Did they want me to do that?
Could I even if I wanted to?
I wasn’t sure. Truly wasn’t. I had seven guys in my Pack. My souls, those pesky critters, had Chosen six men. I was supposed to do something with them, but how? Goodness, having watched enough TV for a lifetime in the past few weeks with the guys, I was well aware that most women couldn’t handle one man, never mind six… and it wasn’t like I could leave Samuel out in the cold, was it?
Though I had to admit, I wasn’t as overwhelmed as I ought to be. Had to be the souls talking, but I liked being clustered with them. I not only felt safe, but like a queen too. Those girls wore skirts shorter than my damn panties, and were dancing as if their bodies were walking sex, all because they were trying to entice guys to them.
Me?
I just sat here in an overlarge shirt, yoga pants, and sandals, and had seven hovering around me.
Self-satisfaction filled me, and was it good or bad luck that my gaze connected with a woman I’d seen hovering around Stefan?
Genevieve.
He’d called her Genny.
I hid my grimace behind my water bottle and took a deep sip. I didn’t break eye contact, though, didn’t pull my glance from hers. It was a dominant move. Like the big cats in the documentaries Nestor watched, or the wolves, I supposed. She was pissed that Stefan was with me and not out at the bonfire kissing her lipstick off.
When she sashayed over, it didn’t come as that big of a surprise. With each step, her gaze remained fixed on mine, to the point where I wondered if this was even about Stefan or about being top dog. I knew their Pack was the top of their class, and after that, Frazer’s came next. I had two ‘important’ Packs chilling out with me, and she had none.
Me, a nobody, a freak from a cult who was ignored by most because of her ‘anger management’ issues, sat with seven of the hottest guys in her year, while Genny was hanging around with some other girls.
“Stefan, come dance with me,” she demanded, her voice a whine that grated on me.
Behind her, like they’d decided to move in tandem, another girl, Becky, appeared. I’d seen her that night at the other party. In Dre’s arms. Dancing with him. Kissing him.
My blood surged at the memory, and oh boy, my souls didn’t like that.
I’d had to bypass my Succubus lesson with Stefan because of the impromptu bonfire. After a day of ‘learning’ with kids that were four years younger than me, I hadn’t been looking forward to it. Had relished the prospect of chilling out with the guys, but now?
The way Genny was acting?
How Becky had appeared out of nowhere?
It made me wonder if this bonfire had been orchestrated on purpose.
Whoa. My Succubus was getting paranoid, but it seemed like out of nowhere, a group of girls surged around us like the waves on the shore.
Seven of them.
One for each of my men.
Had they noticed the way they’d been hanging out with me? Didn’t they appreciate the competition?
My mouth curled in a sneer and rather than leap forward, throw myself into a fight with them, I sank back into the cushioned sleeping bag that Stefan had tucked around my shoulders. Because though Caelum was hot during the day, it grew chilly at night, especially beside the heavy surf. Sure, my front was warm from the fire, but my back was frozen without the blanket.
Still, now the Succubus had been triggered, my core temperature surged. I felt overheated with her hovering in wait, but I didn’t say anything. I had no reason to.
Yet.
“If I wanted to dance, Genny, trust me, I’d be dancing,” Stefan stated, his tone dismissive as he flicked his attention away from her as easily as if she was a fly dancing around his hands. He turned back to Samuel and I heard them talk about something called the Miami Dolphins next.
I’d seen enough of the horrendousness that was organized sports to know that was a football team.
Cue shudder.
“Dre!” Becky mumbled next. “Come and warm me up, baby.”
The others were loaded with a welter of invitations, but only two interested me.
The one Becky proffered Dre, and a girl I didn’t know all that well, Sarita, who invited Samuel to party with her.
God, I wanted to stare at them both. Wanted to see both men’s reactions, but instead, I curved my top lip in a sneer and stared at Genny again. Her eyes flickered with rage, and that wasn’t just a play of light. The bonfire had nothing to do with it.
