Page 59 of Caelum

It was just quiet.

And it was beautiful.

“I like it,” I admitted. “Caelum is a lot noisier than I’m used to.”

“I’ll bet,” Frazer murmured.

Curiosity had me tilting my head to the side so I could take him in in a glance. He wasn’t looking at me but at the ocean, which meant I could look him over with ease.

He wasn’t as beautiful as Nestor or Stefan, but he had a handsomeness about him that was entwined with his strength.

“Why are you here, Frazer?”

“Reed said you were cool,” he replied after a handful of seconds.

I scrunched my nose. “Samuel said the opposite, I’m sure.”

He sighed. “Sammy can be a dick when he’s trying to protect us.”

Rearing back in surprise, I asked, “Why would he need to protect you from me?”

His lips curved. “That’s for me to know and for you not to find out.”

My brow puckered in disbelief. “You can’t leave it like that.”

“Why can’t I?”

“Because I’m too curious for my own good. I hate puzzles because I have to solve them,” I argued and was taken aback when he laughed. He tipped his head back, making those wavy black locks of his shiver with the movement. The wind seemed to like his laughter because it made his hair dance slightly as he turned to me, his white teeth flashing in a large grin. A grin that died when I reached out and touched his arm.

I didn’t touch people often. Had learned not to as a child—not even my mother who’d slap at my hand if I so much as reached for her arm. But I wanted to feel his muscles tremble with laughter. Of course, the second I touched him, that was the second he stopped.

Inwardly, I recognized that I didn’t just want tofeelhis laughter, but taste it, and because I didn’t know how to do that—and it seemed impossible because my laughter didn’t taste of anything, so why should his?—it didn’t stop me from wanting to capture his amusement somehow.

Frazer was made to laugh.

I saw that now and recognized his stoicism from the common rooms asa… what? A means of self-defense? So, why was he lowering those guards for me? Someone he’d never even spoken to. Had barely acknowledged.

Unease had me tensing up as the sensation of disloyalty washed through me. Stefan, Nestor, and Eren hated this guy, and yet I wanted to taste his laughter? What was the matter with me?

More than that, what was wrong with him? Why was he here when he loathed my friends and had no reason for wanting to talk to me as far as I could tell?

I had a feeling that no good would come of this, and yet, I found myself wanting to trace the curve of his lips with my fingertips.

“It’s not a bad thing to be in the dark sometimes,” he rasped, his bright blue eyes burning as he stared at me.

I could tell he wanted something from me, something I didn’t even know how to give.

My chest ached again, and though the discomfort was something I was accustomed to, I reached up and pressed a hand to the upper slope of my breasts, just beneath my collarbone. The heat from my palm quelled it some as I forced myself to turn away, to stop looking into his eyes, to avoid the confusing emotions he triggered in me.

In my days at Caelum, I’d come across hundreds of people. Most of them ignored me, the teachers rolled their eyes at me, and the students tended to avoid me, but seven boys had come into my world. Each so different, four of them loathing the other three, yet when they looked at me, truly looked at me, it was like, for the first time in my life, my heart knew why it was beating. They inspired in me a gamut of emotions, from fury to downright fear, and that was more terrifying than a thousand of those dreadfulSawmovies the boys had insisted I watch last week.

He turned away, seeming to sense my unease. I imagined that he saw far more than I realized, or that I was comfortable with, and I didn’t know if that was because of his soul or simply because he was capable of looking underneath the surface and reading into people.

Having always been a people watcher—I’d had no choice. I’d had to constantly stay on my guard and to do that, I’d had to assess the world around me—I had to admit that I was curious about what had forged this man into the one sitting here on this bench.

Said man surprised me by blowing out a breath. “I’m surprised Reed isn’t out there today.”

I blinked at him. “Out where?” I turned to look where he was and saw he was staring at the ocean.

---