Page 120 of Caelum

Frazer snorted. “So polite.”

“If you wanted polite, then you should have called Samuel. What do you want? I'm working out, Frazer.”

He hummed under his breath, and when he spoke next, there was an apologetic note to his tone since he knew the importance of my exercises. “Sorry, bro. But this is important. I need you to come to my room.”

I scowled. “Can't it wait? I've almost finished.”

“No. This is...” He sighed. “Sounds extreme, but it’s life or death.”

This time, my grunt was more than exasperated—Frazer had a habit of exaggerating shit. I growled but started gathering my stuff together as I mumbled, “Be there in five.”

Cutting the call, I took a second to press my hands together into a prayer pose and touched the tips of my fingers to the center of my forehead then my heart, giving thanks for the practice.

Loping off the beach, I rushed through the crumbling sand and back toward the stairs that had been cut into the cliff face a long time ago. There were over two-hundred steps, but I made the climb, without complaint, a few times a day. Sometimes, I thought the ocean was the only thing keeping me sane, and for somebody who dreaded insanity, it was a blessing to be here and so close to the sea.

I was barely out of breath by the time I reached the top, but as I ran the half-mile toward the Academy, my skin was a little red because I didn’t have a chance to cool down after practice. It was still boiling hot, and switching from yoga to a swift run was a faint jolt to the system after those stairs.

I slipped in the back of Caelum, and not wanting to see anybody or have to talk to anyone on my way to Frazer's quarters, I stuck to the back passages, using the back stairs that were darker and narrower because they'd once been servant’s quarters. Amid the shadows, and more at ease since I was inside now, I made my way to the attic where Frazer had lived for the past five years.

Why he liked it up there, I'd never know. My place wasn’t exactly bright and airy, but his was just creepy.

I was Australian. My continent was hardcore. Most of the animals there wanted to kill you, and the ones that didn't weren't scared of you. If anything, humans were scared of them. Even so, I'd never seen as many insects as what Frazer had to deal with up in the attic, but he said he liked it, and who was I to question his reasoning?

The freak could live wherever the fuck he wanted, especially now that he was twenty. Two months ago, he used his birthday as a means of declaring Sammy, himself, and me as Pack. Because of that, he could have moved rooms since having a Pack was the first stage in officially becoming an adult in the faculty’s eyes, so we were all granted more freedom than before. But he'd been more than happy to stay in the attic, and even if I didn't get it, I could appreciate the fact his room was larger than most.

The floorboards creaked underneath my feet as I walked because this was one of the oldest parts of Caelum. Some portions had been built back in the 1800s, with most recent additions being only a couple of years old. Caelum, in many ways, was a fixer-upper. Whenever it was decided that a new annex was required, a new section was patched up, stuck onto the side of an older part of the building, and an extension was made so there was access. It didn't make for a particularly pretty building, but it grew, as did our army, to a point where it was almost symbiotic.

Above the creaking of the floorboards, I heard the rumble ofconversation, and I didn't bother knocking as I walked into Frazer's room, but that didn't stop me from hovering in the doorway at the sight of so many people in there.

I understood why he wanted to be here, in the attic and not a common room, when I saw there weren’t only six other guys in the bedroom, but Eve as well. The only person who was missing was Nestor.

Funny, wasn't it? How one person could change your life? How one day, you were without purpose, fighting the good fight, and had no other reason to live except for the purpose the people who had saved you had given you, and then, out of nowhere, you had her.

I touched her once.

My hand brushed hers, almost by accident, as she touched one of the suits of armor lining Caelum’s many hallways. Just that, and out of nowhere, it had happened.

Such an underwhelming moment, but in the grand scheme of things, my life had changed.

She'd Chosen me.

Me. The monster. A creature even the faculty feared. I saw the way they looked at me. I was aware they knew how powerful my Hell Hound was. Even Damon, one of the recruiters and a top Enforcer, looked at me funny sometimes. I sensed his caution around me, and though many would find satisfaction in that, especially with Damon’s record, I didn't. I knew what I was capable of, and so did he, which made me the monster I'd always believed myself to be. But when Eve had touched me, everything had changed.

My entire world had shifted axis, and I'd been reeling ever since.

“What’s going on?”

At my demand, the chatter stopped. Stefan scowled at me, muttering, “How is it for a Hell Hound you can be so silent?”

Eren laughed a little. “It’s all the yoga,” he teased, surprising me with the fact he’d noticed I supplemented my workouts with the practice.

His head tilted to the side at that, and I sensed Stefan’s amusement as he cocked a brow at me and repeated, “Yoga?”

At any other time, I might have launched myself at him, but Eve was here looking like a rabbit in the headlights, and Dre broke into my irritation with a grumbled, “This isn't ‘question and answer’ time. Let’s get this shit show on the road.”

“Ever eloquent,” Eren stated with a scowl. “If you can't say anything nice, Dre, don't say anything at all. You understand me?”

Dre rolled his eyes, but he kept his mouth shut. That, more thananything, told me this wasn't the first warning he'd received, and knowing the piece of shit had a mouth on him, it wasn’t a shock.

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