Seven Wishes: The Caelum Academy Trilogy: Part ONE

by Akeroyd, Serena

  “Don’t be a dick, Dre,” Stefan grated out. “Just because I haven’t claimed her doesn’t mean I don’t feel the bond. She’s mine, and I won’t have you disrespecting her.”

  I ground my teeth, clenching my jaw as fury ricocheted inside me. It was to our bad fortune that my Were was out to party today because I knew, with another word that pissed me off, I’d be ready to smash their faces in.

  They knew how close to the edge I was, but I also noticed that they didn’t back down.

  In the short time they’d known Eve, she’d wormed her way into their defenses, and I didn’t appreciate that because it made me feel like I was left out in the cold.

  A knock sounded at the door just as I was getting myself back under control. Because the Were was there, right at the surface, I could scent who was hovering outside like a goddamn bad smell.

  “It’s Eve.”

  My tone was bland, and I was proud of that because I wanted to snarl her name.

  I watched as Stefan dragged on a shirt and winced as the fabric settled against his marked back. Once he was covered, he called out, “Come in.”

  The door popped open a faint inch and Stefan laughed. “I’m decent, Eve. Wouldn’t have called you in if I weren’t.”

  When she peeped around the door, her cheeks were bright red as usual. She looked like a cherry, one that had been dosed in isotopes so she was lit up like a Christmas tree all the time. Her eyes gleamed as they darted around the room’s occupants, and her bun was no longer neat as a pin but messy. Enough so that I saw the chestnut glints in her hair—not that I wanted to notice that.

  “Is this a good time?”

  Her hesitance, though polite, put me on edge, especially as she gnawed on her bottom lip as she stared at my chin when her gaze passed over me.

  Really? How many times did we have to tell her she wasn’t intruding before she fucking listened?

  Nestor kicked my foot, jarring my bad leg. My knee complained and so did I—with a glower at him.

  “Be nice,” he hissed at me under his breath, then to Eve said, “Ignore Dre, Eve. He’s just a bad-tempered son of a bitch.”

  Her eyes widened at his words. “Nestor, is that really kind to malign Dre’s mother?”

  Nestor snickered. “Dre’s the first to malign her.”

  Eve frowned, but didn’t comment on that. Instead, she shuffled over to Eren who was sitting at the bottom of Stefan’s bed. Nestor and I had taken over the sofa, and Stefan was at his desk.

  When she went to Eren, Nestor and Stefan’s attentions returned to their books, while Eren sat up. The dynamic had me scowling.

  What the fuck was happening here?

  I didn’t carry on reading the boring crap the instructors wanted us to discuss on the theory of capturing and slaughtering Ghouls. That kind of shit wasn’t something you could learn in books but in combat. At least, that was what I believed, not that the teachers ever fucking listened.

  Instead, I watched as Eve pushed back so she was at Eren’s side. The two of them were pressed together, their heads touching as she showed him something in her hand.

  Nestor kicked me again. “Don’t watch them,” he whispered.

  “Why?” I mouthed the word, not wanting him to kick my leg again—and the bastard would. Just so I wouldn’t offend Little Miss Priss over in the corner.

  “She gets embarrassed.”

  Great. I almost rolled my eyes. This was exactly what we needed. A woman who we flustered.

  I could just imagine the Ghouls stopping their attack because she was uncomfortable with their attention.

  Christ.

  Ducking my head so I appeared as though I was focusing on the book in my hand, I managed to peer over the top to investigate what they were doing.

  When I saw that Eren was trying to show her how to use a cellphone, I felt like crying.

  Useless was useful when it came down to describing this bitch, and fuck me, I was stuck with her.

  She was going to be the death of us. I knew it like I knew my face in the goddamn mirror.

  7

  Eve

  “I wish I was ready to fight and that my goddamn leg wasn’t so useless at the moment,” Dre mumbled as he stared at the rings.

  I wasn’t sure why Reed had managed to knock him out for so long, but I knew that he was a lot weaker for it.

