Nine Lives: The Caelum Academy Trilogy: Part THREE

by Akeroyd, Serena

  “I understand your instinct is to keep me safe, Nestor.” I cut a look at Stefan and Frazer, figuring those two would be down with wanting to keep me protected. So protected that, like a flower in a glass dome, I’d wither and die from their defense at some point. “But we need to find out what this means.”

  “How do we do that?” he snapped, edging forward on the banquette and wincing as he did. He was still recuperating from a beating and having his throat slashed open—that he was sitting and griping at me at all was a huge luxury.

  “How about we Google it?”

  Samuel snorted, and I shot him a look. There was genuine amusement on his face, not that sneer I’d grown accustomed to seeing. He was Pack, not a Chosen, but I had a feeling that was a time sensitive issue. How could six of the males here be my mates while he was left out in the cold?

  No. Surely not. I refused to believe that life could be so unfair. How horrible would it be for him to be on the outside looking in forever? Goodness, if I had to figure out a way to Choose him manually, I’d go for it.

  “What?” I demanded, frowning at his laughter.

  “You’re just cute.” He shrugged, but his words had me gaping at him. Whatever I’d anticipated dropping from his mouth, it wasn’t that.

  With Eren having released my hand, I was free to reach up and nervously rub the side of my neck as unease flickered through me. Compliments from him and Dre were never going to sit well with me. Well, never was a long time… “Thank you, I guess?”

  The guys snickered—jerks—but Frazer turned to Samuel and asked, “You have an idea?”

  “Well, Eve isn’t wrong. We could use Google.” His grin revealed gleaming white teeth, but more than that, it exposed two dimples my pointer fingers longed to trace. “But with specifics.”

  “What specifics?” Stefan questioned.

  Samuel ignored him and clambered to his feet. We were going so fast that he stumbled before he braced himself by widening his stance. Two steps later, he was in front of me, hovering as though the wind and the speed of the boat weren’t affecting his equilibrium. “May I have a look at the markings?” he asked, then grimaced as I gaped at him. “I mean, the newer ones.”

  I had two on my palms that were representative of having Chosen Nestor and Dre, so I knew what he meant, but his tone was so beyond polite that I’d blinked up at him in surprise—I didn’t need the clarification. I’d known what he meant.

  Raising my arm, I prepared myself for his touch, but there was no preparing for something like that. Not really. The feel of his fingers on my skin had bumps traveling along the length, making me want to shiver in a way that had nothing to do with the stiff breeze I’d be glad to get out of—the yacht was deliciously close now.

  As he carefully turned my wrist and arm this way and that, I saw more of the ink and marveled at it. The words were tiny, but the leaves were beyond intricate. No human hand could ever have created such majesty. It wasn’t possible.

  Leaves and branches took up every inch of my flesh, and they intermittently pulsed with light. It was like I’d eaten one of those glow sticks I’d seen some of the students wearing around their necks as they danced at the campfire a few nights ago. Every now and then, a single leaf would glow, followed by the next one. After thirty seconds, it was easy to see there was a pattern. A rhythm to the pulsations.

  With all eyes on me—except the man steering the boat, thank Goodness—I should have felt uncomfortable. Instead, I felt cosseted.

  I wasn’t alone.

  That fact had never resonated more, and I’d never been more grateful for it.

  ❖

  Dre

  After Samuel’s intense study of Eve’s new ‘ink,’ we processed this newest oddity about the woman who’d crash-landed into our lives and traveled the rest of the way to the yacht in silence.

  It should have been impossible, getting seven guys to stay quiet for as long as we did, but Eve had reaped another miracle.

  I swore she couldn’t get much weirder if she tried.

  Not only had these tats appeared out of nowhere, now they were glowing? It was like something from Stranger Things, and even that would have been more normal than this.

  We remained silent as we prepared to climb from the dinghy to the larger vessel. When Reed hauled Eve into his arms to help her onto the yacht because she was still shaky, I couldn’t deny that even though she was a freak, I wanted her in my arms. The need to cling to her wasn’t something I was used to. I didn’t cling to women. Didn’t need to or want to. But Eve? Even though everything about her rubbed me the wrong way, I wanted to hold her and not let go.

