Page 194 of Caelum

Her mouth rounded. “What happened?”

“My uncle owed a debt to someone you should never owe money to. My family is wealthy, but our money is tied up in a trust. We can only cash it out four times a year. In between those times, you’re fucked if you don’t manage your funds well.” I shrugged as though my words weren’t slaying me. “He didn’t, was an inveterate gambler, and he sold her to pay off the debt. She was a virgin, and they auctioned off her virginity like she was a cow at a market.” My throat tightened as rage and sorrow for what couldn’t be changed hit me. “Didn’t matter that we came from a political dynasty, it only just drove up her price. She came to visit me a few weeks after it happened, and that was the last time I ever saw her.

“She might have killed herself,” I said, my voice a low rasp. “But my uncle and the bastards who sold her murdered her, and I’ll never see it any other way.”

She strode over to me, her hands coming up to clasp my forearms which had bunched with tension. The desire to strangle those men who had hurt my cousin was an ache I lived with daily. I’d never get over her death, never. Not as long as I lived.

When she stared up at me, those amber eyes so soulful I felt like she could see into my heart, she whispered, “When we’re out of here, we need to pay them a visit.”

My mouth dropped open. “Huh?”

“We need to pay them a visit.” She grunted. “I feel like…” She stopped talking, her lips quivering as she worked out what she wanted to say. “Dre’s parents were murdered, Stefan was abused, something happened to Eren which makes him have a panic attack when he’s in the dark, and Nestor…” She swallowed. “You all have stories. Even you. Reed has one, but he doesn’t have someone to blame except himself. And I don’t know Samuel well enough to know his story, but the five of you? We need to get some vengeance.”

I stared at her because whatever the hell I’d expected her to say, it wasn’t that. “Who are you right now?” I blurted out, but my words weren’t cold. If anything, they were on fucking fire.

Her cheeks burned with it, and those honey eyes glittered as she said, “I’m yours.”

How I stopped myself from kissing her, from planting my lips on hers,I’d never fucking know. It was hard. So fucking hard. I wanted to eat her up, devour this sweet girl who had suddenly gone Old Testament on my ass.

As my gaze burned into hers, branding her with my want for her, she whispered, “Why did you give me the book, Frazer?”

I swallowed. “So that you can always find a way to communicate with me.”

Her nostrils flared, and when she stepped onto her tiptoes, she took my choice away from me.

Her mouth was on mine, her tongue thrust between my lips in a way that told me she’d been practicing on one of my new brothers because Reed and Samuel would have told me if she’d kissed them. I didn’t mind, though. I enjoyed the tentative exploration backed by a curiosity that made my skin sizzle.

Her hands slipped up my forearms and over my biceps, which she raked with her nails, and then up to my shoulders. When she dragged them over my scalp, I hissed as sensation flared, and I couldn’t stop myself from bending down and grabbing a hold of her. She parted her legs and let me haul her into my chest.

As she ate at my mouth, tangling her tongue with mine so ferociously that the pair of us were barely even breathing, I staggered forward and slammed her into the wall. The second she was there, she grunted, and I arched my hips, rocking my pelvis forward so I could drag my hardness down her soft core.

The second I did that, she pulled her mouth from mine. I fully expected for her to pull back, to turn away from me. This was too fast, too soon, and I knew it. Knew I’d taken this to another level she couldn’t be ready for, and yet, she stunned me.

Again.

She pulled her head back so she could exhale on a groan. Her hands tightened around my neck as she began to writhe against the wall, her soft pussy rubbing against the tent forging its way in my shorts. When I shifted my hold, settled my hands under her knees, she moaned as I spread her legs wider apart. Moving deeper into her, I pressed harder, rocking faster and faster with each moan that escaped her lips.

I wanted in her more than I wanted my next breath, and when she latched on to my throat, sucking down hard, something shifted inside me.

What she’d done this morning, she did again.

Did she know it?

Was she aware of what she was doing?

Nestor had intimated it was instinctive, not something she did onpurpose, and since her focus was elsewhere, I knew he was right—but I didn’t even want to think abouthowhe’d learned that though.

The Sin Eater inside me jerked to life in a way that only ever happened on the battlefield. The last time had been in Aboh when I’d separated a soul from a Ghoul.

I almost pulled back, not wanting to hurt her. We couldn’t hurt creatures, only Ghouls, but my protective instincts were flaring to life with big red and blue lights. Fuck only knew what Eve truly was. We couldn’t label her, and because we couldn’t, we didn’t have a clue what might hurt her.

Only trouble was, she wasn’t letting go.

I dropped her like a hot potato, knowing I needed distance, but when I looked into her eyes, I knew the Succubus was there. How did I know that? When it should have been technically impossible as the reason for our meeting was because her Sin Eater was in charge? Because Eve didn’t flush, didn’t even turn pink. She didn’t try to dash off or try to apologize for kissing me that way. No. She reached down and began to tug off her yoga pants, and in the next breath, she slipped her shirt over her head, revealing a body so lush my mouth began to water.

Even worse, my dick started to pulse and the Sin Eater roared to life once more.

As she stepped toward me like she was some kind of femme fatale who knew how to seduce a man in three simple moves, I questioned what the fuck was happening.

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