As we crossed the room, I saw Eve was watching us with those big eyes of hers that seemed to see way more than I wanted her to. The orbs were usually molten hot when she looked at me, and I knew she wasn’t aware of it. Wasn’t aware of the silent promise she made me every time she looked my way.
The tight bun she wore her hair in drew my attention to the sharp crests of her cheeks, and I longed to stroke that tender flesh with my fingers, to anoint it with my lips. Because those were dangerous thoughts, I let my gaze drift away. Noticing she wore a pair of black yoga pants that did fine things to her ass, and one of Nestor’s plaid shirts that he wore in winter, I knew I’d leaped straight from the frying pan and right into the fire.
Every part of her set me alight, and it was only the fact that she didn’t know it that forced me to control myself.
Seeing her in Nestor’s shirt, though, I had to hide a smile. I wasn’t sure why she wasn’t boiling hot in the thick plaid, but she seemed to prefer the swathes of fabric. I didn’t mind, mostly because my dick might implode if I saw her tits in a tight shirt, but also because I figured it made sense. Clothes were her security blanket, and I wasn’t about to take that away. Not when she’d already made a huge stride about wearing the pants, which I knew she loathed.
Her features were drawn, her expression fearful as she watched us move toward her, and concern filled me. Why was she scared of us?
The closer we became, the more on edge she seemed until, two feet away, she jumped up and said, “Hello, nice to meet you,” then scurried away.
I almost groaned at the sight of her butt as she moved. She didn’t know she did it, but each step had her ass cheeks squishing together like one of the strippers I’d seen in a titty bar one time. It was like she rolled her hips or something. Either that or it was because she had an ass at all. Most of the women here were honed from years of training. Eve, on the other hand, was soft and gentle.
My hands curled into fists at the thought of having access to all of her at some point, but for the moment, I just had to concentrate on getting her to stop running.
I leaped forward and grabbed a hold of her waist before she could head out and disappear into the library—again. “Where are you going?” I questioned, leaning toward her so my breath would whisper over her ear.
She shivered, and I reveled in her response to me. It was only natural considering who we were to each other, but I knew it put her on edge.
In so many ways, Eve was sensual. Just like all creatures inherently were. But her nurturing fucked with that, and made her second guess herself all the time.
Part of me wondered if she’d be on edge until I put a ring on her finger. If that was the case, it was an easy solution, but it was a tie to the past she didn’t need.
Creatures required no ridiculous ceremony, no formal occasions, and no signatures on documents to inherently know they belonged to one another.
“I have some studying to do,” she replied after a few seconds.
“You’re always studying. It’s Saturday.”
She wiggled in my hold. “I—”
“I know, I know. You worked on Saturdays at the compound, but you’re not on the compound now. Plus, don’t you want to meet my friend?”
“Well, yes, of course, but don’t you want to just hang around him?”
My lips twitched. “Out, Eve. Hang out with him.”
She nodded eagerly, sensing an out. Literally. “Yes. That.”
“Of course, but I want you to hang out with all of us at the same time. How’s he going to get to know you if you’re in the library?”
For a second, she remained tense in my arms, and then she relaxed. “You want me to know him?”
I frowned. “Why wouldn’t I?” Rather than let her reply, I turned her around, and keeping my hand on her waist, began to haul her back to the sofa we’d claimed as ours years before.
As I did, I saw Frazer, Reed, and Samuel watching us, their eyes narrowed as we passed.
My top lip curved in a sneer as we headed back to the sofa, but I saw the intensity on their faces as they looked at my hold on Eve…
Nestor, Dre, Eren, and I were firm believers in keeping your friends close and your enemies closer. That was why we used this room over the others. Before we’d staked our claim on the tan hide sofa on the east wall, those three dicks had claimed the cream leather sofa on the west.
It meant we could keep an eye on each other and know where they were hanging out in their free time to some extent. It wasn’t foolproof, but it was something.
Shoving them to the back of my mind, I hooked my arm over my girl’s shoulder and stated, “Dre, meet Eve. She’s new to Caelum.”
Dre cocked a brow. “She must be. How long was I out?”
Eren laughed. “She arrived the day you were knocked out.”
“Two months after induction?” He cocked a brow. “How unusual.”
“Very unusual,” I replied with a small chuckle. “Eve is pretty unique, aren’t you, babe?”
She wriggled in my embrace. “Well, I wouldn’t say that.”
“I would,” Nestor retorted. Of course, Eve didn’t know all the reasons why she was unique, and we weren’t about to tell her.
She’d already tried to walk out once today. The last thing I needed was her running screaming from the room to get away from me because, for whatever reason, I’d been marked as her mate.
“What’s so special about her, then?” Dre asked, and I narrowed my eyes at him.
We’d all had a teasing tone, but Dre’s? It wasn’t. It was his asshole voice. It came out every now and then until we smacked it into submission.
Our Packs weren’t like a wolf’s. There was no alpha. No natural leader. Dre forgot that sometimes, forgot himself. Being a few months older than us didn’t mean shit.
If anything, if there was going to be a leader among us, it would be me. No Pack could form without their being either a Sin Eater or an Incubus or Succubus within their ranks. Why? Because they were the only ones who could kill Ghouls.