“Nah. I’m not in the mood,” Samuel said, his tone blunt enough to make Sarita blanch as he started discussing Josh Rosen’s QB stats.
We were all speaking the same language, tongues, but yikes, when they started discussing football stats? They might as well have been talking Mandarin.
My jaw clenched as Dre took the longest to reply. How I didn’t flick a look at him, study him for potential responses, I wasn’t sure. My control since I’d left the compound had flown the coop faster than a bird being chased by a fox, so I had no idea how I was keeping it together.
Each moment he didn’t reply had my Succubus making demands that made me wish I could split myself in two. One side would glower at Genny who was the instigator of this mission to take my men away from me, and the other would study Dre to see what he’d do.
When he just said, “Beat it, Becky,” I wasn’t sure who was more surprised. Me, Becky, or the men around me.
The girls flounced off in mass mortification, but Genny didn’t. Instead, her hands balled into fists as she spat, “You’re obviously better at keeping them entertained than we ever were.”
I knew her words were made to embarrass me. Hadn’t Samuel said something similar before the mission to Aboh? I’d heard Nestor and Eren growling about his ‘slut-shaming’ me, and I knew Genevieve was pulling the same move. Rich, considering she’d given at least one of the guys at my side something I certainly never had.
Around me, the guys growled, and Stefan bit off, “Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to, Genevieve?”
But even though I appreciated his defense, I didn’t need it.
It was during moments like these when I actually felt like I had been torn in two pieces. There was the bumbling girl who was only just starting to understand slang, who could trip over her feet on the treadmill, and who was still trying to figure out things that people at Caelum had known since I was a kid. Then there was this creature. The one who appeared when she was backed into a corner. Who could and would fight anyone who got in her face.
The boys said that most people believed creatures had something called schizophrenia. That they had split personalities.
I truly wondered if I did.
Getting to my feet, I let my fingers curl into my fists as I stepped closer to Genny. “You have a problem with me?” I asked, and my voice throbbed with a power that confused me.
Today, the Succubus was in control, and yet, that voice? It was the Lorelei.
Genny’s eyes flared wide at the sound, one most would recognize from all the training here, and she bit off, “Yeah, I do. You think you can just come here and steal my boyfriend?”
“Boyfriend? What the fuck are you talking about?” Stefan began, and I felt him surge upright as anger overtook him.
“He’s yours, is he?” I inquired quietly.
“Yeah. He is,” she grumbled, her eyes darting over to an evidently pissed-off Stefan who didn’t appreciate the claim Genevieve was staking on him.
“You marked him?”
“Well, no. Of course not.” She huffed. “Christ, how can you stand being around her for more than ten minutes? She doesn’t understand anything, Stefan. Come on, baby, come have fun with me—”
With her attention split, I let the creature inside me, the one that was blurring lines, that had glowing lights in my soul dancing as I seemed to pull on traits from all of them, soar. My hand shot out, and I grabbed a hold of her ponytail and tugged.
Hard.
Her head snapped back, and she let out a yelp. People looked around and saw what was happening. Genny didn’t let my surprise move overwhelm her for long. Her hands flared out, trying to pummel me with her fists, and the music crashed to a halt as the chant of, “Fight, fight, fight!” surged around us.
I’d started this, and I had no problem ending it.
With my hand still on her hair, I tugged harder, ignoring the fists that were flying at my face, and even disregarded the pain as one connected with my jaw. Instead, I used my hold on her hair to draw her face down. Straight into the knee I jacked up.
The second her face connected with it? She was out for the night.
Silence fell at the abrupt end of the fight, and the six girls who’d flounced off but had returned when they’d heard the chants, stared at me like they weren’t sure whether to attack or retreat.
I grinned at them, aware that blood coated my teeth from the punch Genny had managed to land, and murmured, “Any of you feel as possessive as this one?”
