Page 117 of Caelum

“Ooh, you've graduated to big words.” He clapped his hands. “You wanted to know what a cock was? Think ‘dick,’ but a synonym.”

TWO

FRAZER

Dre, as always, was being a fuckwit. And though I wanted to ram his head into the tiled bathroom wall, I couldn't.

He wasn't technically wrong.

Dealing with Eve was like talking to a six-year-old sometimes. She had the same vocabulary as a fucking kid, and yet, she wasn't. She was an adult. She was smart, mature in her own way, but she was of another time, a different era.

She wasn't aware of the nuances that were inherent in our world, to society these days, and having been reared in a cult, I understood all that. Hell, I even empathized. But now? At this minute? It would have been damn handy if she understood some of those nuances.

Not even about our world, but just the regular shit we all said. At our base, thanks to our formative years, we all spoke like kids from the twenty-first century. Eve? Not so much.

I ran a hand over my face, trying to figure this out, trying to understand what the fuck was going on here.

Until Dre had said we had a problem, I'd just been freaking out about the fact I had a mate period.

The mark had appeared a mere hour after I'd sat with her outside on the cliff one day. It had been a burning brand that was impossible to ignore, impossible to forget. Not just because of what it represented, but because it would carry on burning away like recently seared flesh until my Chosen claimedme.

I'd figured she'd understood what she'd done. I had been waiting on her to Choose me publicly, as all females of our species did, but Eve?

Well, she hadn't.

And I'd gotten mad.

Mad enough to give her the silent treatment last night.

I didn't even give a fuck that I should have been glad about her wanting to keep things on the down-low. The minute she claimed me publicly was the minute we’d be under watch from the faculty who never allowed a mated pair to be alone together until graduation. That alone was why Samuel had picked a fight with her—to protect Reed. Who, according to Samuel, was also her fucking mate.

But last night, I’d just been furious. Angry she'd Chosen me and was content to make me suffer. And after Aboh, when I'd needed her, she'd gone straight to Stefan and his cronies. Not me.

That had fucking hurt. Hurt so bad it was a thousand times worse than anything my parents had ever done to me. Through their neglect and lack of care, I’d suffered, but Eve? She’d decimated me when she hadn’t come to greet me, when she hadn’t rushed to hug me after I’d landed—childish, but I was just a man. Wanting a woman who’d Chosen him.

It should have been obvious to me that she hadn't realized what she'd done. She didn't know our ways, after all, but what my cousin had once called my ‘dick-face mode’ had ticked into being. I’d treated her like shit last night. Blanking her as though she didn’t exist to me, but she did.

She was mine.

And I was hers.

God help us both.

Guilt had me suffocating until I managed to rasp out, “I should have known you didn't understand what you did. You’re not like the others. They might have strung me along, but not you. I’m sorry I underestimated you.” I bridged my hands together and squeezed my knuckles tight. My control was close to being breached. I wanted to touch her like I wanted my next breath. Even this short distance between us was torture.

The fact that Stefan had been dealing with this from day one had me pitying him when I should have been loathing him for daring to be another of Eve’s Chosen.

“I don’t evenknowwhat I did, never mind understand it,” she countered, sounding miserable and confused. Shit, she more than sounded it. The way she was gnawing on her bottom lip, the force with which she was wringing her hands… it all made me want to wrap her up in my arms and protect her.

Even if that meant protecting her from herself.

“Females select their mates,” I told her softly instead. Taking away the need for her confusion with answers, not with my body—which I'd have much preferred—but with my words. “Usually, it’s a combination of the creature and her desires. When the two are in alignment, then that means you've Chosen someone.”

“That means you had the hots for Stefan and Frazer,” Dre inserted, and I elbowed him in the side.

“Shut up, jackass,” I growled, enjoying his wince as he rubbed at his side. Then, with a sigh, I murmured, “But he's kind of right. Unless you're attracted to someone, the mark won't form.”

I was used to seeing her cheeks turn red, but the crimson staining her face at my words? It was nothing like I'd ever seen. Her eyes turned glassy, and I wasn't sure if it was thanks to the feelings I inspired in her or what my words represented.

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