Page 277 of Caelum

“How can a Ghoul be living in there?” Nestor argued, swiping a hand over his brow where sweat was beading. “Hell,Ghouls. It’s an archeological ruin!”

“Perfect hunting ground,” Dre ground out, his face stormy and his body so tense that I wanted nothing more than to go to him, to hug him and ease his stress. But he didn’t want that from me.

Not yet.

I had to pray there’d come a time when he did, otherwise my Pack wouldn’t be complete.

“Do we think they’re living inside the temple?” Frazer questioned.

“They’re not like temples nowadays. These places had secret caves underneath them, tunnels that even the archeologists studying them haven’t found yet. It’s not unlikely that someone could be living down there,” Samuel explained, always the voice of reason.

I frowned at him. “But why would they?”

“Because they can?” he countered with a shrug.

I eyed him for a second, amused at his bedhead hair, cocky smirk, and the shades he wore that made him look beyond cool. I was still finding it hard to reference what exactly it took for someone to be cool, but at that moment, I had a walking, talking definition of it.

At the same time, he was hot. And that made things more confusing.

How could someone be hot and cool?

He cocked a brow at my study, and I grinned at him which seemed to surprise him because both brows surged upward this time. “What?”

“Just wondering how you could be hot and cool at the same time.”

The guys all started snickering around me, but I shrugged because it was a genuine question. Samuel’s cheeks flushed a little, but I laughed when he curved his arm around my waist and hauled me into him.

“I’ll make you pay for that later,” he growled, dipping down to kiss my lips.

“Promises, promises,” I teased back, eyes sparkling—not that he could see beneath the shades Frazer had insisted I buy in Harrods.

He snorted, then to all of us, said, “That old ‘souldiers’ reference is my major concern.”

Reed nodded. “The spelling, but also the fact they’re going to join our ranks? How the fuck can ancient stone statues join our ranks?”

“I don’t know, but I think we need to climb up there and investigate them.”

“Is there no way inside the temple?”

“Yeah, I’m sure there is, but that’s territory unknown to all of us and we have no idea how we’re going to get Raum outside into the open so we can tackle him.” Sam rubbed his chin. “There are two wishes for a reason, guys. Maybe one is to trigger the soldiers and the other is specifically forRaum?”

Because I didn’t know what the wishes were, I couldn’t say. Last time when Avalina had translated my tattoo, I’d been present. The men had uttered the wish, but it hadn’t worked. The world hadn’t descended into chaos as it had after last night. So, to my mind, it had been silly for Bartlett to specifically ask that I leave the room so I couldn’t hear what they were discussing.

The off-chance that theJannahin me responded and granted a useless wish, one that wouldn’t have the same power as if I were in the presence of the next Ghoul on our hit list—the Crow—seemed unlikely.

God was giving out locations and weapons for a reason, after all—for us to take the Originals out in person. Still, I understood the need for caution. Bartlett and Avalina had lived longer than anyone else on Earth, all because God was punishing them for falling for the devil’s temptation, and had never thought to see the day that such a feat could be managed.

Well, it had, and we were onto round two.

Raum was another demon onWikipedia. Ironically enough, he could shape-shift, and in his downtime tormented humans while on vacation time from his real job as being an earl in Hell.

Well, that was what the humans thought.

In real life, or IRL as Samuel called it, he was one of the three Original Ghouls, and today was his day to die.

“The ‘souldiers’ have to be an inherent aspect of what goes down today. For them to be a part of the clue,” Eren mused. “In the other clue, we had the means and the location of getting to Drekavac. That must mean the basalt Toltecs are a key to the plan.”

I had to admit I was relieved that the temple wasn’t as high as I’d expected. Fifty or so steps—I could handle that. It was the walk toward the temple that was going to crucify me because sheesh, it seemed to be even hotter than before.

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