Page 250 of Caelum

She stilled. “How come?”

“Because when he goes under, it’s like he’s drowning.” My throat felttoo full of emotion to get the next words out. “Thank you, Eve. Thank you for helping my brother rest.”

She was quiet for a second, then she murmured, “It’s my honor.”

Three words, and somehow, they were more powerful than the ones I longed to hear—I love you.

I knew she meant it. Knew she cared for my Pack as well as I did. My Pack was my family. My everything. I’d chosen these men as my brothers in arms, but also, for life. We fought together, but we played together as well because we were the family we’d selected for ourselves. Nature hadn’t paired us, but our free will had.

“Do you think you can rest?” I asked, when there was so much more I wanted to say but couldn’t.

She turned into me. “I can try.”

We spent the next ten minutes trying to sleep, both of us like tuna in a can as we tried to stop ourselves from moving around so as not to disturb Eren. When, ultimately, we both gave up, she whispered, “I’m just going to the kitchen.”

“I’ll come with.”

“Okay.”

As the pair of us carefully slid out of the room, she was waiting on me on the other side of the door with her hand outstretched to grab mine.

The gesture was tiny, but to me? It was like a fucking earthquake. The way everything inside me responded to it was like a dam bursting.

She frowned at me when I gulped and took a hold of her hand, carefully enfolding hers in mine.

“You okay?” she inquired softly, her head tilting to the side to look up at me—there was a major height difference between us too, so that figured.

“Yeah.” My smile was tight, and I squeezed her fingers then led her down the narrow stairs to the kitchen.

The second we were down there, we had proof that the rest of the house was sleeping because the kitchen and living areas were both empty.

It felt strange to have Eve to myself after having shared her for the past few weeks. Only in the early days of knowing her had I experienced it because I’d been the only one with a mark. Now, she had marks of her own, and males of her own too.

I didn’t resent that, though. Didn’t resent sharing her. Caelum had taught me that we were born to live in Packs, and having Eve safe, secured—both emotionally and physically—made me feel so much better on the inside.

I truly didn’t understand what Dre was fighting against, just knew that he was, and thought he was being a douche about it too.

“Do you want some tea,pui?” I asked softly.

“Tea?” She blinked. “Yeah. That would be nice. What doespuimean to you? You’ve called me it before.”

Taken aback, I asked, “Huh?”

A snort of laughter escaped her. “You just called me that. It’s the first time you’ve called me anything in… I guess, Romanian? I know it means little, but little what?”

I hadn’t even realized I had. Though I cringed inwardly, I focused on filling up the kettle with water and putting it on the stove. As the gas began to whistle, I turned around and leaned against the counter, folding my arms against my chest in a classic ‘don’t wanna discuss this’ position, and explained, “It’s like a little animal. Like a pup or a cub, you know?”

“And you called me that?” Something flashed in her eyes, and it didn’t take a course in ‘how to understand women’ to see that she liked that I had.

“Yeah. I did.”

“Can you call me more things like that?”

“Why?”

She shrugged. “I like it.”

That made me snicker. “What the lady wants, the lady gets.”

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