Eve wiggled at my side and, in a flustered tone of voice, said, “Stefan, I really do have to go.”
Dre, whose eyes were on her as she flushed, didn’t argue with that, and even though I didn’t want her to go, I just murmured, “I’ll meet you in the library later?”
Her cheeks remained red as she nodded, and I let her scurry away. The minute she was out the door, I let loose a punch to Dre’s shoulder that had him wincing—it was the one Reed had dislocated.
“What the fuck did you do that for?”
“For being a dipshit,” Nestor countered, and I was relieved that his usually clinical tone was loaded with anger.
“There was no need to make her feel like crap, Dre. Not cool, man,” Eren ground out.
Though I was pleased at their defense of my mate, it came as a surprise. Their words weren’t token, but heartfelt. They’d come to care for her, and I was relieved about that.
When Dre formed our Pack, when I claimed her as my mate, she’d be enveloped into our fold.
“Since when did you guys give a fuck about any of the girls here?” Dre hissed, reaching up and rubbing his shoulder.
“Since Eve came.” I sent him a measured look. “I need to show you something. Later.”
Dre grumbled, “Sure.”
Eren and Nestor glanced at me, but I stayed focused on Dre. “You want to grab something to eat?”
He nodded. “Yeah. I’m fucking starving.”
“Okay. Well, we’ll get you something to eat and then you can go back to your room and get some rest. We can tell you what’s been going down since you’ve been out for the count.”
I knew Dre wasn’t happy about being ordered around, but tough shit. That was on him.
6
Eve
The force of Reed’s punches had me flinching as I watched him beating on one of the other boys in their year.
I hated this room. The gym. I was slowly coming to accept th
at each machine in here was actually a torture device, and it made me long for the days when I’d had to sweep the church or wash a hundred dishes. Anything was better than the elliptical, which had to have been made by Satan.
Rubbing the towel over my face as I tried not to die on the machine that Stefan insisted would help me build some stamina, I watched the fight over by the corner.
The gym was the size of the New Order compound. There were all kinds of workout machines, ones that Stefan had explained were for cardio and others were for gaining strength. While those machines took up a grand portion of the room, there were several squares which Eren called boxing rings. How a square could be a ring, I didn’t know, but I didn’t argue either.
A lot didn’t make sense in this world, and I was gradually coming to realize that as backward as I was, I was a heck of a lot more advanced than they.
Instead of using a hundred adjectives, they’d use one word: ‘fuck.’ That seemed to fit every situation. Slotting into a sentence as an adjective, a verb, or even an adverb. I’d never known a word to have such broad usage, but even though I told them it was limiting, they ignored me. In fact, I was sure they used it all the more.
There were eight rings in all. Each of them filled with boys. The girls fought in there too, but I noticed there were fewer fights. Not only because there weren’t as many girls here than boys, but because the girls didn’t seem to want to fight. I wasn’t about to complain about that. The notion that I could cause such damage to someone with my fists made me feel physically ill.
Just watching Reed’s knuckles pound into the other boy’s flesh, seeing the spray of blood, and the splatter of snot and saliva and sweat as he ground the man into dust on the boxing ring’s floor broke me out into a cold sweat.
“Don’t like violence?”
I jerked in surprise at the question and turned my head to see that someone had moved onto the machine beside me.
It was one of Reed’s friends, and one of the boys that were usually snarling with Nestor or Stefan.
“I’m not used to it,” I countered, flicking through my memory banks and reminding myself that this one was called Samuel. Frazer was in another ring, and he was the one Stefan truly loathed.
“Everyone’s used to it.”
“Not me. I’m new to TV. New to all the violence on there.” Not a day passed when the boys weren’t watching something that involved someone being punched or stabbed somewhere. Even though it no longer made me sick to my stomach, I still felt distinctly odd watching someone pass away or pass out on the big screen.
“We’re all desensitized to it. From an early age,” he said, matter-of-factly, and I almost hated him for how fast he was moving on the machine and how ‘in’ breath he was. Whereas me, who was going half the speed, was barely managing to gulp down air.
“I think that’s very sad.” If I sounded prim, then so be it. I wasn’t about to complain that seeing such a sight as the one before me was sickening.
I thought it was even more disturbing that everyone could carry on as though this was normal.
“Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t.” Samuel shrugged as he began to move faster on the machine. I half-stared at him, wondering how he made it move so fast, and then when I did, there was a flash of his thighs from underneath his shorts.
I knew I shouldn’t have been looking, but it had been accidental. They were strong. Thickly muscled. Just like Stefan’s.
Swallowing back the flurry of butterflies that soared loose at the sight, I stared straight ahead and flinched when the first thing I saw was Reed, staring right back at me. His tee was covered in another boy’s blood, and the sight of it totally unnerved me.
“You hang around with Stefan and his crew a lot, don’t you?”
The question at least put my thoughts back into some semblance of order, which was something. I felt like I was about to die on this machine so it was easier to focus on Samuel than the blinking red digits that told me one thing and one thing only—how long I’d been on here, and I still had another twenty-five minutes of this misery to endure.