  Though I was tempted to comfort him, I knew he hadn’t aimed the words at me but at Nestor, who clapped him on the back.

  “Doesn’t matter, bro. Just get better in time for Aboh.”

  “Easier said than done. Christ, we’re going to have two weak links.” Dre huffed. “Fuck knows what will happen.”

  I frowned at him and when he walked off in another snit—I swear, the guy had more moods than me—I asked Nestor, “You’re still going on this vacation to Aboh?”

  His lips curved, but there was a light in his eyes that made me wonder what he was thinking about. “Yep.”

  A short if not so sweet answer.

  Studying him for a second, I was entranced by the length of his lashes and the way they brushed the upper curve of his cheekbones. If a man could be pretty, Nestor was close to that. I thought the only thing that saved him was the bump in his nose, which had obviously been broken several times.

  Even as I wondered if that injury came from his parents’ fists or the boys here, I stated, “When do you leave?”

  “Two weeks’ time.”

  I bit my lip, trying not to be hurt that I hadn’t been invited along. Everything had changed since Dre had woken up, and I felt horrible even thinking that but it was the truth.

  With his attention on the fight between Stefan and a guy called Tarick, who was built like a bull, I stepped away from the ring and headed out of the gym. I’d already worked out, so my suffering was done for the day. At least, I figured as much. I was sure someone else would tell me to slave away on the treadmill for another thirty minutes, but I preferred to walk around the grounds rather than be stuck inside watching grown men trying to make each other bleed.

  The fighting was one of the reasons I subconsciously called them boys. Where it mattered, they weren’t grown up.

  My mother had always said that at fourteen, I had more sense than my nineteen-year-old brother, and now that I was a little older with more sense than back then, I realized the same fit with the boys around me.

  Slipping outside wasn’t difficult. We weren’t locked inside, after all, but I always felt like I was being duplicitous. Back at the compound, we were allowed only within allotted zones, and where the forest was concerned, we weren’t allowed anywhere near it even if, some days, I thought I’d sell my soul to be able to walk through those woods without anyone watching me—to be free, to be able to reveal my expression to the universe and not have to hide every last detail that made me me.

  The thought had tears pricking my eyes as memories assailed me. I thought of the compound often, but never my family, and my biggest source of upset was that I didn’t miss them.

  At all.

  It was a joy to be here. So much so that it was hard to remember I was different. That this couldn’t be my home.

  The thought had me curling my hands into fists so I could feel the prick of my nails against my palms.

  “You going to punch that tree?”

  I shot around and scowled at the boy who had obviously followed me from the gym. “What is it with you guys? You’re always trying to make me jump or something.”

  Frazer shrugged. “It’s hard to talk to you when you’re not with the others.”

  The others. I snorted. That was a nice, non-volatile way of describing their enemies.

  I’d always thought the word nemesis was a tad strong, but Frazer’s three and my four loathed each other enough to be considered nemeses.

  Well, I didn’t have four. Not when Dre disliked me so much, but the others felt like mine.

  Sort of.

  Another pang to my chest had me blinking up at Frazer. H
e had black hair and bright blue eyes. His skin was white, like alabaster it was so pure, and his jaw reminded me of granite. He had the jaw of a man who you wouldn’t want to punch. Not unless you really wanted to have a broken wrist, at least.

  “What are you doing out here?” I demanded, and surprised myself yet again by not feeling any fear.

  Once upon a time, I would have been nervous. Concerned at being away from everyone else, on my own with only a man at my side.

  Though we were supposed to live a godly life, that didn’t prevent accidents from happening, and it didn’t stop the girls from being blamed either. Provocative behavior was something a man could punish any woman on the compound for, and it wasn’t the first time I realized how big a pile of bullshit that was.

  The word flooded my subconscious with a deliciously disturbing image.

  Bullshit.

  One of Dre’s favorite words, if favoritism could be discerned by frequency of use, that is.

  If I could, I’d bury Father Bryan in his own bullshit. He deserved it, that was for damn sure.

