Page 293 of Caelum

I was aching, that was true. “When I fell, I…” I winced. “It’s weird but I did something. It means I’m aching but not as badly as I might.”

He hummed. “That’s not weird. You called on a creature.” Another hum. “Probably thegouille.They have the toughest skin. Not even the sharpest knives can get through it.”

A relieved breath escaped me. He accepted my stuttered sentence so easily. “I didn’t call on the creature though,” I admitted.

“I’m not sure that’s how you work anyway, Eve. You’re very instinctual. I think, to some degree, you control them as much as they control you.”

Huh.

Well, that wasn’t something to fret about, was it?

Because I didn’t want to think about seven creatures, each with distinct mindsets of their own, controlling me, I asked, “Is it good at all to be back home?”

Cutting me a look that said he knew I was prevaricating, he released a breath that told me he’d let me. For the moment. From the corner of my eye, I could feel him scanning me as though trying to discern whether or not this was the end of the argument for now. But to my mind, this wasn’t an argument.

If he hadn’t spoken to me that way, hadn’t repeatedly treated me badly, we wouldn’t be needing to have this conversation period.

“No. This isn’t home.”

His simple words struck a chord. “Where is your home?”

He fell silent at that, but his gaze was back on the city that was the capital of his home country. “A few weeks ago, I’d have said Caelum. But now…”

“Now what?” I pressed, my tone husky since I had a feeling I knew what he was about to say.

“It’s where my Pack is.”

Good answer.

I didn’t even feel like he was playing me because the words were tornfrom him, ripped from his vocal cords as though they were poisoning him to utter them aloud.

He didn’t want to need us.

Didn’t want to think of us as family, and yet, deep down, he knew that was what we were.

I could take that, and I’d accept it as a win.

Nuzzling into his side, I murmured, “I feel the same.”

“I’m glad. Everyone should know this feeling,” he rasped, and I heard the pain in his voice. A pain that was years old and forged in a time when his souls had come out to party and had destroyed his life in the process.

Beingmajnunmeant having a lot to answer for.

In some people’s eyes, they might view it as a gift, but it wasn’t. Even now, after I had come to appreciate the abilities we possessed, I could find no joy in being able to do what we did.

It came with too high a price; one I wasn’t willing to pay.

“Are you still mad at me for Choosing you?”

He snorted. “No.”

“Why not? You were angry before.”

“I sometimes think I was born angry,” Dre admitted, twisting so he could look at me. “I think I should have been a Hell Hound. Reed is too chilled half the time, and I feel like I make up for his rage.”

I had to snicker at that because I knew what he meant, and he wasn’t wrong. When the beast had him twisted around his finger, Reed seemed enraged to his core. But when the beast let him loose? He was relatively calm. Something he exacerbated by yoga, which meant I got to see his tight tush high in the air as he twisted his body into a pretzel.

I needed a bowl of popcorn when it came down to those twenty minutes of mindfulness, as Reed called his yoga practice.

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