by S. Young
34
Blood Solstice
A week passed during which Caia and Lucien tried to rebuild their energy. Caia often wondered how Lucien was feeling. Did he feel different now? Could he remember the Underworld?
“No.” He’d seemed amused by the question. “I don’t think I was gone long enough.”
After Caia killed the Midnights, a feat she still couldn’t come to grips with, she collapsed, unconscious. The pack scrambled over to them, grieving at the sight of Lucien’s body, when little Laila pushed through them all, dropped to her knees, placed her hands upon Lucien’s chest, and sang.
Marion told her it was the sweetest, saddest song she’d ever heard, and as it filled the air, magik—the likes of which Marion had never felt before—lit up Lucien’s body, giving off an ethereal warmth that eased everyone’s pain. Marion watched in awe as Lucien’s flesh regenerated, his heart reforming, his gaping wound closing, the color returning to his body. And then he gasped for breath before his eyelids slammed closed and he fell into unconsciousness.
Caia found a reason every day to see Laila, somehow needing to be near her, to reassure her she was real and that she was alright. In one act of kindness, she had become one of the most important people in Caia’s life.
As for the pack, they’d been incredibly lucky.
“Luck had nothing to do with it,” Lucien huffed. “We are an exceptionally wily bunch. I knew we could take ’em.”
Caia laughed. It was amazing. Despite some wounds, they’d all returned in one piece, along with Saffron, Reuben, and Vanne.
Alistair MacLachlan and his pack hadn’t been so lucky. Three of them had been killed, some wounded, but when Phoebe came to visit Caia, she reassured her that to them, it had been a great death, and a victory. She hugged Caia, and Caia knew as the Rogue Hunter left her suite that in Phoebe, she had a friend for life.
But the loss Caia felt most keenly was that of Nikolai who had fought his way through the crowd to attack Orina Beketov. Caia was unsure of what damage he may have inflicted on Orina, for like the other Midnights fighting against them, she was gone in the wind.
Nikolai, despite being a powerful earth magik, had perished from Orina’s fire attack. Caia was saddened by his sacrifice, as was Reuben, the magik’s truest friend.
As for the Council and the Center, it was all a little chaotic. After what she’d done on the battlefield, even Benedict was politer to her, although the fear in his eyes made her uncomfortable. She didn’t want anyone to be afraid of her. As for the rest of the Council, they were awed and gratified; Vanne had bet her she would be on the Council in no time. It worried her a little, thinking perhaps Lucien would be upset by the notion—not just Lucien but the entire pack.
She couldn’t have been more wrong.
“Caia, great things are about to happen, and you need to be at the center of that,” Jae predicted.
To Caia’s surprise, her words were greeted with nods of agreement as the pack lounged in the dining hall of the Center. “Really?” She looked to Lucien.
He grinned at her, looking healthier these days. “We need to stick around, sweetheart.”
“So you guys don’t mind staying here for a while?”
“Are you kidding?” Alexa snorted. “We’re in Paris. I’m going shopping first chance I get. Oh, that reminds me.” She smiled sweetly at Lucien. “Can I borrow four hundred euros?”
“Where are you going shopping?” Jae asked dryly. “Chanel?”
“Duh, of course not … you’d be lucky to get a scarf for four hundred euros from Chanel.”
They were all surprised when Lucien agreed to part with the money. All except Caia. Alexa had been through a lot, and she’d fought like a wildcat in the battle. She deserved to feel young again for a day. But only one day. Otherwise, she’d bankrupt the pack.
Caia strolled into Alfred’s suite with more ease than she’d felt in the last year. The war was almost over, but there was much to do … yet she couldn’t help the pure happiness that thrummed in her veins every morning she woke up.
She greeted the Council who all shot to their feet in deference, all wearing wide smiles. She tried to cover her laugh at their expressions. Caia wished she’d seen what they had seen her do on the battlefield. People at the Center were acting a little crazy. It had somehow convinced them that Caia was the purest child of Gaia in their existence. They actually believed Caia herself was godlike.
Some blanched when they saw her coming down the corridor and pressed themselves against the wall to let her pass. She tried to smile softly to ease their anxiety, but it never worked. Others were different … they bounded up to her with enthusiasm and hero-worship, which was equally exhausting. The Council were over-the-top polite, and Caia unhappily noticed the twinge of fear in some of their eyes. She didn’t want to frighten people, for Gaia’s sake!
Caia was glad to see Marion and Vanne in the room with Reuben and Saffron. The four of them treated her as they always had.
Caia grinned at Marion. A few days before, she’d had a few quiet moments with her mentor for the first in a long time. She asked how Marion was coping with the loss of her sister and her position at the Center. It was difficult, she’d said, but not impossible. And Vanne was helping, she’d admitted with a blush. Caia had laughed. Marion was usually so cool and together but Vanne had reduced her to a swooning teenager.
