That had my frown deepening. What was I supposed to say to that? Gee, thanks?
A laugh sounded, and I realized God could read my thoughts.
Then I wondered how stupid I had to be to have only just figured that out.
In fact, He could hear this too. And this.
Yikes.
Shut up!
Grimacing and forcing myself not to utter another thought, I fell silent.
God murmured, “You’re different than the others. A child of your generation, I suppose. And yet, it is that child who brought about a day I was coming to fear I’d never see.”
His words stirred me, and I blurted out, “Why did killing an Original Ghoul kill the whole line?”
He clucked His tongue. “I can’t answer that.”
Can’t or won’t? Well, that was boring. I sighed. “What can you tell me?”
“That you have my thanks.” His tone was amused again, and I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to be amusing or not.
Father Bryan would probably have whipped me by now.
“Fear not, he might believe he is on his way to Heaven, but he most assuredly is not.”
I stilled at that, then released a relieved breath. “Thank you for that.”
“No thanks necessary. He earned that right, or the lack of, himself.”
That Father Bryan would be punished soothed something inside me, but even as a part of me relaxed, my curiosity stirred to life once more.
“You may ask, but I may not answer,” God replied, and I heard the smile in His voice again, and was thankful for it.
“How did I Choose my mates?”
He laughed, and the sound was so beautiful it made tears prick my eyes with joy. “You Chose them on your own volition, with a lot of pheromones helping you along the way. My plan was only for you to forge a Pack with seven guardians worthy of protecting you, strong enough to keep you safe along the path to fulfilling my will. But sometimes, these things forge a life of their own, and I can’t be sad about that.”
Inside, my heart lurched. “How is that even possible?”
“Sometimes, true love comes of its own will.”
That had even more tears pricking my eyes as a soul-deep need for my men to be at my side hit me. But equally, that would mean that they were dead, and I couldn’t bear that. Couldn’t handle it.
I needed them to live. More than I needed them with me because I could cope without them for the time being. Until they were returned to me here, after having lived what I hoped would be long and fulfilling lives.
God sighed. “So sacrificing. They are fortunate.”
“I’m the lucky one. Even if Dre has an attitude problem.”
“Diamonds in the rough usually are worth the trouble,” He consoled.
“Oh, I know,” I told Him, aware my tone was cheerful. “He and I have come to an understanding.”
“Really?” He asked, sounding amused again. “What kind of understanding?”
“If he talks to me like I’m—” I cleared my throat. Swearing here was a big no-no. “I mean, he knows I just won’t talk to him if he’s being mean.”
God snorted. “I understand more than you think.”
My cheeks tinged bright pink as I thought about what God did know and had probably seen.
Yikes.
“What do the marks mean?” I asked, curling my fingers into my palms where Nestor and Dre’s felt like they were burning me as though they were brands. I also thought of the huge pieces of ink the others sported on their backs.
Their delicious backs.
Their thickly muscled, yummy backs.
Goodness, I missed them already.
“It is the oldest of tongues. Older even than what Adam and Eve spoke those first few days.”
I frowned, thought about what He wasn’t saying and hesitantly asked, “What the angels speak?”
Another soft laugh that made me tingle like a drop of rain falling on the tip of my nose—gentle and warm, not frightening. “Yes.”
“What does it say?”
“It is a song. One of benediction and glory. Of joy and wonder.” He hummed. “I thought it apt.” He sighed, then, and the motion was so heavy that it stirred my hair, lifting it from my shoulders and letting it settle in disarray. “But now, I’m left with you. A child who was too young for such a burden, who fought for me even though she’d been shown no love from those who should have loved her. Who led her into a religion that was not sanctioned by me or mine.
“A child who loves with all her marrow, who sacrificed herself for a cause that wasn’t her own…”
My heart sped up at His words. “May I ask what happened?”
“As the rivers of Eden soared into the pit, the fires of hell surged out in response—for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. The two forever flowed and burned and ensured Satan was contained within, kept locked behind the gates of my forging. When Erlik, with the purest of Satan’s taint from Eve’s sin, and you, with my light inside you, collided with the two…”
“We destroyed them?” I bleated.
“Essentially, yes.”
“What’s stopping Satan now?”
“A lot of rock,” came the retort, and it was amused again. But His tone had darkened when He stated, “Fear not, this task does not rest on your shoulders.”
It didn’t?
Then on whose?
“An answer that is above your pay grade, child,” God answered, making me wrinkle my nose in dismay. “Now, you smote the three children born of the purest taint of the Original Sinner, and your men used their final, seventh wish on—”
“Wait!” I blurted out, blushing red when I realized how rude I was being. But I needed answers! “Their final seventh wish? What do you mean?”
“Just as Derinkuyu was the portal to Hell, Caelum is the portal to Heaven. Once you left its gates, with the Tree of Knowledge inside you and guiding you, the Jannah was truly awakened. Your men had seven wishes, one apiece, and they’ve used them all. They can’t bring you back.”
“But you can,” I replied hopefully.