  We’d almost died tonight—she’d said it herself.

  We’d almost died, and she hadn’t Claimed me. Sure, she’d Chosen me, but the Claiming? That was still a missing piece, and I felt the loss deep in my being. I wasn’t sure what it meant, wasn’t sure why the need to hold her was there when, up until now, I’d have preferred to be anywhere but in the same room with her, but it was an intrinsic ache I knew wasn’t about to leave the building.

  Not that we were on solid ground anymore. The yacht might have made a Russian oligarch get a hard-on, but it definitely wasn’t on terra firma.

  Jesus, how much money did these pricks have if they could afford something like this? Whether they owned it or rented it, it had to cost a small fucking fortune.

  We’d always disliked Frazer, Reed, and Samuel’s Pack. Mostly because we’d always thought they were pricks who’d grown up with silver spoons wedged firmly between their ass cheeks, so it figured that we weren’t wrong on that score. Still, I had to admit that having them on our side felt good.

  Eve was too random, too loaded with anomalies for the four of us in my Pack to handle. Joining forces with the strongest guys in Caelum, after my Pack’s, was just an extra comfort. And it really helped that they had a very deep checking account.

  The decking beneath my feet was solid wood, and it gleamed as though the sun didn’t burnish it every damn moment of the day. I didn’t know the words for describing a boat, but we climbed on board at the back, and were guided by a waiting member of the crew to the pointy end at the front. As we moved down the side of the vessel, it was like an outer hallway that allowed us to peek in through the windows.

  We saw a gleaming kitchen that, though small, appeared industrial and like some hotshot meals were prepared there. As we made it down the corridor, we came to a lounge area that was both half in and half outside. One wall was opened up to the sea itself, but there was shit in there that could get wet if it rained. A furry rug, and armchairs and shit. Even the rich got rained on, but apparently, they didn’t give a fuck if their crap was ruined.

  On the deck, there was expensive modern furniture that was made for lounging and chilling out during the long days at sea. From leather chaises with gleaming chrome frames that invited you to sunbathe on, to squashy outdoor sofas that were made for sleeping as the sun set. A hot tub was on one side of the deck—because with all this water around the yacht, you needed something hot—and there was a dining table, complete with ten chairs, to one side that was loaded down with food.

  Having been stuck in a cave all fucking day, with Stefan’s stash not filling a hole in our bellies—because even though he was a hoarder, that SOB couldn’t hoard enough food for seven men who ate as much as we did—I was goddamn starving.

  We were all on the same page now. Well, maybe everyone, except for Eve who still looked green around the gills. I wasn’t sure if that was down to being drugged, her experience when she’d crossed the portal, traveling on a speedboat, or coming onto the yacht. I had a feeling she was going to get seasick, mostly because I figured she’d never been out at sea before now, and who didn’t feel queasy when you were at one with the ocean’s rhythm? Of course, this expensive yacht wasn’t being tossed around, still, to Eve’s sensitive equilibrium, I figured we might as well have been on the set of A Perfect Storm.

  Better that than the Tit
anic.

  Because, yeah, that really would have cemented our luck.

  On the table, the sandwiches were loaded with fillings, and tasted so fucking fine that no one spoke a word as we dove into the food. It went unspoken that we’d take a moment to just eat, to get our strength back before diving headfirst into the cluster of shit heading our way.

  And with food this good? Getting my strength back had never tasted so fine.

  There were snacks like nuts and chips with dip, as well as fresh and dried fruit to munch on. Eve didn’t eat as much as us, but she dipped the pita chips into some hummus and managed to take a few bites of watermelon. I was glad she also had some Greek yogurt with honey because I figured it meant she wasn’t too queasy and was trying to line her stomach.

  When we’d finished the feast, our respite was over, and the second Eren took the last bite of his sandwich, Samuel stated, “There’s not a single word I recognize on her markings. Not a single one.”

