With the bear in situ, attention averted to him, and I was glad he’d helped me redirect the growing tension.
“What did you do?” Frazer asked me, but his question was a lot softer than Samuel’s.
There had been accusation in Samuel’s tone, but not enough to warrant the start of a fight.
“He was talking to me about his morning ritual,” I admitted.
Frazer frowned at me. “Morning ritual?”
I nodded. “He said that every morning, he checked in with his souls and figured out which one he was for the day.” When all the men nodded and looked at me in confusion, I sensed I was the only one who didn't do this. Either this was a memo I'd never received, or it simply didn't work for me.
“I did that before Caelum,” Stefan admitted.
“Me too,” Eren said. Reed and Frazer also nodded, and when I cut Samuel a look, he dipped his chin in agreement.
“Well, I don't,” I told them.
As their eyes narrowed, I discerned that they were puzzled, but not concerned, so I continued, “I've never done that. I've never known how. I only really know what day it is when one of the souls reacts to something. Dre made me look deep inside myself to find where the souls cohabit.” It was a strange word choice, but it fit. They did inhabit me, but more than that, they had to live together. “From Dre’s description, he made it sound like the seven souls were battling for space. That’s not how it is with mine.”
“So, you found it then?” Eren prompted softly, and I was touched when he reached for my hand and gently squeezed my fingers. His support bled into me, and it soothed the ache where Stefan and Samuel had hit me.
I nodded. “Eventually. It took a while. I never knew it was there.”
Samuel scowled. “Then what happened?”
“As I was studying it, I found the Were. She was in control today. But it wasn't like she was lording it over the others. She was just there, in charge. For the moment.”
“And?” Eren asked, and though it came across as brusque, his dark amber eyes told me that he just wanted answers. I couldn't blame him for that. I'd like them too.
“When I studied the Were, I don’t know... I kind of felt him. I tested that feeling, trying to figure it out but I didn't do anything else. I promise. Not on purpose. But after a few minutes of me looking, he just shifted.” My mouth worked as I tried to explain, but there was no explaining this. I hadn't done anything.
“You think you triggered his shift by studying your Were?” I wasn't offended by Samuel’s question. How could I be? I knew he was trying to make sense of a situation that apparently made no sense.
Nodding, I whispered, “Then, when I started talking to him, trying to figure out what was going on, I realized that when I spoke with him, there were no answers, obviously, but deep inside just where I'd been studying, I understood what he wanted me to know.” I gnawed on my bottom lip. “This isn't normal, is it?”
I wasn't even sure why I asked the question when I knew the answer. The boys didn't have to say a word for me to understand—they knew this was beyond strange.
Blowing out a breath, I whispered, “Why can't I just be normal?”
❖
Samuel
Though Eve looked devastated, now wasn’t the time to focus on her. I stared at the bear who looked just as freaked out as a bear could. I mean, it was like they had the best facial expressions, but Dre was leaking terror.
I couldn’t blame him.
We didn’t, couldn’t, shift until we hit twenty-one. It was our rite of passage. Pretty much the one rule that applied to everyone, and Eve had just blasted that out of the park like it was nothing.
Nada.
That was the power of this crazy woman.
“We need to get him to shift back,” I drawled, staring up at the grizzly bear, who was tottering around like he was on high heels—in any other situation, this would have been hilarious.
But yeah.
It wasn’t.
Reaching up to tug at the back of my neck, I shot Reed a look. He was the only other shifter in the vicinity, with Nestor still being tucked away in the sickbay. “Any clues?” I asked.
He raised his hands, palm forward. “I’ve never shifted.”
That had me rolling my eyes. “Talk about obvious, Reed. But can the Hell Hound guide you? Help us help Dre?”
He frowned as he thought about it, doing that thing we all did—conferring with our creatures. It didn’t add to the aura of us being insane at all.
Nope.
Not one bit.
“I’m not even sure how you managed to make the bear come out, Eve,” he rasped, his brow furrowing as he stared at her, seeking answers, but from the look on Eve’s face, she’d given us about as much help as she could.
Fuck. This was messed up.
“The reason for this class was because Eve is Were today,” Frazer mused. “Can you do something, maybe similar to whatever happened before?” he asked, stepping toward her and cupping her arms. When she didn’t pull back, I could sense his relief.
Eve had been edgy around her Chosen since yesterday when, in the attic everyone, save Nestor, had learned the freaky as shit truth about her and the several mates she had. She was going out of her way not to touch any of them, even going so far as to stay sequestered in the sickbay with Nestor to avoid us and the conversations we needed to have. It was amazing how much ‘avoiding’ someone could do in a day.
I hated ‘avoiders.’ Seriously, they pissed me off. But with Eve, I could empathize. A lot had happened during her time at Caelum, and I had an inkling—because I was smart like that—there was a shit ton more Eve would have to face before her time was up.
These random things were happening for a reason. Thus far, that reason had yet to assert itself.
“Maybe if I reverse what I did?” she suggested hesitantly, her big eyes staring up into Frazer’s like he had all the answers. But he didn’t. None of us did. We were working blind, and had been since the day she’d crossed through the portal.
