I wasn’t at that level yet, but when I graduated, I would be.
The point my gouille selected was on a faint rise behind the main jetty in the docks. I could see upriver as well as down if they surprised us by going against the flow of the water.
When they saw that I was in position, their argument stopped and I sensed them preparing for the battle ahead, leaving this duty to me.
Ten seconds before the sun was due to set I could feel the approaching night, and I watched the sun tumble down and waited for the moon to rise.
It was a crescent moon tonight, which wasn’t great for visibility for the others. The Shifter souls would be okay, but the rest, not so much.
It was what it was though. We couldn’t always have the environment on our side, and the last three training missions we’d been lucky. Full moons, small armies of Ghouls, and two of the three had been in low populated areas with little risk to residents.
This mission was definitely a step up.
We’d gone from riding bikes with training wheels on to this one. A hardcore fight that would make or break us.
I didn’t intend on being broken, not when Eve was back at Caelum, wondering where we were and why we hadn’t taken her along.
I regretted not sharing our intentions with her, but we’d decided—even Dre had agreed and he had a hard-on where hurting her was concerned—that we would keep her out of the loop. The faculty had asked us to as well, and because Nicholas, Damon, and Merinda were handling her lessons, she was still in Year One mode, thinking we were just at school for the sake of being at school. Because that’s what kids did. Learned from books.
Caelum wasn’t a regular Academy though. It bred warriors and Eve, although she didn’t know it, had befriended some of the best in the school.
Most missions of this intensity were spearheaded by the warriors who’d hit twenty or twenty-one. Like Jason and his crew were. They were all over twenty now. But Frazer’s unit and ours? We were young to be in this position, but we were the best, and the faculty knew that, and were training us to be better.
Even as pride filled me, I didn’t allow it to show as the sun finally set and darkness reigned. The whispers behind me had disappeared and I knew we were all starting to feel the buzz of what was to come.
This was our first real trial and none of us intended to fail.
The city had slowed down, and although there was a road close by, I hadn’t even seen a car moving down it for two hours.
A hush had taken over Aboh, and the calm before the storm was the only warning I had.
Ninety minutes after sunset, my head tilted to the side when I heard a faint noise in the distance.
An engine.
Another sound came on top of that.
Chatter.
“They’re here,” I whispered under my breath. “Coming from Onitsha as we expected.”
I heard the walkie-talkie, heard Stefan pass on the message, but my attention was on the boat that was coming our way.
Gouilles had sensitive hearing and sensitive sight. We were the perfect guards. Seeing and hearing all.
It took me longer than I’d like because the river was loud, but I stated softly, “Three hundred incoming in four boats.”
The message was relayed.
“Five minutes until they dock,” I whispered, slipping out of the mindset my gouille required, and finally getting my Pack ready.
From behind me, I heard the whisper-like movements as men appeared, ready to attack the grunts who were about to be offloaded onto the shore.
Lights flashed, and the arrogance of the Ghouls hit us as the boats began to pull into the jetty not under the shield of darkness, but with spotlights blaring. They weren’t coming in in waves, but in one mass unloading.
I wasn’t sure if they were idiots or geniuses.
“Wait for them to offload,” Merinda’s voice was quiet as it came through on the walkie-talkie.
We froze, waiting for the boats to empty. A low hush overset the Ghouls as they waited on their orders.
Only when they set out, their intention to feed, did we slip out of our hiding place, and move toward them.
At first, we stuck to the shadows, then as the wave of Ghouls surged forth, we mingled with them.
They looked just like us, after all.
There was no differentiating between a Ghoul, a creature, and a human.
Until you saw what they ate.
Armed with tazers that were set to Drive Stun, we stuck to the edges, knowing that was the best way to separate the ones we took down with the ever-moving flow of grunts.
Drive Stun was a pain compliance method in humans, but in our kind, it fucked with the muscles and made us pass out. Especially with the tazers that we jerry-rigged to work at a higher voltage.
Being hit in the neck was enough to knock a Ghoul out for an hour. After that, they’d awaken, and the mood they’d be in?
It was like setting a bull on a rampage on purpose.
Each minute was a ticking time bomb that put us in even more danger until finally, the time bomb detonated and we surged into action.
As we took out more and more of their numbers from the sidelines, they finally figured that someone was targeting them.
I used the tazers to pistol whip most of my targets before stunning them and letting them drop where they fell. Now the news was out, there was no point in dragging the downed grunts to the side.
All around me, creatures worked to contain this particular threat to a city that had done nothing more than dare to get rich with their oil reserves.
No one deserved the fate the Ghouls promised. Not even my scumbag parents. And that was saying something.
Despite us being outnumbered, the grunts were stupid and easy to manage. The upper ranks of a nest were the ones that were hard to take out.
From a strategic standpoint, all we had to do here was waste time by taking out the masses, all so we could see when and if the generals were about to come out and play.
It was a marathon runner’s tactic. Long distance rather than short.
It took thirty minutes in all to eradicate the army, but with no sign of any of the upper ranks, we had no idea if this was a bust or not.