  Five words that felt like a jab to the throat.

  Stefan scowled. “And you know every language known to man?”

  Samuel shook his head. “Of course not, but I have a knack for languages. Computer or otherwise.”

  “Ever heard of Malbolge?” Frazer questioned, as he reached for his bottle of beer.

  “No.” That came from most of my Pack, but Eren rubbed his chin, and mused, “Coding language, yeah? Mindfuck in coding form?”

  Samuel nodded. “It’s—” He pulled a face. “Difficult to work with.”

  Stefan frowned. “So?”

  “I write programs in it.” His smile was tight. “For fun.”

  “That’s pretty extreme,” Eren blurted out, his eyes wide, evidently impressed by Samuel’s claim.

  “Yeah. It’s just something I can do. Languages and numbers.” He shrugged. “It’s a Vampire thing.”

  Was that true? I’d never heard anything like that before, but then again, each creature had traits that were unique and also secret to them. Shit that was pretty much a part of our bro code, things we didn’t learn until our souls finally settled on one creature, and we were going through the motions of dominating the fuck out of the others.

  It was well known, for example, that Weres had insane sex drives. What wasn’t known? Throw in the Were giving a bite so deep it bled, and it was game over for us in the form of knotting.

  Yup.

  Like a fucking dog with a bitch in heat.

  Sex + blood = a Were and his woman of choice being stuck together for a good two hours.

  That was shit you didn’t want other creatures to know because it could be used against you, so learning that Vamps had mad skills with two seemingly contradictory aspects of life—words and numbers—didn’t come as much of a surprise as it should have.

  Reaching up to run a hand through my hair as I processed what this meant for us, I eventually mumbled, “So, it’s ancient, then.”

  “Yeah.” Samuel tipped his chin. “I’m thinking so. Esoteric, old…” His eyes spaced out like he was thinking and not looking at anything in particular. “So, we need someone to translate. Someone who wouldn’t ask questions, and wouldn’t freak the fuck out at the idea of a tattoo appearing from out of nowhere.”

  Stefan, ever grounded, snorted. “Yeah, because that won’t be hard to find.”

  “It depends,” Reed retorted, his eyes snapping with his Hell Hound’s temper at Stefan’s snark. “Humans know shit about us, but there are still people who believe in witches and fairies. Christ, Satanists and—”

  Samuel clicked his fingers. “Someone who studies the occult. Maybe a professor? They’d probably be psyched to see something like this. Maybe they’d recognize the language if it’s ancient. Some kind of, I don’t know… parapsychology unit, if that’s even a thing?” He reached for his cell phone—his was the only one we hadn’t left back at Caelum because he had his own SIM card and the cell was his, not the Academy’s—and began tapping on the screen. “Well, apparently parapsychology is a thing.”

  “Of course. Haven’t you seen Ghostbusters?” Eve stated.

  Even I had to laugh at that one.

  Nestor grabbed Eve’s hand and squeezed. “That wasn’t real, meu amor,” he teased, but she stuck her tongue out at him.

  “I know. I learned that on day one at Caelum when that alien burst out of that woman’s belly.” She rolled her eyes, and the others snickered around me. I’d been unconscious when Eve arrived, so I didn’t get to share in the joke, but from the way my brothers were hooting and Eve was a mixture of pink from amusement and mortification, I guess it had to be a doozy.

  Samuel was the only one not smiling, and not because he was a jerk, but because he was reading. He’d made space by stacking his dish on top of Reed’s and was looking down at his extra-wide screen phone. I’d seen that shit on my newsfeed earlier this year at a developer’s conference. How the hell he had his hands on that tech before it went live, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. Still, it had the extra advantage of being wide enough that I could see what he was doing.

  He’d leap-frogged from a search on parapsychology units at universities in the Northern hemisphere—why not the South, I didn’t know—and was now cross-referencing for occult departments.

  “We’re near the African coast,” I pointed out. “You know they have witch doctors and shit. Maybe they’d know?”