  “Are you okay?”

  The question was tossed at me along with a scowl. “No. I’m not,” I retorted.

  He jerked back as though I’d hit him.

  Surprised, I scolded, “If you don’t want an honest answer, don’t ask the question.” Spinning on my heel, I carried on down the path that would lead to the gardens on the west side of the property. I didn’t know what they were growing, but I liked the earthy smell and loved the view of the ocean even more.

  Before I could take more than a few steps, though, his hand reached for my arm. I flinched at the strength in his grip then relaxed when he didn’t force me to look at him. He did nothing more than gently cup my elbow as he said, “Wait up.”

  These prepositions would be the death of me.

  I frowned at him. “Why ‘wait up?’ Why not just ‘wait?’”

  He blinked. “Reed was right.”

  That had me huffing. “Yes, yes. I’m some kind of Victorian throwback. I can’t help it. Explain.”

  “Explain what?”

  “The difference between ‘wait’ and the ‘wait up,’” I demanded impatiently.

  His brow puckered as he contemplated my question. I liked the way he scowled—it made his dark brows lower over his eyes, triggering a storm within the blue orbs that reminded me of the water crashing into the shore. “They mean the same thing.”

  “I gathered that. So why didn’t you just ask me to wait?”

  “Because that’s not the phrase,” he mumbled, reaching up and rubbing the back of his neck.

  I could tell he was regretting talking to me, but now he’d made the first move, had indicated that he didn’t want me to go even if I was odd, I asked, “Why do you hate Stefan and the others? And why did Samuel call me a slut?”

  His mouth opened, then he frowned again, which had him firming his lips before he eventually mumbled, “You’re very blunt, aren’t you?”

  A small smile played about my lips. “Yes.”

  “Brusque too.” He began to walk, and when I didn’t follow, he half-turned to beckon me to move with him.

  Our feet crunched on the pebbled path. The stones were white, and they glittered under the hot rays of the sun. Tiny occlusions in the stones made them seem like they were illuminated from the inside out. Against the roaring blue of the sky, I felt like I was walking on fire.

  At my side, the hundred-year-old plus facade of the building gave way to a more modern stucco, and I’d noticed that the hodgepodge of different styles reflected different eras. There was one wall that looked like it had been blasted with tiny pebbles and another built of brick. For all that, it was like walking around a prison, and I’d be the one to know having lived in one most of my life.

  With my gaze on the pebbles, I let Frazer speak because I didn’t have anything of interest to say whereas he did.

  Or so I thought.

  “We’ve just never gotten along.”

  It was my turn to scowl. “That’s it? That’s your reasoning?”

  The others had told me that he and his friends were spoiled and thought themselves better than the others, but in my interactions with Reed, and now Frazer, I hadn’t noticed that. Samuel wasn’t pleasant, but bad pennies had a habit of turning up everywhere.

  Look at Dre.

  Maybe he was their version of Dre, with his constant scowl, endless huffing, and his champion-level ability to make me feel like a bowl made of butter on a summer’s day—useless.

  He shrugged, and I could see he was taken aback by my disappointment in his answer. “Have you ever just disliked someone from sight alone?”

  I thought about Sister Elizabeth with her perfect hair and perfect face and imperfect nature that made her a cat among the pigeons… I’d had to deal with her every day when I helped out at the compound’s school. “Yes. I have.”

  “Then you know what I mean.”

  Though I’d ponder that at a later date, wondering who was telling the truth and who was stretching it, I asked, “Why did you follow me outside?”

  He shrugged. “You seemed sad.”

  My eyes flared in surprise, which was actually quite uncomfortable considering how bright it was out here. There was a difference in light on the island. A difference I’d never come across before.

  It was brighter here, I thought. Perhaps because we were closer to the equator? I wasn’t sure, just knew that I would have to stop simply borrowing the boys’ things and start buying clothes of my own.

  I hadn’t been tossed out of the Academy yet, so why should I now? And I desperately needed a pair of sunglasses like the ones Nestor wore.