Most of the grunts lay where they dropped, and I pulled back to my earlier position where I could monitor the rivers to see if another boat was heading in. I saw other gouilles doing the same, staggering along the riverbank to monitor for any sign of Juliet McAllister’s nest that might be attempting to infiltrate the area now the cannon fodder had done its job.
As I watched and waited, the scent of burning hit my nose, overpowering the stench of the river as the Incubi, Succubi, and Sin Eaters got to work.
I didn’t envy them their positions.
A sound of exploding flesh ruptured my attention, and I grimaced, my head turning to the side to see which grunt had caused the mess and to which poor bastard was covered in Ghoul goo. But as I moved, as my focus broke, I failed to hear the whisper-like movement behind me.
One second she wasn’t there, then she was. Her arms came around me like a caress, with one hand surging upward to cover my mouth to stop me from calling out for help. I struggled even though there was no point. I was held in her arms as firmly as a baby was by its mother as her teeth connected with my throat.
One second it was there, then it wasn’t.
I sank to the ground as blood bubbled from the wound, and tipped onto my back regretting, with every ounce of my being, that I’d lied to Eve.
I wouldn’t be coming home.
11
Eve
Having never been loathed by someone, it came as a great surprise for Dre to consistently show his hatred.
I wasn’t entirely sure why he hated me, but hate me he did. It was in every look, every gesture, every ungracious touch.
In fact, I felt certain Samuel liked me more than Dre did, and it was an inconvenience considering I spent a lot of time with Stefan, Nestor, and Eren.
He was so obvious with his dislike, that I’d taken to avoiding all the men, but whenever I did that, there was an ache in my chest that couldn’t be cured with any of the miraculous medicines that were on hand in Caelum.
I was half certain Ibuprofen was magical, but Eren had assured me it wasn’t, just chemical.
The ache only went away when I was with the guys, and since they were with Dre all the time, I had to ration how often I was with them.
It sucked.
I truly understood the vernacular now.
It completely, and utterly, sucked.
Because of Dre’s terrible attitude, I couldn’t be with the three men who had made the transition from the cult to the Academy, so much easier.
And having watched them fly away on a trip that I hadn’t been included in just hurt all the more. I felt their absence so keenly, it made me realize what Dre was making me miss out on.
Damn him.
It also made me realize that when they made it back, I was done avoiding them just to please him.
“Are you concentrating?”
I frowned at Damon, the Enforcer who was tutoring me. “I already know all of this,” I grumbled, unsure why this ‘emergency’ class was necessary. He’d hauled me away from the runway where I’d watched my friends take off in that flying deathtrap, insisting that I was late for a class that hadn’t even been scheduled.
I was never late.
Lateness was a sin in the compound, and because I didn’t want to be anywhere near Father Bryan’s belt, it was a sin I never committed.
“If you already know it then why are still drinking our emergency supplies of blood?”
“Because I don’t know how to ask someone to feed me.” As far as I could tell, there was no correct way to ask for someone’s blood, but it wasn’t covered in the books I’d been reading.
Damon rolled his eyes. “You just ask. I’m sure your friends would oblige.”
That had me feeling hot deep inside. Exactly where the ache bloomed at the thought of them not being close by.
“Wouldn’t that be awkward?” I hedged.
He shrugged. “Better to be awkward than weak. The bag stuff isn’t as good as the vein. It’s like…” He blew out a breath and eyed me warily, “You know what peanut butter is, right?”
“Butter and peanuts mashed together?” I joked, purposely wide-eyed to tease him.
“God,” he grumbled. “I know you lived in a cult, Eve, but seriously, I’m starting to wonder if Merry was right. Jane Austen knows more about today’s world than you do.”
I shot him a grin. “Only joking. Nestor introduced me to it.”
“Very funny.”
“I thought so too,” I told him smugly. “Strawberry and grape jelly are new to me, though. I haven’t had those before.” My buttocks attested to the fact that I’d tried nearly everything in the kitchens at least once.
“How come?”
“They didn’t grow in the land where we lived.” I shrugged. “There were some berries, but we made a different preserve with them. It was thicker. Not as jelly-like as what you eat. It took hours to make as well.” Usually in the thick heat of summer, too, and it hadn’t been as sweet.
“Sounds tasty. Jellies are one of the few things we don’t make here, so I know that had to taste really good. Think about it though, which do you prefer? The jelly from the jar here or your preserves?”
I pursed my lips as I thought about it. “Mine. I see what you mean.”
“The stuff in the jar might taste good, it might nourish you and fill you up, but when you try the real deal?”
“That beats it.” I nodded. “Okay, I’ll ask Eren.” He was the one who helped me with all the things I couldn’t seem to grasp when it boiled down to technology.
For someone who didn’t sleep all that much, he was surprisingly patient. More so than Nestor, for example, who’d just ask me why I didn’t understand something when a three year old could handle the tech on my phone. Stefan would usually end up doing it for me rather than showing me. Eren was definitely the most patient.
“As easy as that?”
