Page 162 of Caelum

“Don’t be. It’s not your fault, Eve. They were looking for a divine solution, and they didn’t get one. When I was thirteen, I was even worse. I was out of control to the point that I was scaring myself, never mind them, so when I had an all-out episode—my Hell Hound was in charge that particular day—they dragged me to the church as they usually did, only this time, they left me with the priest.”

“What was his name?”

“Padre Joan Jimenez.”

She repeated the Portuguese name for John with just the right inflection.

“You have a good ear,” I praised her then murmured, “I hated him, but he took me in when they said they couldn’t deal with me anymore. At first, it was just more of the same. Prayers. Then, as I grew worse, so did his punishments.”

Her brow puckered. “What did he do?”

“You know what exorcisms are?”

She shook her head. “No. Stefan tried to make me watch a movie calledThe Exorcist, but Eren said it would give me bad dreams.”

My lips curved. “It probably would.” She didn’t realize it, but we’d moderated the stuff we’d been watching around her.

I loved my documentaries, and we’d been watching more of those than ever so she’d have a deeper understanding of the real world while also not being too freaked out about the horror-shit Dre loved watching. Not that I could judge, considering I liked watching zombie movies while I was studying.

Still, stopping us from watching action movies, however, was impossible. Eve had quickly adapted to the sight of blood, though, which was to our benefit. We hadn’t been acting cruelly, just with the knowledge that at some point, Eve would have to get used to the kind of life that was normalized in action films.

Packs in Caelum were thrown onto the frontline from an early age. Before we were thirty, we were often engaged in battles that would number in the hundreds.

Ghouls were a pervasive threat, and they were like cockroaches—except you couldn’t kill them from the source like you could with those insects. You could only kill them when they’d manifested.

“It’s a Catholic thing,” I informed her. “Padre Joan believed I was possessed by a demon, and to get the demon out of me, he used to try to call it out of me. That’s an exorcism.”

“We had that too, except when that happened, we never walked out of Father Bryan’s cabin.”

My brow puckered. “He killed people?”

“Many people,” she confirmed softly, her throat thick from emotion. “Young and old. For being too sick for us to care for, or for being… disabled. Mentally or physically. If you became a drain on the compound, you were dealt with. It was a part of life there.”

“Cristo,” I whispered, my stomach churning with how close we’d come to losing Eve before she’d even made it here. “Thank fuck you managed to contain yourself,Coração, otherwise you might not be lying here with me.”

“No, I wouldn’t,” she replied, and her tone was stark.

I further entwined my fingers with hers—she was still cupping my cheek and I’d been, up until then, holding onto her hand—and drew them to my lips. Kissing her knuckles, I whispered, “As crazy as our life is at the moment, Eve, and with as many things that are going wrong, the one rightthing in all of this is that you found us. You Chose us. Never doubt that,meu amor.”

She swallowed. “I’ve caused so much strife, Nestor. What with Dre, and then my other mates. Then this wishes thing…” Her head drifted from side to side, and I saw her close her eyes, but it didn’t stop the tears from trickling out of the tight way she’d squeezed them shut. “I’m just going to get you all killed, and I’m scared. I don’t want you to be hurt or to die because of me.”

Another kiss to her knuckles was all I was capable of at that second. Not because I was speechless, but because I wasn’t sure what I could do or say to take her hurt away.

“Eve, I know you’re frightened, but the idea of you going through all this alone? That scares the shit out of me. Maybe things are crazy right now, but everything will settle down.”

“How can it?” she rasped. “How can things settle down? Eventually, we’ll have to leave Caelum. I was going to try to do it myself before I hit twenty-one, but that was me just putting my neck on the line. Now? I have seven of you to worry about?—”

The notion of her trying to leave Caelum by herself scared me shitless. Because of it, I acted rashly, and though later I might regret it, at that moment, I was working on instinct. Pure animal instinct. Something that was sourced not just in mygouille, but in my human half too.

We’d evolved from beasts, after all, and both sides of my nature were at war after her whispered words.

I didn’t think, just moved, grabbing a hold of her and hauling her into me. I tightened my arms about her until she squeaked and didn’t let up until her face was scant centimeters from mine.

“Promise me, Eve, you won’t try to leave without us,” I grated out, panic whirling around inside of me like a cluster of leaves in a hurricane.

She tensed then and said, “I can’t promise you that.”

I wanted to rail at her, wanted to demand she not be so stupid. How the fuck did she think she’d get off an island without us? If she managed that minor miracle, how the fuck would she survive in the real world?

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