I scrunched my nose. “Samuel said the opposite, I’m sure.”
He sighed. “Sammy can be a dick when he’s trying to protect us.”
Rearing back in surprise, I asked, “Why would he need to protect you from me?”
His lips curved. “That’s for me to know and for you not to find out.”
My brow puckered in disbelief. “You can’t leave it like that.”
“Why can’t I?”
“Because I’m too curious for my own good. I hate puzzles because I have to solve them,” I argued, and was taken aback when he laughed. He tipped his head back, making those wavy black locks of his shiver with the movement. The wind seemed to like his laughter, because it made his hair dance slightly as he turned to me, his white teeth flashing in a large grin. A grin that died when I reached out and touched his arm.
I didn’t touch people often. Had learned not to as a child—not even my mother who’d slap at my hand if I so much as reached for her arm. But I wanted to feel his muscles tremble with laughter. Of course, the second I touched him, that was the second he stopped.
Inwardly, I recognized that I didn’t just want to feel his laughter, but taste it, and because I didn’t know how to do that—and it seemed impossible because my laughter didn’t taste of anything, so why should his?—it didn’t stop me from wanting to capture his amusement somehow.
Frazer was made to laugh.
I saw that now, and recognized his stoicism from the common rooms as a… what? A means of self-defense? So, why was he lowering those guards for me? Someone he’d never even spoken to. Had barely acknowledged.
Unease had me tensing up as the sensation of disloyalty washed through me. Stefan, Nestor, and Eren hated this guy, and yet I wanted to taste his laughter? What was the matter with me?
More than that, what was wrong with him? Why was he here when he loathed my friends and had no reason for wanting to talk to me as far as I could tell?
I had a feeling that no good would come of this, and yet, I found myself wanting to trace the curve of his lips with my fingertips.
“It’s not a bad thing to be in the dark sometimes,” he rasped, his bright blue eyes burning as he stared at me.
I could tell he wanted something from me, something I didn’t even know how to give.
My chest ached again, and though the discomfort was something I was accustomed to, I reached up and pressed a hand to the upper slope of my breasts, just beneath my collarbone. The heat from my palm quelled it some as I forced myself to turn away, to stop looking into his eyes, to avoid the confusing emotions he triggered in me.
In my days at Caelum, I’d come across hundreds of people. Most of them ignored me, the teachers rolled their eyes at me, and the students tended to avoid me, but seven boys had come into my world. Each so different, four of them loathing the other three, yet when they looked at me, truly looked at me, it was like, for the first time in my life, my heart knew why it was beating. They inspired in me a gamut of emotions, from fury to downright fear, and that was more terrifying than a thousand of those dreadful Saw movies the boys had insisted I watch last week.
He turned away, seeming to sense my unease. I imagined that he saw far more than I realized, or that I was comfortable with, and I didn’t know if that was because of his soul or simply because he was capable of looking underneath the surface and reading into people.
Having always been a people watcher—I’d had no choice. I’d had to constantly stay on my guard and to do that, I’d had to assess the world around me—I had to admit that I was curious about what had forged this man into the one sitting here on this bench.
Said man surprised me by blowing out a breath. “I’m surprised Reed isn’t out there today.”
I blinked at him. “Out where?” I turned to look where he was and saw he was staring at the ocean.
“Surfing,” he clarified.
“Oh. Like Surf’s Up?”
Frazer snickered, and shot me a look I couldn’t analyze—he was hard to read. “You mean the penguin movie?”
I shrugged. “I didn’t know what surfing was so Eren decided to educate me.”
“With a cartoon?” Another snicker followed by a swift shake of his head. He got to his feet and beckoned to me with his hand.
Curious, I followed and stood on the edge of a very high, very craggy cliff. It was strangely beautiful. Was I scared? Considering there was a seven hundred feet drop? Sure. But the wind blasted me in the face while the sun burned hotly from above.
I felt safe.
