in between them and discerning how badly our days were going to be ruined.
But from what Eve was telling me, she didn't have that. She had no barrier. If anything, she didn't really realize which soul was in control until they prompted her to recognize which was which because of their behavior. Or, I supposed, misbehavior was more apt.
Frustrated sounds escaped her while I waited her out, but I said nothing, barely holding onto my own patience until she stomped her foot like a three-year-old and glowered at me. “It isn't there,” she insisted.
“Well, it’s there for everybody else,” I said sternly.
“Maybe it’s different for me,” she argued. “I have eight, remember? Eight.”
“You don't have to tell me again, trust me, it’s right there.” I tapped my forehead. “I’m not about to forget it.” I didn't say the word, but it filtered through my brain anyway—freak.
I didn't even feel guilty for thinking that. All my life, I'd been considered one too. But Eve truly was. The only thing making me protect her was Stefan. If he wasn't her Chosen, I'd have thrown her to the faculty. And that could make me a bastard, but I'd embrace the title because our purpose was more than just looking after some useless, naive cast-off from the Handmaid’s Tale.
We had goals before her, we’d had a purpose.
Every year, more Ghouls were being created. In a world of chemicals and processed food, with medication and toxic air polluting the environment, as a species, we were not doing well. More Ghouls, fewer creatures. That meant more danger for humans because there were fewer soldiers around to combat the destruction Ghouls were capable of.
Since I'd come to Caelum, I'd wanted nothing more than to be a soldier.
I knew what it was like to be touched by evil. The Ghoul hadn't killed my parents, a coyote had done that—and no, I wasn't talking about the dog variety, but the scum who helped Mexicans cross the border into the U.S. for a fee. The coyote my parents had used had slaughtered them when the Cartel he worked for had learned he was hauling them across the border without their approval. Which meant they weren't getting their cut, and the bastard had tossed them loose to hide the evidence of his having gone behind their backs.
So yes, I knew what evil felt like, and if I could, I'd spare any child the loss of their parents in such a brutal way. Even if that meant sacrificing an innocent girl.
But this bitch? She was in my way, and there wasn't a fucking thing I could do about it for one simple reason.
She was Pack now.
Fuck. My. Life.
“Stop being a baby,” I scolded her coldly, uncaring she looked sad. I wasn't her nanny. I wasn't here to coddle her. I was here to keep her alive, and in one piece, because there was no way in fuck she could do that by herself.
In some ways, she made a newborn seem more worldly.
“I'm not. I swear to you, Dre, it isn't there,” she pleaded, but her pleas wouldn’t work on me.
“You'd better start hoping you find it because if you don't, that makes shit a lot harder on us.”
She started gnawing on her bottom lip, and though it made me aware of how very naturally red her mouth was, and how deliciously plump it was too, I ignored the gesture which wasn't meant to be provocative but was anyway, and stared her straight in the eye. She huffed, but closed her eyes again, and did as I'd asked several times—sought the answer inside herself.
Unfortunately for me, she'd woken up today as a Were—I’d figured that out before she had, of course. Sadly, for the pair of us, that meant her first lesson in how to be anything but a freak had me as her teacher. I just hadn't anticipated that we’d have to start right back at the beginning, though.
What the fuck was the faculty teaching her in those private tutor
sessions they'd been having with her for the past seven weeks? I knew she was a dumbass because she'd been kept away from the world, but they should have been teaching her things like this, right?
Her first class with me couldn't be going much worse, and truly, one of the others should have been around because they knew how much I disliked her.
It surprised me that they weren't babysitting her. Eren, especially, didn't seem to like me hovering around Eve at all. And I couldn't blame him. It surprised me how Eren was so close to her. He had attachment issues, had ever since witnessing the brutality of his parents’ deaths. He had enough trouble keeping himself under control without taking this dipshit under his wing—but would he listen to me? Nope.
