Page 242 of Caelum

As the professor studied the ink, I frowned when she began to speak in a language that sounded vaguely reminiscent oftonguesbut wasn’t. It was kind of like speaking English but listening to Shakespeare. You recognized it, but some of the words were just weird.

The thing withtongueswas that it was about our integration into whichever culture deemed necessary. It was like an internal translator, letting us speak the local language while remaining impossible to understand when we wanted to maintain our secrets when we spoke amongst each other. No one knew of our language outside of Caelum, so that Avalina was whispering it?

I shot to my feet and grabbed Eve, hauling her back against me as I shoved the shirt at her. “You’re from Caelum,” I grated out, trying to sense ifthe husband and wife duo were creatures or not, but I could discern very little about them. They were odd. And that was the kindest way to put it.

The others had my back as we began edging out of the room. The professors had answers we needed, and storming out wasn’t an option, but we didn’t have to leave ourselves open to an attack either.

The instant we began backing away, Avalina’s hands moved into the ‘white flag’ position. Bartlett pushed to his feet and moved behind her, cupping her shoulders and keeping his own hands on display at the same time.

“You don’t feel like creatures,” Samuel rasped, his tone thick with confusion.

“That’s because we’re not,” Bartlett replied, then his chin dropped. “We’re much more than that.”

ELEVEN

EVE

In my life, I’d experienced that sensation of ‘coming home’ far too few times to count. Honestly, that made me unhappy, but it also disturbed me on a visceral level that I felt it when Bartlett looked at me.

He didn’t sneer at me, didn’t look at me lewdly. There was great interest in his eyes, but there was also something that made me feel connected to him. Like he knew me already. LikeIknew him.

“What are you?” I whispered, and I surprised Stefan by jerking out of his arms and pushing myself forward before any of my men could stop me.

They were all overprotective, and sometimes, I liked that. Sometimes, when that other side of my soul wasn’t in command, I needed that. But on occasions like these, where I felt on fire with thestrangenessin me?

No.

I didn’t need protecting.

It was like my Supergirl persona kicked into high gear or something, and I had no other way of describing it because it was as perplexing as it sounded.

“What are you?” I repeated, but this time, I was so much closer to them. Avalina was unusual. I’d sensed that from the start. When they’d approached us at the ferry terminal, I’d known the pair were more than they seemed, but it was Bartlett who feltrightto me.

Who felt like someone I needed to know.

With my repeated question, I aimed my focus at Bartlett, not Avalina. While I felt sure she had some answers to questions I might have, Bartlettwas like me. The only trouble was, I wasn’t surewhatI was, so how I knew that about him, I couldn’t say.

“We are the first.”

“The first?” Dre scoffed. “The first what?”

I blinked at his voice and realized then how quiet he’d been since we’d left the yacht. Heck, since that stupid kiss I’d instigated back in his cactus garden at Caelum. I knew he was flailing, trying to find his place, but we all were, and it wasn’t aided by him intentionally keeping his distance from me.

That needed to stop.

Now.

The thought was a roar in my head, and I gulped and tried to rein my feelings back in so I could focus. I didn’t need to be thinking about Dre when there was a man here who had answers to questions I’d never even thought about forming.

“The first of everything,” Bartlett murmured. My gaze drifted to his hands, which cupped his wife’s shoulders. I stared at the strong knuckles and the long fingers that were covered in youthful skin. There were no age spots, no wrinkles.

I glanced at his face, saw the lack of lines there too, and couldn’t stop myself from asking, “How old are you?”

“As old as time itself,” Avalina responded, drawing my attention her way.

I blinked at her. “What does that even mean?”

“Time is a relative concept,” Bartlett explained. “It matters only to humans. Animals register the ticking of the clock only in the passage of days. Of the sun rising and setting, the moon soaring and falling. To us, each moment counts, and that is how old we are.”

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