Page 179 of Caelum

Okay, so the belly stuff was nonsense, but still. She was, as Eren had called her, djinn. And trying to find shit out about them was difficult as hell. The amount of crap I’d already waded through online was a major time suck.

Those were hours I wouldn’t be getting back.

I peered over at the doorway when I heard some noise brewing out in the hall. “What’s going on?”

“Bonfire at the beach,” Frazer answered succinctly.

Huh. That was news to me. “How come?”

He shrugged. “You know what Genny is like. Any excuse for a party.”

I almost laughed. Yeah, I knew what Genny was like. Not that I said that, though. “Maybe Eve would like to hang out? Might be nice for her birthday.”

“True.”

“I don’t think she’s exactly the superficial kind, Fraze. Don’t worry about a gift.” When he nodded, still looking faintly uneasy, I half thought he’d have preferred her to be superficial.

That would have been easy.

Nothing about Eve was easy.

Did he but know it, that was exactly what he needed.

He’d had most of the girls in our year. If not once, then several times, and since the fucker was handsome as sin, women often rolled over for him. It was good for him that Eve wasn’t like that.

As my mother would have phrased it, it was going to build his character.

A thought that had me snorting into my coffee mug when I took a deep sip.

“What are you snickering at?” he groused.

I shrugged, focused on the screen rather than on him so he wouldn’t see my amusement. “Nothing.”

“Bullshit,” he grumbled, then cracking his knuckles, he sighed again. “Think she’d want to know about Louise?”

Surprised, I kept my gaze focused on the screen until I could compose my features. “I’m sure she would,” I told him softly, but my brow puckered, “I wouldn’t consider it a birthday present, Fraze.”

Opening up was one thing, but information about a murdered cousin wasn’t exactly a gift, was it?

“No. I know.” He cleared his throat. “Just been wanting to share with her, you know?”

“That’s good, man. You’re supposed to want that with her.”

Frazer cut me a look. “You think you’ll ever share with her?”

I shrugged—there was no way to know that. Not for sure. “I’m not sure she’d want me to.”

“If you just opened up to her, stopped being a dick like Dre, then I’m sure she would. She’s surprisingly easy to talk to, Samuel.”

I wanted to mock his relationship advice, but he was right. I was holding back until I got the mark, but what if that never happened for me? There was nothing that said it would, even if logic made it seem reasonable. Of course, logic was nothing in this situation. None of it made sense.

A woman with so many Chosen?

Who had earned marks of her own?

Yeah, Eve was an anomaly.

So, if I didn’t get a mark, and I was one of the only ones hovering in the Pack like a wallflower, I’d need to get her to like me for me.

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