It was strange to recognize that when I didn’t know Frazer all that well, but I knew he wouldn’t hurt me.
If anything, there was a gentleness to his eyes that I hadn’t seen when he was in the gym. It came when he looked at me, and his smile? It would have melted chocolate. Not because it was loaded with heat, but it emitted a continuous stream of warmth that had me gnawing on my own bottom lip in confusion.
He raised his arm and, pointing at the waves, said, “The island is a surfer’s paradise.”
“It is?” I just saw waves. “Why? Or should I be asking Reed that?”
His lips curved. “No, I can answer. There are several coves here, plenty of beaches, and each with different conditions that mean there’s usually surf on one side of the island whenever he needs it.” When I stared at him in surprise, he shrugged. “I’ve been with my brothers enough to know their quirks, so I’ve picked up on their hobbies. I can even translate surfer talk now.” That had his smile widening.
“Oh?” I’d admit to being curious about Reed. As far as I’d learned, there was only one man in his year that was aligned with the Hell Hound. I knew from my own experience the wrath that swathed me in its toxic embrace on those days, and yet, in his own way, Reed seemed quite chilled despite his Hell Hound proclivities.
“Yes. Oh.” Another smile that started to fade as he explained, “Reed surfs to forget.” A shorter, harder smile. “If only that worked for me.”
God, I wanted to ask what they wanted to forget, but instead, I murmured, “Does it work for Reed?”
“When he can surf for hours? Yes. It calms him down.” He cut me a quick look. “You know he’s going to be a Hell Hound, don’t you?”
I snorted. “I have ears, don’t I? That’s all most people talk about. And the fact that you’re a Sin Eater.”
When Stefan told me that he was going to be an Incubus, his shoulders had puffed up in a way that told me he was proud. But Frazer? There was no pride on his face or in his posture at my words.
If anything, he turned away from me like he was ashamed.
I found myself wanting to reach out, to touch him, but that would be wrong.
His voice was a rasp as he stated, “See those waves there? The one close to the beach?”
“Yes,” I mumbled, staring at the spot he was pointing to. I’d never gone to the beach, even though I knew everyone did on the weekend. Even the boys. They tried to drag me there but I couldn’t go.
Not when I’d seen what the girls wore.
“Those waves are intense.”
“Why?” It was a long, continual stream of a wave with a foamy middle that seemed to extend for a long time. It was also quite high, and I wasn’t sure how anyone could surf it without hurting themselves.
“It’s called a break. The seabed is formed from coral and volcanic rock, and the water breaks over them and forges very high peaks. Reed told me he surfed a double overhead once.”
“What does that mean?”
“Sorry. I’m used to his slang. It means it was double his height.”
My eyes widened. “But he’s very tall.”
He grinned. “Exactly. He was buzzing that day. See that cove?” He pointed to an area farther along the coast, around twenty or so miles away from where we were standing.
“Yeah. I see it.”
“That cove makes powerful tubes.” He winked at my blank look. “They’re the be all and end all for Reed. The wave is h
ollow when it breaks so they ride inside it.”
At first, I didn’t get it. The waves were different there, but then I noticed why. The water was deeper somehow. The waves seemed heavier, higher almost, but not like the other beach. I twisted to the side, trying to see why they were so different but I was too far away. That didn’t mean I wasn’t curious, though.
“Finally,” Frazer murmured, turning to the right, he murmured, “you have what Reed calls the Pipe.” He waved at yet another beach. “Those waves are left-handed, and they break into individuals. There’s another coral reef on the seabed so it breaks, I’m assured, to perfection.”
Though I stared at where he was pointing, I asked, “You don’t surf?”
“No.”
Yet he knew all this stuff about the three different beaches because of Reed?
The question made me pensive. “Why not?”
He shrugged. “Not my vice.”
“What is your vice?”
“Speed.”