  “I was sad,” I admitted, unsure why I told him that.

  He nodded, not showing any smugness or self-satisfaction about being right. “I know.”

  “Don’t you want to know why?” I inquired, my tone quite peevish when he fell silent.

  “Dre’s awake. Dude’s got a tongue on him worse than a rattler’s bite.” Frazer shrugged, and when he did, his entire body seemed to jostle with the gesture. It was only then that I truly accepted how large he was. He was at least a foot taller than me, and even though I was round and pretty wide, he was even broader. “It was only a matter of time before you felt the sting.”

  The irony being, of course, that Dre hadn’t exactly upset me. It was the prospect of not being invited to this Aboh place.

  Why didn’t they want me to go?

  Did they think I’d, as Stefan would say, cramp their style?

  “Are you going to Aboh too?” I questioned, curious if it was a class trip or something.

  He grunted. “Yeah.”

  Well, he didn’t sound as happy about it as Nestor had. But I wasn’t happy either. Was it a boy thing? Could girls not go to Aboh? I wished I was friendly enough with the few girls in my year to ask if they were going to attend, but any overtures of friendship had been dismissed quite thoroughly over the last few weeks, so that wasn’t going to happen.

  When the pebbled floor gave way to a patchy lawn that I could tell no amount of water would save from the scorch of the boiling hot sun, it was a relief to make it under the shelter of the garden.

  There were plants and flowers here, but they were all covered with a bright blue tarpaulin that was strung up high to provide some shade.

  The blue tarp went on for a couple hundred yards. The Academy wasn’t totally self-sufficient. I heard the plane taking off and landing every few days with supplies, but I knew the garden took off some of the pressure from the kitchens.

  I’d yet to see someone working in here, though, and it made me wonder how early they worked to tend to a vegetable garden this size.

  When I walked past a few rows of banana trees and then crossed paths with some tomatoes, I found what I was looking for. A solitary bench that overlooked the cliff.

  “I didn’t know this was here,” Frazer stated, his surprise evident.

  “Now you do.”
I smiled at him, wondering why I was sharing my special spot when I barely knew him. “I found it those first few days when I needed some space.”

  I’d never come here and found someone else using the bench, and I loved how solitary it was. I especially appreciated how there was nothing between us and the big blue yonder up ahead.

  It was thrilling.

  I could dance off the cliff and no one would ever know.

  Not like that was how I was going to make my escape, of course, but the view epitomized freedom to me, and it sent tingles down my spine.

  As we both took a seat, neither of us actually said anything, which wasn’t that surprising really. Boys could be quite boring. They barely talked unless it was about sports or games or a movie. Well, that was how it was now that Dre was back. Before, Stefan had talked about Romania, and Eren would tell me about the things his mother would make in the kitchen. Even Nestor had shared some of his tales of his life before Caelum.

  Now that Dre was back, it was like he’d created some kind of blockage. As though he’d built a wall to purposely keep me out.

  It hurt. And I wasn’t ashamed to admit it.

  I hadn’t realized how much I depended on the boys until my interactions with them were being limited.

  “It’s peaceful here,” Frazer said softly.

  The crash of the ocean into the rocks whistled around us, belying his words, but I knew what he meant.

  Fights were common in Caelum, and there was no whisper of the bellows that came from battle cries or the thud of fists into flesh, and the yelps of agony that reigned afterward didn’t pollute the air.

  It was just quiet.

  And it was beautiful.

  “I like it,” I admitted. “Caelum is a lot noisier than I’m used to.”

  “I’ll bet,” Frazer murmured.

  Curiosity had me tilting my head to the side so I could take him in in a glance. He wasn’t looking at me but at the ocean, which meant I could look him over with ease.

  He wasn’t as beautiful as Nestor or Stefan, but he had a handsomeness about him that was entwined with his strength.

  “Why are you here, Frazer?”

  “Reed said you were cool,” he replied after a handful of seconds.