I folded my arms across my chest, bulging my biceps in an attempt to restrain my patience. I didn't mind that she took a while, if anything, I preferred the silence. When she talked, she gave me a headache.
No bullshit.
She swallowed, and I was so attuned to her that I both saw it and heard it.
Even as much as I disliked her, she was almost like a magnet. Like my hatred for her connected me to Eve in a way I'd never known before. And I couldn't say I appreciated it either.
After a good five minutes with her eyes closed, her mouth shut, and standing in a restful position, I started to feel antsy. This was taking far longer than I’d anticipated, and even though she was trying…
What if she didn't house souls the way we did?
What if she was so strange we couldn't help her?
She'd Chosen three men. Three strong soldiers. Because of her mark, if she'd died because she was too stupid to live, that would affect them for the rest of their existence. It would fuck them up in a way that made all the romance novels seem trite.
With little more than a touch of her hand—and not to a good place either—she'd ruined them with that mark, and that was all I could see. There was no positive, just negative. And while I loathed Frazer and Reed, thought they were utter bastards, they were damn good soldiers, and they were needed in the war we were fighting.
Fear stirred inside me at the danger she represented, and I hated it. Hated her for making me feel it. I gritted my teeth, trying to contain the battle going down inside me. I wanted nothing more than to snark at her, to bitch at her to hurry up, but she was trying. I knew it and knew my attitude would only make things harder for her.
“I-I ...” She hesitated, then whispered, “I think I can feel them.”
My stomach churned at that as excitement filled me, and was promptly followed by relief. Not just because she was normal, but because, hopefully, this would be over soon. My own thoughts were starting to suffocate me. “What do you see?” I inquired eagerly, but she didn’t reply.
It bewildered me that she'd never done this before. Never looked inside herself for answers. Maybe it was because she'd hidden from them rather than embraced her oddity? Considering her background, I couldn't say I blamed her, even though I kind of did.
I know, I was a contrary dick, but I'd embraced that fact a long time ago.
Wanting to be anywhere but in this part of the garden where my time would have been better spent tending to my cacti, I tried not to lose patience. It was so hard, though. So. Hard.
After another five minutes of silence, finally, she whispered, “There.”
This time, excitement superseded impatience. We were finally making progress.
“At this age, you should be able to feel that one takes up more space than the others,” I guided, hoping she could at least figure this out now that she’d found the place where her souls were.
There were more technical terms, ones that I'd learned in class myself, ones I hadn't really listened to. To me, the science behind what made us unique was all bullshit. There was no explaining away the oddity of our brains, the strangeness of our species. It was something we had to embrace not question.
When she slowly shook her head, I didn't rail at her for being an idiot but did feel disappointment.
“Sometimes, that’s normal. Not all females can recognize what they are at your age.”
I wasn't saying that to make her feel better either. Shit, I didn't give a fuck if she felt great or horrible.
A soft hum escaped her, and I wanted to deny what that sound did to me but couldn’t. Jesus. It was like it whispered over my nerve endings with the gentlest caress.
“Yeah, you're right. I remember reading that in a book somewhere. A male soul becomes dominant at an earlier age.”
I nodded. “They think it’s one of the reasons why there are more female Ghouls than male.” Her eyes popped open at that, and I shrugged. “Didn't learn that in one of your books?” I sneered.
I wasn't even sure why I was being mean on that front, because I had to applaud her for how much she'd absorbed about our culture in such a short space of time. She was learning, just not fast enough. She was almost eighteen with a sixteen-year-old’s knowledge of our people, and while that would have been okay before she'd Chosen three random males, now? It couldn't be much worse.
Very shortly, all of her Chosen would be ready for battle. We’d have no choice but to take her along on missions. Deadweight? That wasn’t even the word. It didn't bode well for either her or us and if we didn’t want to die in our twenties, we needed to get her up to speed and quickly.
That is, even if we could fight in this war anymore.
Everyone knew missions were handed out from HQ, and Caelum was that.
