Page 111 of Caelum

I checked in with them every day, watching over them and listening in on their news to see how well they were doing and how my siblings were coping with school, exams, and the usual teenage drama. I would never stop watching over them though, inevitably, it put me in a shitty mood. I missed them a fuck ton, and I doubted I’d ever get over what I’d done to protect them.

Caelum was a retreat, that was for sure, but it was also drafting soldiers from a young age. I didn't know how long I'd be around. We lived long lives,but that didn't mean we couldn't die, so I took every morning I could to appreciate my family.

“Sammy!”

I blinked and took my attention away from the screen, where I was watching my parents talk about their upcoming visit to the synagogue today as though I were watching a sitcom, and quickly glanced over the room to where Frazer, my Pack brother, was glowering at me from the doorway.

“What?” I barked, not appreciating the interruption—my sister was having some trouble with a boy in school, and that was a damn sight more important than whatever hard-on my brother had for something random. Making a mental note to have someone beat the shit out of this ‘boy,’ I remained glued to the footage before me.

He huffed at my tone, lumbered away from the door, and took a seat beside me on the sofa. He scowled at the screen, making his disapproval known, and I scowled straight back at him, but I did close the laptop lid and, reluctantly, gave him my full attention.

“What is it?” I groused. “You know this is when I check in with them.”

He rubbed a hand over his face, but I knew it was to hide the way he was rolling his eyes. “Do you know where Reed is?” he repeated.

I frowned at him. “I'm not his keeper. Why should I?”

Frazer snorted. “Shut up. Of course you know where he is, dumbass.”

I squinted at him and dared, “Say that again.”

Frazer smirked at me then raised his hands in surrender. “Okay, I don't feel like having my nose smashed in. But, seriously, where's Reed?”

I shrugged, then when he cocked a knowing brow at me—damn him—I grunted, “He went to the beach. Yin time.”

For whatever reason, I tended to know where the people who mattered to me were. Some would call it obsessive, and they wouldn't be wrong. In my own way, though, I was trying to protect the people who mattered.

Just like I did with my parents.

Speaking of which…

“Now, if you’ll stop pestering me, I have shit to do.” I raised my laptop lid and took a swift glance at my parents, before switching away from that particular screen and pulling up a new one. I remained tuned into their conversation while I went to work.

Logging into my Forex account, I scanned the markets to see what was going on.

One of the ways in which I cared for my family was through a trust they believed they'd inherited from a great uncle, who had passed away twenty years ago, and whose lawyers had only contacted them five years before. Thetrust meant my mother no longer had to work and neither did my father, but he was too proud not to.

“How are the accounts?” he asked under his breath.

I shot him a look. “Good.”

Fraze, whose parents made Bond villains look poor, had given me a starting capital two years ago. From that, I’d created a separate fund that was for our Pack and that was totally unattached to his family. We were now sitting on more than Goldfinger would have had a wet dream about.

What could I say? I had the knack.

“Why?” I questioned, keeping my eyes on the screen.

He gnawed on his bottom lip. “No reason.”

Grunting, because there definitely was a reason, I ignored him and continued scanning the graphs before me. When he sighed and relaxed back into the sofa, I made no move to change what I was doing. He’d talk when he was ready, and I wasn’t about to fuss over him.

He was a big boy, and even though it wasn’t that easy to discern when you looked at him, he was a dangerous motherfucker.

With coal black hair, bright blue eyes, a face that had been graced by the angels, and a body that was beyond stacked? Dude was hot. Even I thought that, and I was so straight I made rulers look bendy. But that masculine grace and beauty? That whole ‘all-American’ look? It hid one sinful truth—Frazer’s ability to kill.

It was his knack.

His handy tool in life. And it wasn’t just because he was a Sin Eater. My brother had spent all his time at the Academy honing his body into a tool, and it had stuck. Only a moron would want to face him in a dark alley late at night.

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