Page 195 of Caelum

How had it gone from a simple conversation, one that had the power to traumatize me and put me in a bad mood for days, to this?

When she hooked her hands in her panties and slid them down over her hips, I knew my control had been breached. She was pale and soft, all curves and luscious ripeness. I wanted my hands on her, wanted to pound into that willing flesh she had bared for me. Just for me.

She was a virgin. I knew that. My Sin Eater told me. How the fuck he knew, I’d never figure out, but it was like he could scent that tiny piece of flesh deep in her core.

The beast wanted it.

Wanted to claim her more than he even wanted vengeance for Louise.

I balled my hands into fists as I stared at her tits, watching them bob and sway as she moved, and I recognized I was a goner.

Striding forward, I slammed her into the wall once more. She deserved soft, warm sheets and candlelight, but I wasn’t capable of giving that to her right then, and I knew she didn’t want it.

She wanted me.

Raw and ready.

Because she was mine, and I was fucking hers.

The second her tender skin brushed mine, it was like being touched by silk. Her scent, the feel of her, washed over me. In my mouth, I could still taste her. In my ears, I heard the roar of her heartbeat. My senses were aflame with everything she had to offer, and deep inside me? That sixth sense was roaming around the confines of my psyche, demanding to be let loose.

God, I wanted to.

I wanted to free him, to release him from the cage he should be in until I was twenty-one, but what if it hurt her?

What if I couldn’t control myself?

I wasn’t like the others. My soul was different. Sin Eaters didn’t shift, per se, but they were able to access a lot more of their powers than the rest. On the battlefield, I could eat a soul, where, before graduation, a Gargoyle, for example, couldn’t shift. Not even to protect himself. Nestor was case in point.

But me?

My soul was close to the surface.

My skin felt too tight, too hot, and it only felt like its regular temperature where she touched me.

Shuddering, I pressed my face into her throat and whispered, “What are you doing to me?”

“Liberating you,” she purred, and her voice was Eve’s but not.

It didn’t frighten me because as much as a freak as she was with those magical powers of hers, I needed her more than I needed air.

She was my crack. My crystal meth. My drug and poison of choice.

My jaw clenched as I fought the Sin Eater for a second more, and then she did it once more. Touched me. Not where she should have, but inside me.

She soothed at first, gently calming me, cooling me down while riling me up in other ways. Then, just when I could breathe easier, it was like she squeezed. Hard. Until I had no choice but to rip myself open, to let the thing out of me that demanded freedom.

My head fell back, and how I didn’t scream was a testament to how much control I truly had. The pain was debilitating, enough to knock me to the ground if I hadn’t been pressed into her, keeping her high against the wall. My knees busted into the mirror, and though they’d ache in the morning, that was nothing compared to the other agony roaring around my system.

As I processed the pain, I noticed she was there again. Deep inside. Soothing once more. As I absorbed it, absorbed her touch, the ache dispersed like I’d taken a shit ton of Ibuprofen.

When I raised my hand, finally able to do so, my vision was different.

I’d always seen well in the dark. Not just because of the Sin Eater, but I’d always just been able to. Now? It was like it was daytime.

My senses were hyperalert. I could hear the throb of Eve’s heart like I was wearing a stethoscope, and the blood swishing through her veins? It sounded like it was in a tumbler being swirled around on the rocks.

On the floor above me, forty students slept. A tree out back held the parrot Eve had taken to gaping at every morning at some point—I heard its gentle caw, the ruffle of its wings.

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