“In what way?” Then I thought about the car and the plane I’d had to travel in to get here and blanched. “You mean in a car?” I tried not to think about how fast cars were, and tried even harder not to think about why it concerned me to imagine Frazer using those dangerous vehicles.
“You don’t like cars?” he inquired, cocking a brow at me, making me even more aware of how beautiful his eyes were.
“No, I don’t!” I shuddered. “They’re unnatural.”
He guffawed at that, and I watched in surprise as he bent over at the waist to laugh. It didn’t irritate me though—his amusement at my expense, I mean. If anything, it surprised me.
I didn’t know him well, but I’d seen him every day in the common room we all used—where the two sets of guys checked each other out as though they were both waiting on a war to break out between them.
I knew, point blank, Frazer had never laughed like this before. At least, not in my presence. And it wasn’t because he was tense and on edge in the common room. They were all watchful, sure, but they relaxed too. Even during movies, Frazer hadn’t laughed like this.
He started wheezing as he whispered, “Remind me not to show you my Spider.”
“You have a spider? Ugh, why would I want to see that?” Caelum had a lot of creepy-crawlies I wasn’t used to, and the large spiders were some of the worst. Eren always captured them for me though. If I asked Stefan, he’d swat them with his shoe. I didn’t want the gross things to die, just not to share living space with me.
“No, not an insect,” Frazer responded, while he was biting back laughter. Again. “It’s an Aston Martin.”
I scrunched my nose. “What is that?” He said it like I should know.
I didn’t.
“A sport’s car.” Another wheeze, and his eyes sparkled like blue fire as he drawled, “You’re like no one else, are you?”
My brow puckered. “Of course not. I’m me.”
“Yes. And I’m me.” His own brow furrowed slightly, and I didn’t like how his amusement had died at his words. His mouth tightened when he stated, “Unfortunately.”
The self-deprecating remark seized me up inside. Why was he so down on himself?
I bit at my bottom lip, debating over how to answer or if I even should, and in the end, I couldn’t let that smile die, couldn’t let what I thought seemed to be self-loathing take root.
Sucking in a deep breath, I reached for his hand and squeezed his fingers. He turned from looking out at the ocean as though it held all the answers to everything, and murmured, “I’m glad we’re not the same because that would be boring, wouldn’t it?”
His smile, while not as large as before, was there again. “Yeah, you’re right. It would.”
❖
Stefan
“Stefan! I didn’t see you at the party last night.”
I frowned at Genevieve. “Why would you? I never said I was going?” I unpacked my shit from my gym bag and dumped it on the bench in front of the ring I was due to train in today.
We were assigned a ring and a sparring partner who matched our level. That meant my Pack was usually always butting heads with Frazer’s. Only they could best us.
The pricks.
As I looked around for Reed, I saw him warming up on the treadmill two down from Eve. He was watching her from the corner of his eye. That might have seemed like a stretch, but I’d done it often enough myself to recognize the signs. His head was tilted just so, his gaze on the mirror opposite as he looked at my woman.
“Stefan!” Genevieve whined, drawing my attention from the smackdown I was silently promising Reed the second we jumped into the ring.
“What?” I snapped, making her jump as I focused on her once more. When her hand came up to touch my arm, I shrugged her off. “I didn’t want to go, so I didn’t go. It’s not mandatory, Genny.”
She bit her bottom lip. “I just thought you’d be there.”
I gaped at her. “Why would you even think that?”
She shrugged, but her cheeks blossomed with heat. It almost reminded me of Eve, but there was no comparison. Eve’s blush was truly innocent, and it was hell-sent to make me suffer because I always thought the worst stuff when she turned pink. Genny? Not so much.
“You looked psyched when we were talking about the party, and I said I’d be going.”
I frowned, thinking back to that conversation, which had to have happened weeks before. When I pinpointed it, I grimaced—that had been before Eve.
My life had become that way now.
Split into two parts—pre-Eve and post-Eve.
I wasn’t sure if that made me the luckiest man alive or pussy-whipped to a woman who didn’t even know what a pussy was.
