Page 285 of Caelum

Above the cups of her lavender bra, which housed tits that made my mouth water, there were two distinct shapes, but what bewildered me the most? The tree was back. Except it didn’t extend down her arms this time, just had centered itself on her belly. It spread out wide, taking over her stomach, moving around to her sides, covering the still-red claw marks from Reed’s Claiming that I’d heard Eren bitch about, and down her hips so that it sank beneath the waistband on her yoga pants.

Once again, it was forged of words, and I said, “Reed? Take a picture and send it to Bartlett.”

His phone was already in his hand, and he took off a few shots of the tree and then of the markings we’d unwrapped. The Hound wasn’t made up of words like the tree, though, nor were the lines on her palms. Above her breasts, there was the Lorelei mark. A figure that was made up of what appeared to be musical notes. The Incubus, Stefan’s brand on her, was a man burning in flames—pleasant. On her arm, the Sin Eater was there. It reminded me of a blend of the mask worn by the murderer in theScreammovies and Edvard Munch’s portrait ‘The Scream.’ Fitting, considering how he munched on Ghouls’ souls.

Reed had finally exposed her other leg, revealing the Vampire. Two fangs dripped blood that pooled around the teeth.

I couldn’t say they were beautiful tattoos because they weren’t. Only mine and Nestor’s were half-decent, but I guessed I shouldn’t be too critical when the guy behind the art was God himself.

Deciding to stop perving over my unconscious mate, we wrapped her back up again in her clothes. When she was decent, I realized she’d stopped fretting, so I assumed she’d been attuned to whatever was going down in Hidalgo.

Which wasn’t weird. At all.

Right.

Blowing out a breath, I watched as it disturbed a few strands of her hair. The chestnut locks shuffled against her clammy forehead, and as I stared down at her, my heart began to thud dully in my chest.

“Time to stop fighting it, brother,” Stefan murmured softly, his words quiet but still ramming into me with the force of a vehicle traveling at Mach 5.

“Easier said than done,” I rasped, shooting him a look over my shoulder.

He shrugged. “We’ll be a thousand times stronger if we’re a unit, and that means you being Claimed by her.”

“I’m not going to fuck her because you order it,” I ground out, then, I heard the words and groaned. “Jesus, I sound like a woman.”

Stefan began snickering. “You said it. Not me.” He shoved me in the shoulder, and I let him because, fuck, when had I turned into such a pussy?

Because the dick was being a dick, I cold-shouldered him and sank my head back against the glass. The journey to Mexico City wasn’t a long one, but I was tired and closing my eyes would prepare me for whatever faced us when we made it back.

An hour later, it came as a huge surprise to wake up and be at the Hilton in the capital.

I squinted up at the façade of a hotel I’d never imagined being able to afford as we waited on Reed, and trying to reconcile that this was my life now was just beyond strange.

“The rooms are booked,” Reed stated when he returned to the vehicle.

The SUV jerked as the door closed behind him, and I realized he’d been the one to arrange the rooms.

“We have a space in the garage.” He handed Frazer a kind of keycard. “That’s to access the garage, which is around the lot.”

Frazer, who never let anyone behind the wheel of any vehicle we were in, set off, and we traveled around the building to where the signs designated. As we approached the scanner, he drew to a halt and slotted the card into the glowing machine.

When the mechanical arm soared high, he drove us deep into the underground, but when he did, the minute he did, I sensed them.

Maybe because the window was still open and the air conditioning wasn’t totally blanketing the entire space. Maybe because my senses were a little more in gear after a quick nap.

But they were there.

And there was a dozen of them.

Minimum.

“Ghouls,” I growled, my head twisting to the side so I could peer out into the dim as fuck parking lot.

“Shit,” Eren whispered. “I can sense them too.”

“Fifteen of them,” Frazer ground out.

“For us?” Samuel asked, his voice cool, as though shit like this happened in luxury hotels every day.

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