by S. Young
“Would someone like to explain what just happened here?” Sebastian whispered, staring in horror at his friend’s unconscious form.
Marion flew into the room, her wild red hair plastered to her head with dark gunk in it. She glared at Saffron. “I’m getting tired of your dramatics, Saffron. My head is burning.”
It was then Caia noticed Saffron was wearing plastic gloves covered in hair dye.
Marion mistook her questioning gaze for the gunk on her head because she looked sheepish. “It never comes out the correct shade of red. I’ve tried all kinds of magik on it, but L’Oréal does it every time. It’s just th—”
“If you are done,” Saffron snapped. She pulled Jaeden’s body off the floor and dumped her into a seat. “Marion, put Hephaestion ropes around this one.”
“Why?” Caia snapped, making a move toward Jaeden. She was blown back by Marion.
“Good grief,” the witch cried before Caia could complain, her attention switching between Saffron and Jaeden. “Dimitri will be devastated.”
“Why?” This time both Caia and Sebastian asked fearfully.
“Caia—” Marion’s face crumpled in sympathy, causing Caia’s heartbeat to speed up, those old butterflies flapping their wings around the pit of her stomach. She looked at Jaeden, now tied to the chair unconscious, and she remembered that unfamiliar trace.
“What’s going on?”
“That’s not Jaeden. That’s a faerie from the Midnight Coven.”
Jaeden tried to contain her sigh of relief as Ethan walked away from her cage. He always came back if he felt her relief and would push the pain to her limits. She’d also learned to suppress the urge to vomit. He enjoyed her fear and pain too much. It spurred him on.
Once the light from his flame disappeared and she could no longer sense him in the dank basement, she shuddered and whined from her fresh burns. The bastard put a spell around the cage that stopped her from changing into a lykan; otherwise he would never have been able to hurt her.
But trapped in her human form, naked as the day she was born, Jaeden was covered with healing wounds that would’ve mended much faster had she been allowed to change. The new burns sliced across her back. He must be in a good mood. When he was angry, he always targeted her stomach, one of her more vulnerable areas as a lykan.
She pulled her knees tighter against her chest, curled in a fetal position, but the movement tightened her back and thus her burns, sending another involuntary whimper into the darkness.
When they first took her—drugged her—she’d woken up in the cage and tried to listen to what was happening. She knew this had to do with Caia. And soon she knew that Ethan was Caia’s uncle. She waited, hoping and praying that her rescue would come soon. Her father would have the entire pack after her once they discovered her gone.
She clung to that hope through the torture and taunting, but as the days passed (or was it weeks?) her hope crumbled. Where was the pack?
And then Ethan, in one of his more sadistic moods, told her about the faerie who’d infiltrated the pack disguised as her.
Now there was only darkness and pain, and the never-ending breath of time. When once she waited hanging on to her hope, she now waited for the moment when Ethan would go too far … and end the agony for good.
21
Realities
Caia watched numbly as Lucien and Dimitri manhandled the faerie who looked like Jaeden. They tried to secure her so she couldn’t pull anything while they took her down to the basement.
“What are they going to do?” she asked bleakly.
Magnus stood by her, eyes blazing with fury and concern. Before he could reply, Caia jumped at the hideous crack of Dimitri’s hand across the faerie’s face. “CHANGE!” he roared at her.
Caia flinched, an unexpected tear rolling down her cheek. Dimitri bristled with a rage she’d never witnessed before.
The faerie spat out blood and glanced anxiously at Dimitri. “I can’t with these ropes on me.”
Lucien, eyes full of sympathy, and anger too, shook his head. “I’m sorry, Dimitri. We can’t take them off her.”
“I can do it,” Saffron sneered at the faerie in the chair.
“How?”
“Faeries can unmask one another.” She stepped forward and put her hand on top of the imposter Jaeden’s head. Saffron’s beautiful face crumpled into a mask of distaste and a wave of energy hit them all as the faerie’s form wavered in the chair. Eventually Jaeden disappeared. For some reason, that made Caia want to cry even harder. She glanced at Sebastian, who trembled with rage. His best friend was gone and had been in the hands of the enemy for how long?
