Page 201 of Caelum

Instinct had me going to Eve’s room first because she was my mate, but as I neared her room and all the other bedrooms in the dormitory in this part of Caelum, I began to find them.

Bodies.

Lots of them.

Slumped over, hunched on the floor, lying flat out.

All of them snoring. Deeplyasleep.

We’d been drugged, that was the only answer, but so many of us?

There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that the only reason I wasn’t asleep was because I was used to the sleeping drugs they’d kept trying to force me to take since I’d arrived here, and before then, in Istanbul too. For that reason alone, I was grateful to every shrink I’d been forced to see. If I hadn’t been used to them, hadn’t built up some immunity against them, I’d be asleep too, and I wouldn’t have seen the twenty-strong fleet of military-grade helicopters heading our way.

When I pushed through the slumbering crowds, a feat that made my journey even harder, I found my brothers. They were asleep too. Was it good fortune or just bad luck that they were here? They’d evidently taken Eve to her room first before coming out with the intention of going their separate ways.

When I saw Stefan wasn’t there, I realized he’d probably been the one to win the coin toss over who’d sleep with Eve tonight.

Pushing into her room, I saw Stefan slumped on top of Eve, like he’d fainted as they’d been making out.

Terror filled me. How the fuck was I supposed to save Caelum when everyone was knocked out? More importantly, how was I supposed to keep my Pack alive to see another day?

Panic and adrenaline shoved some of the drugs out of my system. I rushed over to the bed faster than I’d managed on my slow climb to Eve’s quarters, and when I looked at her, truly looked at her, I saw she was awake. Not like the others.

Her eyes were open, staring, almost as though she were dead, and for a second, terror like nothing else I’d ever known hit me.

I’d been buried alive. Had heard my parents die around me. Had been beaten bloody by my bastard of a brother-in-law, and yet nothing scared me as much as the prospect of Eve being dead.

When her gaze fluttered over to me, the relief was enough to make me tremble. I almost dropped to my knees in thanks, but the cocktail of rage and terror kept me upright.

I knew how she felt.

Trapped.

Unable to help herself.

The only thing I could do was talk to her, and I called on my Lorelei to back me up.

“You’ve been drugged, Eve. So have the others. Someone’s coming, twenty helicopters are flying their way toward us, and I can’t think they’re friendly. No one arrives this late, and no one ever comes in a helicopter,” Irasped. “I need your help. I need you to wake up, to shake off the drugs, and then I need you to call on the others, stir them. If we don’t, we’re all going to die.”

I sang the words to her. They were the worst lyrics in the world, but my voice? Wasn’t. It was the most enticing I’d ever called upon. I purposely crafted it to be more intoxicating than the drugs in her system, and when she blinked, when her lips quivered, I repeated the words, called on her strength. Called on the souls that made her different, that powered her differently than the rest of us.

When her head moved, I wanted to weep in gratitude, but it was taking so long. So fucking long. The helicopters were an ever-approaching rumble, and even if I managed to get everyone awake, there was nowhere to go. We were stuck here. In the middle of nowhere. With no escape.

Panic threaded its way through me, but I fought it. Just as I’d fought to survive when I’d been buried alive in the rubble of my family home.

I almost choked on it,almost, but didn’t.

When she stirred, her body shifting on the bed, I watched as she whispered, “Come to me, Eren.” I blinked, as entranced as she was now when she used her voice against me. The power she packed made my voice look puny.

I stumbled closer, gave her my hand, but deep inside me, I felt her touch something that had never been touched before.

My Lorelei.

She stroked it, caressed it, even as her thumb rubbed the back of my hand. Then, she squeezed, and a scream escaped me which morphed into one long note of joy and pain and terror combined.

Light seemed to blind me, to flash behind my eyes, and it wasn’t from me.

But from her.

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