She told Caia how she’d been crushed at first when Vanne stopped courting her to court her sister, how, over the years, she felt their connection hadn’t died, how she’d felt guilty for feeling that way. Marion didn’t know Vanne was still in love with her, however, or the real reason he’d left her for Marita. So, they were trying out a relationship … a very tentative attempt. It was strange for them both with Marita between them. But Caia thought they should turn that into a positive. No one else could understand the helplessness that comes from a betrayal by someone so close.
Reuben grinned wickedly at Caia, making a face at the way the Council deferred to her. Caia rolled her eyes. For an old guy, he could be quite petty and immature. She threw a quick smile at Saffron. As for those two … Caia didn’t know what was going on. Maybe they were both too old to have any kind of meaningful relationship. But there were feelings there, and Caia couldn’t wait to watch that particular show unfold.
Not that she didn’t have anything better to do.
Laughing at herself, Caia took a seat before them all. “You wished to see me?” she asked politely.
Alfred cleared his throat and nodded. “We wanted you to be the first to know that peace negotiations with a community of Midnight magiks in Paris are going well.”
Exuberant elation shot through her. “Really?” She gasped.
Penelope smiled sweetly at her excitement. “Really.”
“What next, then?”
The Council shared wary glances. “The negotiations are complex. As you might understand, the Midnights are not happy to exist peacefully with us if we have a controlling council in power.”
She frowned. “You mean you guys?”
“Exactly.”
Fair enough, she nodded thoughtfully. They would just have to come up with a solution.
“We should begin negotiations with other Midnights and see if that’s going to be a recurring theme,” Caia suggested.
The Council nodded, but Reuben sighed. “It’s not that easy, Caia. This could take awhile.”
A slow smile spread across her face. “I can be patient.”
Epilogue
Something New
Three years later
Caia shook her hands out, wishing her palms weren’t so sweaty. She exhaled and then did the breathing exercises Marion had taught her.
“Caia.” Lucien soothed, putting a hand on her shoulder. He stood behind her with Jaeden as they stared at the massive double doors to the courtroom at the Center. Despite all the other changes, the Center was still called the Center, but now by those who’d once been Daylights and
Midnights alike. Those terms were one of the first laws she was going to insist upon—no use of Daylight or Midnight. It would be considered a racial slur. They were all the same now. She trembled.
“You can do this, Caia,” Jae encouraged.
Magnus’s words from this morning came back to her in a rush of comforting warmth.
“Your father would’ve been so proud of you, Caia.” He’d hugged her close, and she’d choked back the tears at the thought of Rafe, of the picture she had of the two of them she kept tucked under her pillow. Magnus pulled back, his eyes glittering suspiciously. “I know because I’m so proud, I can barely contain it sometimes.”
The people who loved her believed in her. I can do this. Caia pushed back her shoulders and threw open the doors. The high wall before them was covered with plaques with lists of names of the supernaturals who’d fought and died during the Great Battle for Concord, as it was now called. In the center was the largest plaque with Nikolai’s name scrawled across it in beautiful calligraphy. Below it, Caia had the inscription from Oscar Wilde’s tomb carved into the stone for Nikolai. It read:
And alien tears will fill for him
Pity’s long broken urn
For his mourners will be outcast men
And outcasts always mourn.
Caia smiled as she passed, knowing Nikolai would’ve loved it, an opinion shared by Reuben. She strode up the stairs and into the court, Lucien and Jae at her back, acting as her second and third in command. The benches of the court were empty but set up in the middle of the room was a huge round table. Seated in beautifully carved chairs that Lucien and his apprentice had worked on for months (each chair depicted a moment in the Great Battle for Concord) were ten supernaturals of influence and power: four magiks, two faeries, two vampyres, two lykans, and of course, Caia, their Chairwoman.
She strode to the largest chair at the northernmost point of the circle and Lucien pulled it out for her. She stepped between it and the table and lowered herself upon the comfortable cushion. Reuben, Saffron, and Alfred stared back at her among less familiar faces. Faces of people she knew she would come to know very well over the years as she led them in the new world.
It had been a grueling and exhaustive endeavor to bring them all together, among them three magiks and a faerie who’d once been Midnight. But after the battle, and months of hard work, Caia’s wishes had come true. The war had ended and in its place sprung something new. These people before her, their actions and decisions were only the beginning … for there was much work to be done.
She smiled in joy that this moment was finally here. “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the first meeting of the United Council of Supernaturals.”
About the Author
S. Young is the pen name for Samantha Young, a New York Times, USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling author from Scotland. She’s been nominated for the Goodreads Choice Award for Best Author and Best Romance for her international bestseller On Dublin Street. On Dublin Street was Samantha’s first adult contemporary romance series and has sold in thirty-one countries.
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