“Indeed, I can. If I grant you one last wish, what would you do with it?”
As I thought of my men, each of them grieving me now that they knew I was dead, everything in me, heart, body, soul, longed to be back with them.
And yet, one thing swirled to life inside me.
God had been patient with me. Kind and forgiving when I was rude or asked a question I ought not to. Only once had His voice stirred with wrath.
When He’d spoken of Eve.
Adam and Eve who still lived.
Who bore the guilt of their sin every single day of hundreds of thousands of years.
Who lived without the love of the Father who had borne them, spawning a line that could and would destroy their other children.
Who were destined to live a life tainted by the curse of their Father’s wrath.
And even though I wanted to be back with my men so badly it hurt, I thought of Bartlett and Avalina. The sadness in their eyes, the way they mourned each day they lived, and I couldn’t do it.
It hurt like a physical pain inside me, but if anyone deserved peace, it was them.
My mouth quivered with the desire to be selfish. With the need to be with my men, but I just. Couldn’t. Do. It.
“I-I wish you’d forgive Adam and Eve of their sins.”
Silence fell at my words, and I had the feeling I’d struck God speechless.
Not for long.
“They’re the cause of all the sin among my children,” He said, the words and His tone flat.
“So, why did you give them nine lives if you didn’t want them to redeem themselves?” I questioned, confusion lacing my words. “They have, haven’t they? There are no more Ghouls.”
“There are no more Ghouls for now.” Before I could fret over that, God stated grimly, “I saw a day when the end was nigh, and saw a day when hope arrived. Nine lives… even I have to h
ave faith, child.”
My throat closed at that, but I had to speak on Adam and Eve’s behalf. He didn’t sound like He’d forgiven them, even if they’d done as He’d asked. How was that fair? “If you can forgive the others, why not them? They’re only human, aren’t they?” When it boiled down to it, beneath even the Jannah, that was my species.
Human. Homo sapiens.
Flaws and all.
My words didn’t deserve an answer apparently, and this time, the anger was back in His voice as He said, “So be it.”
I wasn’t sure what to do next. Should I open my eyes? Should I slink off and hide somewhere? I’d annoyed God, and that wasn’t something anyone survived, surely?
Then, I heard a deep, loud sigh and a beard tickled my cheek. Deep in my ear, God whispered, “You know not what you’ve done with your wish, but I thank you for your sacrifice. Open your eyes, Eve.”
This was it.
I was done for.
Blowing out a breath of my own, one so loaded with regret that I’d angered the Lord Almighty, I opened my eyes, realized that I was being jostled in someone’s arms, and saw…
Caelum.
I was home.
10
Eve
Twelve months later
“Why today?”
I shrugged as I grinned up at Eren and pressed a kiss to his nose. “It feels like a good day to have a birthday. I mean, it’s not every day someone is reincarnated, is it?”
He snorted. “Thank God, no.” But he squeezed my hand and said, “You won’t like it. It’s not like mine. If you’d given me more notice—”
I kissed him on the mouth this time. “Hush. It’s great. I couldn’t think of a better birthday present.”
Reed swooped in, his sticky lips pressing to mine with an ease that came from loving someone for a long time. “I’ll give you something better later on.”
I giggled and waggled my eyebrows. “Hubba hubba.”
He burst out laughing, then released me so I could get a piece of the baklava from the syrup-soaked plate on the table. As I raised it to my mouth, I caught Dre’s eye and saw the storm brewing within.
Oh, boy.
He was in one of his moods, and that meant he usually took it out on me.
Not like he did before, with harsh words and cruel looks.
Nope, he fucked me. Hard. Last time, he’d broken the bed in the cheap motel we’d been staying in, but I hadn’t complained. It had felt good in a strange way, and I’d empathized.
We had just killed the coyote who’d murdered his parents, after all.
If ever a man deserved to be grumpy, it was on that day. Being knotted together for four hours had lightened his mood and his load.
If you got my meaning.
Aware he was stressed about our current mission, I blew him a kiss, then turned my attention to Samuel who was watching his parents on his laptop, a huge piece of baklava in his hands as he munched on Eren’s gift to me. Though it saddened me, I understood his need to remain connected to his family, so I switched my focus to Frazer and Stefan who were arguing over the remaining piece of cake that Eren called halva, and then a pudding that was called güllaç. Nestor had faceplanted in the halva the second Eren had brought it back with him to our digs, and that was why they were arguing over it—Nestor had eaten most of it.
This morning, when I’d woken up, I’d decided that today was going to be the birthday I used for the rest of my life. And as a present, I wanted a table of desserts.
Appetizer, entrée, and dessert. An all-in-one sweet lover’s smorgasbord.
Eren had huffed and puffed, but he’d gone out and bought me my present, leaving us in the safe house we were using at the moment.
Unlike most of the digs we stayed in, this one was quite nice, even had a private pool in its high-fenced yard. I was enjoying the privilege as it meant all my men were in various stages of undress. Because of that, it meant I could see the marks that had developed on Dre and Nestor’s pecs—we weren’t sure why their marks were different, just as we didn’t know why I’d been gifted their marks on my hands last year.
