Page 89 of Caelum

Damon rolled his eyes. “You just ask. I’m sure your friends would oblige.”

That had me feeling hot deep inside. Exactly where the ache bloomed at the thought of them not being close by.

“Wouldn’t that be awkward?” I hedged.

He shrugged. “Better to be awkward than weak. The bagged stuff isn’t as good as the vein. It’s like…” He blew out a breath and eyed me warily, “You know what peanut butter is, right?”

“Butter and peanuts mashed together?” I joked, purposely wide-eyed to tease him.

“God,” he grumbled. “I know you lived in a cult, Eve, but seriously, I’m starting to wonder if Merry was right. Jane Austen knows more about today’s world than you do.”

I shot him a grin. “Only joking. Nestor introduced me to it.”

“Very funny.”

“I thought so too,” I told him smugly. “Strawberry and grape jelly are new to me, though. I haven’t had those before.” My buttocks attested to the fact that I’d tried nearly everything in the kitchens at least once.

“How come?”

“They didn’t grow in the land where we lived.” I shrugged. “There were some berries, but we made a different preserve with them. It was thicker. Not as jelly-like as what you eat. It took hours to make as well.” Usually in the thick heat of summer, too, and it hadn’t been as sweet.

“Sounds tasty. Jellies are one of the few things we don’t make here, so Iknow that had to taste really good. Think about it though, which do you prefer? The jelly from the jar here or your preserves?”

I pursed my lips as I thought about it. “Mine. I see what you mean.”

“The stuff in the jar might taste good, it might nourish you and fill you up, but when you try the real deal?”

“That beats it.” I nodded. “Okay, I’ll ask Eren.” He was the one who helped me with all the things I couldn’t seem to grasp when it boiled down to technology.

For someone who didn’t sleep all that much, he was surprisingly patient. More so than Nestor, for example, who’d just ask me why I didn’t understand something when a three-year-old could handle the tech on my phone. Stefan would usually end up doing it for me rather than showing me. Eren was definitely the most patient.

“As easy as that?”

“You presented an argument that made sense,” I reasoned.

Damon narrowed his eyes at me as though he were waiting for me to tell him I was joking again. When I didn’t, he sighed, his shoulders relaxing as he pointed at the board where he’d scrawled some intelligible words about the digestive system of a Vampire. “How can you know all this stuff?”

“I’ve read all the books.”

“Already?” He frowned. “You couldn’t have.”

“I’ve read the first two years’ syllabi,” I informed him, well aware that at the compound, I’d have had a switch to the back for the pride in my voice. But they could switch me as hard as they wanted. From the reading material alone, I was caught up.

“That’s thirty-four books, Eve,” he rasped. “It still feels like you’ve only just arrived.”

Didn’t I know it? Everyone still saw me as the new freak in school. “I read fast,” was all I said.

“Did you absorb the information?”

“Of course. Ask me anything.”

“Why do humans believe Weres shift with the full moon?”

I snorted. “Apparently because a creature sold a screenplay to Hollywood about a Wolf Shifter that turned at that time of the month and now everyone believes it.”

“You don’t?”

I shook my head and used Stefan’s favorite phrase. “Do bears shit in the woods?”

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