Eyes flared wide, heads shook, and two moved forward, hands raised in surrender, as they grabbed their friend and hauled her away.
Someone turned the music back on, and the easy vibe from mere moments before disappeared, but chatter began to swirl. The party continued, and I turned on my heel and returned to my seat beside Nestor, well aware that I’d just cemented my fate—first Samuel, then Lewis, and now Genny? Goodness, everyone was going to be afraid to come near me.
Trouble was, I didn’t see anything wrong in that.
Because I was behind, they’d thought me weak. Vulnerable. I’d shown them several times that I wasn’t to be messed with.
“Did anyone else find that hot as fuck?”
The words startled me, and I blinked, before glancing at Reed who was beaming at me like I’d done something to be proud of, not started a fistfight with a bunch of cats.
Nestor’s hand settled on my knee. “Are you okay?”
The fire in his eyes belied his concern, and told me he was on the same page as Reed, even if he wasn’t saying so. “She caught me in the jaw.”
“I can scent the blood,” Dre grated out as he stalked over to me. When he crouched down, his hand snapped out to grab my chin. He tilted my jaw this way and that, then shook his head. “That was stupid. Hot,” he added, “but stupid.”
“Well, I endeavor to be hot,” I snarled, my blood racing at his criticism. “I’m sure you’d appreciate it if someone asked me to dance?” The silence at my question told me exactly how it worked.
“Have a sip of water,” Dre growled instead, handing me the water I’d tossed aside when I’d headed into battle with a girl two years older than me. “Then spit.”
My nose wrinkled. “Spit where?”
He smirked. “The ocean? The sand? Anywhere you fucking want.”
“That’s gross.”
A snicker escaped him. “Maybe, but unless you feel like swallowing your own blood, I’d spit.”
I hated swallowing the stuff from a bag, didn’t want to swallow my own so, with a huff, I got to my feet and stalked toward the sea. Before Genny, I hadn’t particularly wanted to move away from my Pack, but now? Confidence sang through my veins, deep as a siren’s call like a Lorelei’s voice to the uninitiated.
Shyness be damned. Wariness, go to hell.
I could handle myself. Even if most people here thought I was some kind of freak.
“Wouldn’t put my feet in the water if I were you. Not tonight anyway.”
I blinked at Samuel’s voice. There was something about him that was faintly robotic. Odd description, I knew, but it was true nonetheless. The notion had been cemented when he’d reeled off a ton of figures relating to the probability of the New England Patriots winning the Super Bowl again, and it was there now when I heard the lack of inflection in his words.
“Why not?” I asked, frowning at him.
“No bathroom out here. Where do you think people are going?”
My nose crinkled. “Ew, that’s gross.” Grosser than spitting in the sand. Talk about relative.
He snorted. “Maybe. Not much alternative unless you piss in the sand and then that just stinks. Plus, the ocean is technically our dumping ground whether you like it or not. Do you know that over a hundred and fifty million metric tons of it is loaded down with plastic anyway?”
“Wow, you really know how to hit a conversational low early on,” I rasped, and finally took a sip of water.
Dre was right—no way was I about to swallow.
Tucking my feet away from the shore, I leaned over so I could spit into the sea. Then I felt guilty for dirtying it up some more.
“Guess you never had to worry about your carbon footprint before. Don’t imagine in a cult you go through that much plastic.”
Surprised, I shook my head. “No. It’s a pretty organic way of living.”
“Probably why you lasted so long without going nuts,” Samuel mused, but his attention was out to the sea and not on me. Overhead, the moon gleamed like a beacon, lighting up some of his features, and darkening areas that had been illuminated by the fire.
I wasn’t ill at ease in his presence, even though, until now, the only time we’d truly been alone was in the gym. Right when he’d slut-shamed me and then I’d attacked him, and then today, when we’d been fighting. We’d never been without a crowd nearby though. Now was no different.