“You presented an argument that made sense,” I reasoned.
Damon narrowed his eyes at me as though he were waiting for me to tell him I was joking again. When I didn’t, he sighed, his shoulders relaxing as he pointed at the board where he’d scrawled some intelligible words about the digestive system of a Vampire. “How can you know all this stuff?”
“I’ve read all the books.”
“Already?” He frowned. “You couldn’t have.”
“I’ve read the first two years syllabi,” I informed him, well aware that at the compound, I’d have had a switch to the back for the pride in my voice. But they could switch me as hard as they wanted. From the reading material alone, I was caught up.
“That’s thirty-four books, Eve,” he rasped. “It still feels like you’ve only just arrived.”
Didn’t I know it? Everyone still saw me as the new freak in school. “I read fast,” was all I said.
“Did you absorb the information?”
“Of course. Ask me anything.”
“Why do humans believe Weres shift with the full moon?”
I snorted. “Apparently because a creature sold a screenplay to Hollywood about a Wolf Shifter that turned at that time of the month and now everyone believes it.”
“You don’t?”
I shook my head and used Stefan’s favorite phrase. “Do bears shit in the woods?”
Damon’s lips twitched. “Why does each soul take over a day in your week?”
“So that each one can stretch its legs.”
“Two points for that one considering you used an idiom too.” When I beamed at him, his mouth curved into a small smile, then, he stared at me, and his eyes darkened in a way that had me sinking back into my chair.
It wasn’t lust or anything like that. It was sadness. I wasn’t sure why he would feel that around me, but it had me asking, “Damon?”
He turned away and stared out the window onto the rocks that were being crushed by the ocean’s might. “Yes?”
I was used to staring at my tutors’ backs. They often stood so they weren’t facing me. “What’s wrong?”
It took him quite a while to reply, and when he did, I’d admit to being surprised. “Are you the kind of person who likes to be kept in the dark, Eve?”
I pondered that, thought about the reason I’d been reading nonstop since I’d arrived here. There were plenty of practical lessons I’d missed, and I was so unfit it was beyond a joke, but everything that was down on paper I had slotted somewhere into my memory banks.
The things in the large textbooks, some as thick as six inches, were far easier to understand than the conversations I took part in with the boys. It was a joy to dive into something I could read without needing to have every second word translated.
Though my memory was good, and I usually remembered sayings the first time I heard them, there were so many of them. Each with different meanings.
Fuck up and fuck off? They were totally unrelated.
Sweet vibes had nothing to do with a vibration.
And when they started talking about movies and shows? I’d only figured out that Daenerys wasn’t real after reading the entire set of G. R. R. Martin’s work. The way they talked about her? I was half certain someone truly had given birth to dragons. And in this crazy world I found myself in, I still wasn’t sure if that truly was fiction.
“I like to be kept informed.” That was the only way I could describe it.
“That’s good,” he stated softly. “What if it’s something you wish you could unlearn?”
“Knowledge is power.”
He shot me a look over his shoulder. “Who told you that one?”
“Nestor.”
I only used it though because it made sense to me. If I was completely out of the loop—that was one of Eren’s—then how would I ever be able to face this new
world head on? How would I ever be able to escape it and to find myself a haven where my life wouldn’t be in danger?
Keeping my head tucked under the pillow would do me nothing but set me back.
“Do you know why everyone fights so much?”
“Because we have a lot of energy that we need to burn off?” I reasoned. “Which makes sense. When I hit Samuel, I thought I was going to explode if I didn’t punch him.”
Damon snorted and turned around to face me. “I heard about that. Did it feel good?”
I nodded. “Very good. The jerk deserved it.” I tacked on, “Nestor.” He was the one who taught me ‘jerk.’ Which, quite naturally, had nothing to do with the action but a person who was intolerable.
A description that befit Alexandre quite perfectly.
The big jerk. The biggest jerkiest jerk of all Caelum.
“What did he say to you?”
“That my friends weren’t truly interested in me as a person.”
Damon’s brow puckered at that, but as I watched him, I saw, deep in his eyes, him skid away from the topic. He didn’t want to get into it, and I wasn’t sure if I blamed him. There was nothing he could do or say that would indicate whether Samuel was speaking the truth or not.
I could only go on the way my friends had treated me, which was with kindness. Only Dre was mean, and it highlighted how much the others did for me and without any irritation.
In that, I could actually thank the boy whose moods made my father’s look friendly.
“I’m glad you stood up for yourself. I wasn’t sure with your past whether that was possible or not.”
I shrugged. “It was a Were day.”
His lips twitched and the snake coming out of the eye socket tattoo wriggled like it was alive as he bunched his biceps when he folded his arms across his chest. “Ouch. Totally a bad day for Samuel.”
“He’s lucky Nestor held me back,” I confirmed.
“You’re almost right about why we fight so much,” he stated after a few seconds. “We do have a lot of energy we need to burn off, but we’re also in training for something specific.”
Seven Wishes: The Caelum Academy Trilogy: Part ONE Page 21