  Eren shook his head. “Wrong religious tree.” When I blinked at him, he huffed. “Did you listen to nothing in RE?”

  “I heard that it’s all bullshit and that’s all I needed.” I’d loathed Religious Education and had been grateful we only had one class a week for a year, right at the beginning when we were inducted. It was considered some of the least scary shit we had to learn, so we studied it early on.

  “Then you weren’t listening right,” Nestor retorted with an eye-roll. “Dumbass,” he muttered under his breath.

  Eren smirked at me before saying, “If you’d listened, you’d know tongues is what the apostles spoke.”

  “I knew that!” Eve piped up. “I even asked Merry if that was the same language.” She frowned. “She said no.”

  “Religion, as humans know it, as you were taught it and me as well as Nestor and Dre, is different than the reality,” Eren explained, while fiddling with some crumbs on the tabletop in front of him. “There’s a basis of truth to every lore and legend.”

  “And what’s that basis here?” Eve inquired, and as I stared at her, I saw the drooping of her eyelids and knew she was fighting to stay awake. Had the food made her sleepy? If this conversation wasn’t important, I’d have said it was time for us all to crash into bed, but we needed to figure out our next move. Frazer, Reed, and Stefan were being stubborn fucks, thinking we needed to keep her sheltered when that was evidently not going to work.

  Shit had brought us to this moment in time, and shit would carry on happening until Eve had fulfilled her destiny.

  That sounded heavy as fuck, but dammit, this was heavy. This was beyond a messed-up situation.

  With Eve awake and involved in this conversation, we had more chance of steaming ahead toward a plan that wouldn’t see Reed, Frazer, and Stefan inadvertently killing our woman with kindness. She wouldn’t let them stick her in a protective bubble—and that they didn’t realize that made them total dumbasses.

  “Some say the prophets weren’t human, weren’t sons of God or messengers, but creatures,” Eren continued, after a brief moment of silence.

  Her mouth dropped open at that. “You’re saying Jesus might have been a Vampire?” She winced. “Or, I mean, a Hell Hound or whatever?”

  Eren’s lips twitched. “Sacrilegious, no?”

  “Yes!” she snapped, and that was definitely her background leaping to the fore.

  “It’s a theory. A working one. There are a lot of creature historians and theologians who discuss the theory and who make quite decent arguments.” He pointed to her arms. “What if that’s the language the prophets spoke?�
�

  “It’s not Aramaic. I’d have recognized the symbols.”

  I wasn’t the only one gaping at her, and she shrugged. “I helped teach the class at the compound.”

  “You learned Aramaic in your cult?” Reed sputtered.

  “It was a religious cult, Reed. What else would they spout if not religious doctrine?” Samuel pointed out absentmindedly, his focus elsewhere. Then, he paused in his search and frowned at her. “You’re right, though. Aramaic… there are three forms, and they’re all subcategorized.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” I grumbled.

  “Aramaic is so old that there’s the old version, the middle version, and the modern version,” Eve explained, apparently understanding where Samuel was going. “And then there are subsections, like East and West varieties.”

  Samuel nodded. “What if Eve’s ink is tongues, but an older version?”

  “Doesn’t that make it harder to find? And doesn’t that mean we should also narrow down the search to creature historians and theologians?” Nestor countered.

  “In a perfect world, if we weren’t evading Caelum, then yes,” Samuel said, his tone succinct. “This isn’t a perfect world. Instead, we have to rely on humans, and hope that someone, somewhere, has come across a similar language.”

  “That could take years to find,” I groaned, feeling exhausted already at the prospect of hunting down someone who might understand a language that was last used by Jesus.

  “That’s time we don’t have,” Eren stated grimly.

  “You don’t know that,” Reed retorted, evidently hoping that his plan to keep Eve in a nuclear bunker was on the cards again. Okay, mild exaggeration. But those three were a second away from making such a stupid suggestion. I felt it in my gut, and I just hoped they kept their mouths shut.

  “I do,” Eren argued. “Look at her, Reed.”