“Why did you try to make me feel bad in the gym that day?” I asked and hated the wobble in my voice. Seriously, I could just knock out a girl who was bigger, stronger, and faster than me, but my voice shook now?
“Because Reed bore your mark. To protect you, to stop the faculty from separating you, I needed to put distance between you.” He shrugged. “It was a churlish way to go about it, but my options were limited so I went with something that I figured would work.”
The answer made a strange kind of sense, even if I didn’t particularly like it. “Do you think I’m a slut now?”
His scowl soothed something in me. “I didn’t think you were a slut then, Eve. We don’t work that way here, you know that.”
Swallowing, I nodded because I believed his acerbic tone, then cut a look at the party, at the attendees who were shooting looks my Pack’s way. “Think any chance of anonymity has disappeared,” I told him.
“Would have happened soon. That Stefan and Frazer are sitting together without trying to tear out each other’s throats is a big enough deal as it is. That Reed is laughing with Dre? The world might as well be flat.” He chuckled at his own joke and my lips twitched. “Things were always going to stir up.”
I couldn’t discern much from his voice or his comments. He didn’t sound overly angry, but he wasn’t indifferent. Not entirely.
But I had no idea what to say to him. No idea whatsoever—
“Happy birthday, Eve.”
Taken aback, I blinked at him. “Thank you, Samuel.”
He nodded, then took a step backward. Before he turned to head back to our Pack, he murmured, “Next time, try to field her punches. You were right to knock her out as quickly as possible, but you’ll feel that hit to the jaw for a few days to come.”
“What should I have done?”
For the first time, he laughed, and the sound? Wow. It made butterflies dance in my stomach. “Knocked her out the second you had a hold on her hair.”
Despite myself, I smiled, and the smile didn’t die as he wandered back to my other Chosen.
❖
Frazer
“Goddammit,” I groaned, remembering why I loathed waking up on the damn beach when the sun pierced my retinas better than a dagger might slice into my eyeballs.
Throwing my forearm over my face, I heard other groans and knew the sun wasn’t only my alarm call.
After releasing a deep yawn, I slowly lowered my arm and saw the men around me starting to stir. Tucked up in the tent, Eve didn’t appear to have moved and as I looked at her, all curled up in the shadows, I thought back
to last night and immediately, my morning wood turned from a semi to a full-on ache.
“Little ballbuster,” Reed rasped, and I cut him a look and saw he was staring where I was too.
It figured. She was ours, after all.
A thrill surged through my veins at the thought, and I watched as the others, my new Pack, flickered a glance her way also. Only Nestor was sleeping still, and that was because the lucky bastard was curled up with her. Although, not-so-lucky considering we were going to have to make the trek back to the school, and he’d looked shaky as fuck all last night.
I hoped for his sake he was feeling better.
“How long did you sleep?” Stefan asked.
I froze at the question, not sure who it was aimed at, then saw he was speaking to Eren.
“I managed about forty minutes.”
Forty minutes of sleep? Jesus, no wonder he looked wide awake. Although, that didn’t fit. Shouldn’t he look more exhausted?
The other guy shrugged. “Better than nothing.”
Which was what he usually got?
How the hell did he cope?
The thought sent unease through me. Not only because an exhausted soldier was usually a shit soldier, but also because it sucked donkey bollocks that Eren never got any rest.
“Nestor stir at all?” Dre inquired around a yawn. He flung his arms over his raised knees, and squinted out over the shore before glancing around the bonfire.
In the light of day, things looked a shit ton shadier than in the kinder shadows. There was crap everywhere that they’d have to pick up if Nicholas wasn’t going to rain hell on us, and the scorch marks from the fire looked grim. Bodies were strewn here and there, some curved into each other, some all alone. Some were dressed, some weren’t. It was easy to see which couples had got it on under the stars, only for the light to reveal their secrets to their class.
Eight Souls: The Caelum Academy Trilogy: Part TWO Page 20