“They befriended me on the first day, and they’re nice to me.”
Samuel snorted. “Those guys aren’t nice.”
I cocked a brow at him. “Aren’t they?”
“Nice is relative. They’re only out for what they can get.”
That had me frowning. “And what might they get from me? I have nothing to give.”
“You’re a lay they’re marking up.”
A lay they’re marking up… Wishing that Google Translate could translate that for me, I hesitantly asked, “Why would they want that?”
For a second, he scowled at me. “You don’t know what that means, do you?”
I reached for my water bottle and took a small sip. I’d learned that the more I drank, the harder it was to work out. Sometimes, I even had this sharp pain attack my side. Eren called it a stitch, which, as usual, made no sense to me. What did a needle and thread have to do with exercise?
“Well?” he prompted.
It irritated me that I couldn’t deny I had no clue what he was talking about.
“They want to fuck you.”
My eyes widened—that I understood. “Oh.”
His scowl deepened. “Oh? That’s all you have to say to that?”
“What do you want me to say?” I inquired, aware that my tone was cautious.
“Doesn’t that piss you off?”
Did it?
I wasn’t angry if that had been his intention. I couldn’t say I felt anything.
Women were a temptation, after all. Adam and Eve had been cast out because Eve had fallen into temptation…
Father Bryan had often lamented about the wiles of the women and how it made men act out, do things they wouldn’t ordinarily do.
If Stefan, Nestor, and Eren—I didn’t include Dre in the list because I’d barely seen him since he’d been released from the med bay and when I had, he always looked at me like he wanted me to disappear—wanted me, then that wasn’t anything new.
Father Bryan had wanted me, and in a few months’ time, I would have been his wife. Brothers Joseph and Jacob had always smiled at me, their eyes traveling over my form in a way that made me feel dirty every time…
There was a certain look that appeared in a man’s eye that made me feel like no amount of hot water and soap would scrub me clean. But if Nestor, Stefan, and Eren looked at me that way, I hadn’t noticed it. I’d never felt unclean around them.
“Or are they sharing you already?” Samuel sneered. “I should have known that was all bullshit about the cult. The gossip that churns around this place is beyond a fucking joke.”
His anger surprised me. “Why are you so mad?” I argued. From what Nestor had told me about the boys they considered their enemies, Samuel was showing signs of being a Vampire. From my lessons, I’d learned they were pretty cold-natured beings. But now? He was white-hot, and I didn’t understand why.
“I’m mad because I hate liars.”
“I haven’t lied about anything,” I retorted, and the reason I was on this damn machine in the first place—the Were—stirred to life at the sudden surge in my emotions.
I was used to my skin feeling like it wanted to burst open. Used to the desperate sensation of wanting to run. Back at the compound, I’d had to contain myself. I couldn’t go running, and if I’d had stood around scratching at my skin like I had chicken pox, it would have been the opposite of blending in.
Ever since I’d come to Caelum, ever since I’d allowed myself some freedoms, the souls had been rebelling. Keeping them contained was harder than ever. It was like they were enjoying the small burst of liberty I’d granted them and they were intent on making me suffer for daring to imprison them in the first place.
The Were always brought out the need to stretch my legs, to be at one with nature. I’d never felt the desire to attack.
But now?
I felt the rage inside me where it had n
ever been before, save for on days where the Hell Hound held sway.
“Leave her alone, Samuel,” Eren ground out.
I blinked, something in me calming at the sight of him.
“Free country, Eren,” Samuel spat. “I’m just working out.”
“No, you’re not. You’re upsetting Eve.”
“If she can’t handle some banter, then she’s—”
“Then I’m what?” I snarled, the Were surging to the surface, coming so close that I felt my pores quivering from the need to shift.
I’d seen the pictures, read most of the books. I knew what that looked like now. I knew what would happen when I was of age and if my dominant soul was a Were.
Samuel narrowed his eyes at me. “Sensitive.”
The word he settled on wasn’t offensive, but that didn’t stop me from feeling insulted.
I dug my hands into the poles that moved back and forth with each push of my legs. There were silver plates of metal where I needed to put my hands so that my pulse could be measured. Nestor told me that the faster my heart beat, the worse shape I was in.
It hadn’t surprised me to learn that I was in terrible shape.
Except now, with the Were bubbling to the surface, I didn’t feel like I was in bad shape. I felt like…
I stopped abruptly.
The elliptical whirred at my sudden move.
Was this why Reed was pounding into the boy in the ring?
Was this why all the rings were full?
These feelings…it wasn’t like I could control them. They were there and they were at the forefront of my mind.
I turned my head and saw that Samuel had jumped off the machine, and was walking off as though he hadn’t just stirred the beast inside me.
Before Eren could grab me, I leaped off the elliptical and ran after Samuel. He was only a few feet away, but I grabbed his shoulder and forcibly dragged him around.
He’d come after me intentionally. Wanting to hurt me, to make me think badly of the boys who’d befriended me, who’d made my first weeks here bearable.
I wasn’t about to let him get away with that.
Seven Wishes: The Caelum Academy Trilogy: Part ONE Page 12