“Do you know what you did?” Eren replied, his tone knowing.
Eve flushed. “Not really.”
He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Okay. How about this? My Lorelei could try guiding you? Or at least, relax you enough so you can make an attempt?”
She gulped. “What if it doesn’t work?”
“Dre will have to figure out how to shift on his own, but we’ll have to hide him somewhere,” I commented, twisting my mouth. “No bears on Caelum. More’s the pity.” Then, because I was kind of amused—sue me for having a whacked sense of humor—I mumbled, “Couldn’t have turned into a chameleon or a rattler, could you?”
“Like either of those are native here anyway,” Reed retorted, but his eyes sparkled with humor.
Eve glowered at us both. “This isn’t funny.” It was. “How would you like it if you were trapped in your other half?”
I shrugged. “I’d be quite happy. I don’t think Dre is unhappy, save for the fact that being weird at Caelum is a death sentence.” It was the little things…
Blowing out a breath, she murmured, “Okay, I’m never going to be able to do this with you all breathing down my neck. Eren and I will try to get him back, you go and leave us to it.”
Deferring to Frazer in this, because he was my leader but also because she was his mate, I saw him tense, uneasy at the prospect of leaving her alone. I saw Eren look to Stefan for similar confirmation, and when the two leaders nodded, Reed and I backed off, Frazer and Stefan too.
“Did any of you know this was what he grew in here?” I asked, curious at the sight of all the cacti in this patch of yard Dre had evidently claimed for himself. “Save for you, Stefan, I mean.”
My brothers shrugged. “Dre always was a weirdo,” Reed retorted.
Stefan snorted. “He has a chip on his shoulder. That’s all. Just like the rest of us.”
“I don’t,” I countered instantly, but I wasn’t pissed at the a
ssumption. Everyone here did have a chip on their shoulder, but unlike the others, my parents had loved me, and I had no reason to begrudge them anything.
“Well, you’re alone in that,” Stefan retorted. “Look, Dre’s an ass. I fucking hate how he’s been treating Eve of late, but…” He ran a hand through his floppy, perfect blond hair—the guy was like Frazer, too handsome for his own good. “You know how it is with Pack.”
We did. So we didn’t judge him, and that was why Frazer and Reed weren’t beating the shit out of Dre for it.
With new Pack members, if they didn’t find their own way, didn’t build up their own reserves, they were statistically unlikely to adapt and would never feel accepted—to the point where it would damage loyalties, and create fissures in the Pack that could cause dissension among everyone else. That was the last thing anyone needed when battle conditions came around.
Behind us, the eerie voice of the Lorelei sent waves of sensation down our spines. We all turned at Eren’s song, our bodies edging toward the epicenter of this clusterfuck.
“She asked us to stay out of it,” Frazer gritted out, his words sounding like they physically pained him as he reminded us not to get close.
Stefan blew out a breath. “Dre, though he’s a dick, won’t hurt her. In this form or the other.”
I tugged at the collar of my polo shirt as the most bizarre sensation filled me—the need to feed. I’d already fed this morning, thanks to Reed, but the hunger surged through me again. When I looked to my Pack, I saw that Reed’s eyes were fucking glowing, Frazer’s muscles had bunched so hard his veins were throbbing, and a weird haze surrounded Stefan—one that told me any chicks in the vicinity would have been begging him to fuck them.
Our creatures were out to play.
What the fuck were Eren and Eve doing?
I grabbed a tight hold on Reed because he was at his most dangerous like this, and when he snarled at me, his head whipping around so he could snap his teeth in my face, I leaped at him—my Vampire urging me to contain the threat.
Reed was Pack, no threat to me, but with Eve wandering around fucking shit up, he was on edge in a way that needed controlling.
Frazer must have agreed with the danger, because he was there next, helping me pin Reed to the ground. Stefan stood over us, tense and evidently unsure how to help. Hell Hounds were motherfuckers in this mood, so I didn’t blame him for being wary.
There was only one way to stop him, to control him, and that was something which had my Vampire purring.
Although Reed thrashed against our hold, I managed to pin his arm down so I could maneuver my way to his throat. The second my blunt teeth raked his flesh, he froze before doubling his efforts. His body bucked like he was having a seizure or something, and then, pain be damned, I tore into his throat. He’d want to beat the shit out of me later on, but I’d let him.
The second blood flowed into my mouth, I calmed down, and so did Reed. Since he’d already fed me this morning, I was relying on the blood loss to exacerbate his drowsiness, to help lull him into unconsciousness. If that didn’t work, I wasn’t sure what would.
Could Reed’s Hell Hound take Dre’s bear as a threat? Misconstrue what was happening and…
Fuck.
No way was my new Pack being massacred because Eve and Eren had done something weird.
Weird was the new black, and we just had to move with that, adapt or die.
It took a few minutes for me to hear the silence, and even then, I only did because I heard the gasp first. It was feminine and soft, telling me Eve was here. The song had stopped. Did that mean…? God, I hoped Dre was human again. The last thing we needed was to have to hide a fucking grizzly bear from the faculty. We had enough secrets to hold.