I wasn’t about to question it, though. I loved seeing my mark on them, just as the others enjoyed seeing their marks on me because, when I’d awoken in Eren’s arms as he carried me into Caelum territory, the power surging inside me as the Tree of Knowledge was absorbed back into the portal that was the gateway to Heaven on Earth, all my other mates’ marks had been left behind.
It was better now though, because they didn’t glow, just looked like regular ink unless I had to feed, then they’d turn bloodred. It had been strange at first, but we were used to it now. Just as we were used to the fact that I could and would slip between the seven souls inside my being as easily as flipping a switch. The eighth soul had gone, but in one day, I could feed from Nestor while butting heads with Reed’s Hell Hound.
There was no war inside me—only peace.
Well, until it came down to sowing the seeds of our very own brand of vengeance.
The world hadn’t exactly improved in the days since Drekavac, Raum, and Erlik’s deaths. Humans were capable of evil as cruel as any Ghoul, after all. And in the aftermath of what the world believed to be Armageddon, it was taking a while to get things back on track.
Caelum’s army, now without a purpose, had taken to helping governments across the globe reinstall peace among the population.
That day in Mexico City, when I’d called on Nicholas and asked him for his help, I had set some things into motion that unsettled me to this day.
The least of them was his first ‘fee’ for helping us.
When I’d told him I was Jannah, he’d instantly known that I’d been in touch with his parents. He’d asked for their cellphone number and had made a wish.
That wish?
For him and his Chosen to find peace together.
Pretty sweet, right?
I hadn’t had a say in whether the latter was granted, had no idea if the wish would come to pass, but considering Janvier and Nicholas were both living at Caelum now, I figured it had. The cellphone number? I hadn’t given him it. But when I’d awoken, I’d called Avalina and had told her that Nicholas wanted to speak with her.
Whether parents and child had contacted one another was something I didn’t know.
Brendan, the guy who worked in the kitchens and had a serious attitude problem? He was the one who’d worked with the McAllister nest to infiltrate Caelum. Why? Because they’d kidnapped his human family and were blackmailing him—the loss they’d sustained at Aboh had prompted them to go full throttle on Caelum’s behind, and only my abilities as well as my mates’ had saved God’s Chosen territory on Earth.
Brendan had died for his sins, but people still looked at us askance. It made it awkward for us to be back at the Academy, so while we were still underage, Nicholas had decided that it would be foolish to leave us there where we were definitely not wanted, and he sent us on the less dangerous missions.
Of course, that didn’t mean we always listened.
This time, he’d sent us to Turkey to help the new leader. Mohamed Aksoy had declared martial law in the country and was using it to instil his own order. Nicholas wasn’t choosy enough about who he helped, and we weren’t about to complain, not when he’d deployed us right where we’d needed to be.
Last year, when we’d helped a local council in the Coahuila region of Mexico, we’d taken some ‘personal time’ to go and kill the coyote behind Dre’s parents’ untimely deaths.
This time, our intention was to rid the world of Eren’s brother-in-law. The bastard who’d beaten him bloody, had made him self-harm and almost commit suicide.
Twice.
News that I had only learned recently. News that made me want to slice the bastard’s throat myself. And hell, maybe I would if Eren couldn’t do it. If his past came back to haunt him, I’d be there in an instant to help my Chosen out.
Eren’s politician brother-in-law had ta
ken advantage of the chaos his country had fallen into, had even helped that chaos along. That terrorist attack in Ankara on the day we’d dealt with Erlik? Samuel had uncovered the fact that Aksoy was behind it, and he was the despot currently in charge of Turkey. So, while Nicholas had sent us here to help Mohamed, we were going to help him… just not how Nicholas intended.
Was it wrong?
Maybe.
But in this world, what was right?
I’d been God’s hand once. I recognized His will in things I should have had no clue about, realized my memory was His gift to me. I didn’t know His plan, and while it might be said that we were doing the devil’s work, I chose to believe that these cruel people who were capable of such evil did not deserve to remain among the living.
And every now and then, when I heard a small chuckle in my head, one that was not my own, I knew I was right.
God was with me. Always had been, always would be. And he’d returned me to my men for a reason.
Sure, I’d served my purpose.
But who said a woman could have just the one?
So, even though my hands were bloody, at the end of the day when I washed them and was embraced by the seven men who loved me, I slept with ease.
I was sure I’d sleep even better soon because I had a feeling that when Eren took Mohamed’s life, he’d sleep like a baby too.
And, when the day came for Nicholas to send us to America, we’d find the men who’d raped Frazer’s cousin, and I’d take great pleasure in dismantling the cult that had raised me.
I had quite a to-do list, but unluckily for those who’d earned my wrath, I was patient.
I could wait for my revenge.
Epilogue
Adam
Forty years later
As I opened my eyes, I looked into a face I had not seen for millennia.
Nine Lives: The Caelum Academy Trilogy: Part THREE Page 29