Aside from the ones that went meow.
Running a hand over my face, I murmured, “I’m sorry, Gen. I forgot.”
“It’s okay.” Her bottom lip wobbled, making me think she was going to cry. She peered over her shoulder and shot a nasty look at Eve. “You’re hanging around with her a lot.”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “She’s my girlfriend.”
Gen’s mouth dropped wide. “Girlfriend? You don’t do girlfriends!”
I hadn’t. Until now. I’d never wanted to become attached because I refused to let anyone down, and I always would. It was in my nature to constantly be looking for something else, to be seeking something more.
Until Eve.
Nature itself had given her to me to curb my wicked ways.
Well, I thought wryly, a dirty smirk creasing my lips, to a certain extent.
The second I felt she was ready to understand what she’d done that day, what her soul had done, then I’d be telling her, because no way could I jack off in the shower for much longer.
“She’s my girlfriend,” I reiterated, not wanting to get into any more of this petty shit with a woman who I’d fucked, sure, but I’d made no promises to.
I didn’t get it. I never had. There were fewer females here, and the men danced around them like flies around shit, but they always hung on me.
Did that make me the luckiest prick in the world? Or did it mean I had the worse luck?
I wasn’t sure, and yeah, I knew I was a wanker for even letting that thought cross my mind.
Genny’s mouth tightened. “She’s a priss.”
I shrugged. “My priss.”
Nostrils flaring, she ground out, “I’ll be sure not to let you know the next time we have a party.”
Smirking, I told her, “Thanks.” She retreated with a huff, and I didn’t even watch her tight ass sway away. Instead, I turned to Eve and saw that her focus was on me.
Instantly, heat hit me.
Sweet Jesus, what she could do to me without even fucking knowing it.
It was crazy how easily I could get a hard-on. Only the jock strap protecting my family jewels was going to get in the way of that.
Because I hadn’t seen her since breakfast—see, pussy-whipped—I headed over to her and asked, “Hey
sweetness, why are you on the treadmill? You hate it.”
She winced. “Coach said I have to.”
When I saw Coach’s reflection in the mirror at her back, I glowered at him. Not that he saw. And if he had, he wouldn’t listen anyway.
No one would listen until I was twenty-one.
Which sucked.
“How long?” I empathized instead, but I knew she’d seen my grin and she was beaming at me as a result.
My heart went boom, dropping straight to my stomach at the sight.
“Forty minutes,” she said with another wince.
“Ouch. Well, you can watch me beat the shit out of Reed. So that should be entertaining.”
“Fuck you, Divosec,” Reed retorted, not even pretending that he wasn’t eavesdropping.
“Pace yourself, yeah?” I told her, ignoring him. “Even if he wants you running HIIT, just take it easy. Forty minutes is a long time when you still don’t have that great a stamina.”
She nodded, and her face was flushed but not from embarrassment this time, just exertion.
With a small smile, I left her and heard the beep as Reed’s treadmill stopped working.
Within five minutes, we were both in the ring. We knew the drill, so Coach left us to it. He had some of the younger years in here today and was teaching them some of the basic moves that Eve would have to learn soon.
Annoyed that he’d been checking Eve out, I enjoyed the sparring. Even though he was a Hell Hound, we were evenly matched when he wasn’t angry, and it was a fun workout.
In the background, I kept myself attuned to Eve. It wasn’t something I actively did, more something that my souls did, and I was relieved the claiming worked that way ten minutes later.
I took a hit to the shoulder and then the belly when Eve, who was the only person running in the gym, shut off the treadmill earlier than she’d said.
Reed took advantage of my distraction, of course. The prick. And I grunted as I dropped to my knees when I took the heat of his punch. Even though it hurt, my focus switched to Eve who had run from the treadmill, over to the water fountain, where she was puking into a wastepaper basket.
Seven Wishes: The Caelum Academy Trilogy: Part ONE Page 15