Page 130 of Caelum

What the fuck was the faculty teaching her in those private tutor sessions they'd been having with her for the past seven weeks? I knew she was a dumbass because she'd been kept away from the world, but they should have been teaching her things like this, right?

Her first class with me couldn't be going much worse, and truly, one of the others should have been around because they knew how much I disliked her.

It surprised me that they weren't babysitting her. Eren, especially, didn't seem to like me hovering around Eve at all. And I couldn't blame him. It surprised me how Eren was so close to her. He had attachment issues, had ever since witnessing the brutality of his parents’ deaths. He had enoughtrouble keeping himself under control without taking this dipshit under his wing—but would he listen to me? Nope.

I folded my arms across my chest, bulging my biceps in an attempt to restrain my patience. I didn't mind that she took a while. If anything, I preferred the silence. When she talked, she gave me a headache.

No bullshit.

She swallowed, and I was so attuned to her that I both saw it and heard it.

Even as much as I disliked her, she was almost like a magnet. Like my hatred for her connected me to Eve in a way I'd never known before. And I couldn't say I appreciated it either.

After a good five minutes with her eyes closed, her mouth shut, and standing in a restful position, I started to feel antsy. This was taking far longer than I’d anticipated, and even though she was trying…

What if she didn't house souls the way we did?

What if she was so strange we couldn't help her?

She'd Chosen three men. Three strong soldiers. Because of her mark, if she'd died because she was too stupid to live, that would affect them for the rest of their existence. It would fuck them up in a way that made all the romance novels seem trite.

With little more than a touch of her hand—and not to a good place either—she'd ruined them with that mark, and that was all I could see. There was no positive, just negative. And while I loathed Frazer and Reed, thought they were utter bastards, they were damn good soldiers, and they were needed in the war we were fighting.

Fear stirred inside me at the danger she represented, and I hated it. Hated her for making me feel it. I gritted my teeth, trying to contain the battle going down inside me. I wanted nothing more than to snark at her, to bitch at her to hurry up, but she was trying. I knew it and knew my attitude would only make things harder for her.

“I-I ...” She hesitated then whispered, “I think I can feel them.”

My stomach churned at that as excitement filled me and was promptly followed by relief. Not just because she was normal, but because, hopefully, this would be over soon. My own thoughts were starting to suffocate me. “What do you see?” I inquired eagerly, but she didn’t reply.

It bewildered me that she'd never done this before. Never looked inside herself for answers. Maybe it was because she'd hidden from them rather than embraced her oddity? Considering her background, I couldn't say I blamed her, even though I kind of did.

I know, I was a contrary dick, but I'd embraced that fact a long time ago.

Wanting to be anywhere but in this part of the garden where my time would have been better spent tending to my cacti, I tried not to lose patience. It was so hard though. So. Hard.

After another five minutes of silence, finally, she whispered, “There.”

This time, excitement superseded impatience. We were finally making progress.

“At this age, you should be able to feel that one takes up more space than the others,” I guided, hoping she could at least figure this out now that she’d found the place where her souls were.

There were more technical terms, ones that I'd learned in class myself, ones I hadn't really listened to. To me, the science behind what made us unique was all bullshit. There was no explaining away the oddity of our brains, the strangeness of our species. It was something we had to embrace, not question.

When she slowly shook her head, I didn't rail at her for being an idiot but did feel disappointment.

“Sometimes, that’s normal. Not all females can recognize what they are at your age.”

I wasn't saying that to make her feel better either. Shit, I didn't give a fuck if she felt great or horrible.

A soft hum escaped her, and I wanted to deny what that sound did to me but couldn’t. Jesus. It was like it whispered over my nerve endings with the gentlest caress.

“Yeah, you're right. I remember reading that in a book somewhere. A male soul becomes dominant at an earlier age.”

I nodded. “They think it’s one of the reasons why there are more female Ghouls than male.” Her eyes popped open at that, and I shrugged. “Didn't learn that in one of your books?” I sneered.

I wasn't even sure why I was being mean on that front because I had to applaud her for how much she'd absorbed about our culture in such a short space of time. She was learning, just not fast enough. She was almost eighteen with a sixteen-year-old’s knowledge of our people, and while that would have been okay before she'd Chosen three random males, now? It couldn't be much worse.

Very shortly, all of her Chosen would be ready for battle. We’d have no choice but to take her along on missions. Deadweight? That wasn’t even the word. It didn't bode well for either her or us, and if we didn’t want to die in our twenties, we needed to get her up to speed and quickly.

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