Releasing my clasp on Reed’s throat, I turned and saw Eren holding up a woozy Dre. When his knees buckled, Stefan rushed over and tucked him under his shoulder.
He looked wrecked, almost like he’d gone ten rounds with a grizzly bear.
When my lips twitched at the thought, Eve gasped again, and I turned to shoot her a look and saw that her gaze was focused on my mouth, on the blood that would be around my chin from having torn into Reed’s throat.
For a second, Dre wasn’t the only one who looked like he was going to keel over. And though I tried to rub my chin, tried to clean up, it was too late.
Face white, cheeks pinched, Eve ran off. No one stopped her.
“She’s getting faster,” I commented, unable to stop myself from watching her ass muscles shift with each step she took.
“Thank fuck for that,” Stefan retorted. “She needs to be in shape if she’s going to fit in here.”
He wasn’t wrong.
Peering down at Reed, I saw his eyes were dazed from blood loss, so I rolled off him and used the hem of my polo to try to clean up some more.
“You could have warned me she was coming,” I grunted at my brothers.
“We didn’t realize,” Frazer excused, scrubbing a hand over his face. “The song just seemed to stop, and they were there.”
“She’s going to be even more scared of me,” I said on a sigh, which totally fucked with things. Trying to protect her and my Pack kept backfiring on me in a huge way.
“She has to get used to the sight of blood-taking,” Stefan argued, and I was surprised the support came from him. “It’s a part of our world, and fuck, if she comes across a Ghoul, that’s the least of what she’ll see.”
Because he was right, I dipped my chin. But being right didn’t mean the only woman in the Pack was going to warm up to me any time soon.
That meant things were going to be bloody shit between us until she calmed down some.
Rubbing the back of my neck with bloodied fingers, I asked Eren, “What happened?”
He shrugged. “I sang, she did something, my song changed, then Dre shifted back. It was very anticlimactic.” His eyes said that was a lie.
“How did she change your song?” Those initial notes had been powerful, but maybe if Eve had morphed Eren’s song, that was why Reed had gone mental?
“I’m not sure. But one minute I was singing, the next Dre was shifting and falling back on his ass.” He cleared his throat. “He hit his head on a rock. That’s why he’s woozy.”
As I processed his words, I looked around our Pack. Two strong Alpha units had been laid low by one woman. Without her even meaning to do anything.
Only God knew what she could do to the rest of Caelum if her intentions ever changed…
That was not a thought I needed to be thinking, but it was there nonetheless.
Protecting Eve, not just from Caelum but herself, had just become a top priority, and where my Pack was concerned? They were all that mattered.
❖
Nestor
The ache went so much deeper than my head or body. Literally, every bone hurt. I was sure of it. So sure, I wanted to swallow the whole packet of pills the doctor gave me whenever he dosed me up with the meds.
Even though I was being kicked out of the sickbay today, I was well aware I wasn’t fully healed.
Whatever those bastards had done to me, it had been more than just fangs to the throat.
I knew how close I’d come, how near death I’d been, and only Frazer, of all people, had spared me.
To say I owed him was an understatement, and my Pack did too, otherwise they’d have been attending a funeral. Which was ironic considering how glum they’d been whenever they visited.
Their eyes had burned with the need to tell me something, and only knowing that I was being kept out of the loop made me happy to be leaving sickbay, even though I was sure it was too early for me to be going anywhere in a vertical position.
The fact I was allowing Eve to push me out in a wheelchair was testament enough.
Whenever she moved, the packet of pills the nurse had given her rattled, taunting me, and I murmured, “You can let me have them, Eve. I won’t swallow them all in one go.” Even if I wanted to.
I hurt.
And each step Eve took reminded me of that.
As we approached the elevator, the only one in the Academy, I tipped my head back into Eve’s belly. She didn’t startle at the intimacy, and I was glad for that. If anything, when we made it inside the metal coffin, she ran her hand over my head in a soothing gesture.
The gentle touch felt so good that I released a sigh, loving the easy affection that was loaded down with a bone-deep care. The feeling was mutual, I knew that. Pack. It warmed me to my soul.
“How are you feeling?” she rasped, her voice low now that we were alone together.
“Tired. Hurting,” I admitted, unashamed because it was her. With the others, I’d have denied it, but not with her.
She made an aggravated sound and mumbled, “I was about to say you’ll be in your own bed soon, but I’m not sure how we’ll get you up those stairs.”
The prospect had filled me with dread. There were four sets of stairs to get to my rooms, and that was sure as hell something I wasn’t looking forward to.
“When I get up, I won’t be coming back down for a while. That’s for fucking sure.”
“I don’t understand why they won’t let you stay there. You’ve only been in there for two days!”
“I’m okay, Eve,” I reassured her. “And that’s the point. We’re supposed to fend for ourselves.”
“Well, it’s horrible.”
My lips curved. “This isn’t a children’s hospital,” I reminded her. “They’re building an army, not a charity.”
“That’s stupid,” she huffed, but she fell silent as the doors opened onto the main foyer.
Eight Souls: The Caelum Academy Trilogy: Part TWO Page 8