The moment we escaped this place was the moment our ties were cut with this Academy—how that thought fucking hurt.
Even though I wanted to blame it on her, because it was her fault, I couldn't. She had no control over this, no say in it either. I was well aware of that and I wasn't about to blame her for something she hadn't asked for actively.
I was rather proud of myself for thinking that way too.
How evolved of me.
Speaking of…
“Is there anything you can see that you might think would interest me?” I asked, the words hesitant for once.
But she'd been talking about this eighth soul, and I'd never heard of anything like that before in my life. If I hadn't felt her power, hadn't seen her strength, in many ways she could have been human. But she wasn't.
Part of me wondered if that eighth soul was an extra piece of humanity, but it wasn't. We’d never be that lucky. So, it was down to us to try to coax out whatever that eighth soul was, while trying to tame the other seven. Make her look normal long enough so we could gradually allow our true powers to manifest at the Academy, then escape the place that had been home since we were teenagers.
Yeah, all in a day’s work, or what?
“When you told me what I was looking for, it made me feel claustrophobic,” she admitted.
I frowned at that but didn't say anything, curious what she meant. She hesitated because I knew she expected me to say something, but I had nothing to say. Nothing to add. She, on the other hand, was a different matter entirely.
“I’ll bite,” I muttered eventually. “Explain.”
“Well, you made it sound like the seven entities were in this really tiny space, and it felt like some sort of internal fight. Like shoving sausage meat into skin, then popping a bit of the skin when it oozed out.”
My nose wrinkled. “You got all that imagery from my description?”
She nodded. “Yeah. But it isn't like that.” Her eyelids fluttered open, and those delicious eyes of hers gazed into mine. I wanted to deny the power they packed, but I wasn't about to lie to myself. I was the only person I was ever honest with, whatever the consequences, but Eve, with all her irritating earnestness, did affect me. As much as I wanted to deny it, and would, it was hard not to suck in a sharp breath when I felt those beautiful orbs pierce me to the quick.
She whispered, “Each one seems to have equal space. They’re all in their rightful place.”
I shook my head. “That isn't possible. Today, your Were
is in charge, isn't it?”
She started nibbling on her bottom lip in a way that was far too enticing. “Yes, she is,” she told me, her tone lacking the hesitation I'd anticipated.
Okay, so what she was telling me was that her Were shared the soul house, but it was a completely different setup compared to mine.
Was that a woman thing?
Or just an Eve thing?
I had no way of knowing. Most of the females on campus I'd been interested in hadn't held my interest because they had large brains. Large other things? Yeah, sure. But on this front, I couldn't give a fuck.
Wearily, I scrubbed a hand over my head, recognizing I needed to get a haircut soon. My hair had grown far too long, but when I looked over again, I saw that Eve’s eyes were on me, watching the motion of my arm as I brushed through my dark, black hair. There was a curious innocence to the glance, but also a sensuality that hit me.
Because it pissed me off, I shrugged away what appeared to be the early embers of attraction—how could either of us be attracted to one another when we loathed each other’s guts?—I wasn't sure.
“Can you at least connect with the Were? Find out more from the soul, maybe?” I suggested, trying to get any information at this point.
She fell quiet again, but this time, when she began prodding, something strange happened. Her skin began to ripple, and I recognized the signs enough because I was close to my own shift. It would be the first time I ever turned into another animal, and I was looking forward to it more than I was looking forward to anything in my life.
For so long, the animal had been in control of me, while never being able to manifest itself. That wasn't unusual. Until our souls had decided which one was the strongest, we had no way of knowing what we were. But in this? No. Something was happening, something I couldn't understand.
Her body seemed to charge with tension, her limbs growing firm with overly tensed muscles. She began to quiver as a fine tremor took over her body. It had nothing to do with the cold either. It was relatively warm at the moment, and there was no need to be shivering in the middle of the garden, which was always warmed by the sun.
Eight Souls: The Caelum Academy Trilogy: Part TWO Page 6