The faerie, now a serene-looking blond with velvet brown eyes, stared expressionless at them.
“Your name?” Saffron hissed.
The faerie said nothing. Saffron did the honors and slapped her with surprising force.
Caia was troubled with more than the faerie’s name. She stepped toward the faerie involuntarily and her brown eyes locked onto her. “How long has Jaeden been gone?”
The faerie shifted nervously.
“How long?” Caia repeated.
Nothing.
“HOW LONG?” It was Dimitri who bellowed and had to be restrained by Magnus and Lucien. He would rip the supernatural apart before they had the information they needed.
“Let’s get her down to the basement.” Lucien was grim-faced.
“The basement?” Caia asked in confusion. Why the basement?
Magnus cleared his throat. “They need to unearth Jaeden’s whereabouts from her, one way or another.”
She understood, and a shudder ran through her. They were going to torture this creature.
No.
Without thinking, Caia hurried to the faerie to question her once more, placing her hand on the faerie’s shoulder. Before she could say a word, a riot of images blasted her mind and threw her physically back. She landed hard on the floor, and although she could hear the ensuing chaos, all she could see were dark images of rusty bars and the smell of fear. Unfamiliar faces hit her, and blood, lots of blood. The most prominent images, however, were of the bars. Caia tried to hold on to them.
And then she saw her. Jaeden, lying naked and bleeding—her skin ripped and torn and burned—behind the bars of a cage. White heat shot through Caia’s body and she came back to the room she was in, Lucien bending over her anxiously and Magnus holding Dimitri back while Saffron interrogated the faerie.
Caia looked at the remorseless creature in front of her, and tears of fury tumbled down her cheeks at the images of Jaeden. They were real. She knew they were real.
“They have Jaeden in a cage.” Her voice came out in a growl. Her wolf took over in her own frightened rage.
Dimitri’s growls sounded from deep in his chest.
“Caia, how do you know?” Lucien asked, helping her to her feet.
She shook her head. “When I touched her, I saw things. About Jaeden.” She glared at the murderess. The faerie looked frightened now. Good. Caia glanced up at Lucien. “Take her to the basement. Find out everything you can … however you can.”
He nodded, but his jaw tightened. He wasn’t happy about torturing any creature, for any reason, and he seemed even less happy that Caia was ready to do so.
“You didn’t see her,” Caia choked.
“Is she alive?”
“Barely.”
It was as if someone had died, the dark tension of grief that gripped the house was so intense. Sebastian was sent home, despite his protests, while Dimitri, Lucien, Saffron, and Marion interrogated the prisoner. The basement must have been soundproofed because no noise filtered up to Caia’s ears as she sat anxiously with Ella and Magnus in the kitchen, cupping a now-cold mug of coffee.
Magnus sat close to Ella, his big hands wrapped around hers on the table, offering her comfort. Her steel-gray eyes were puffy from crying. She’d just returned back from Julia’s, having left her in the care of Christian and Lucia.
<
br /> Caia hissed. The tension made her frustrated and angry. Everyone, including Jaeden’s own mother, was acting as if Jaeden were dead. She wasn’t. Caia didn’t know why she was so certain, but she was sure Jae was alive somewhere.
The handle on her mug broke off in her hand and she glanced up sheepishly at Magnus’s and Ella’s inquiring eyes.
“Sorry,” she mumbled.
“A few days ago and this place would’ve been flooded. Furniture broken,” Magnus said. “I’m proud of how quickly you’ve mastered your powers, Caia.”
She flushed at his praise. “Marion has been very patient.”
“She says she’s never seen anything like you. Marion’s not one for exaggeration.” His lip curled as if he remembered something. “Or praise, for that matter.”
“It’s no big deal.”
“Cai—” Magnus stopped abruptly at the sound of feet stomping up from the basement into the hall. They waited expectantly, and while she knew Ella and Magnus could smell it was Lucien and Dimitri approaching, only Caia knew Dimitri’s rage was now mingled with grief, and Lucien oozed anguish. Her heart faltered. She must have been wrong. Oh Goddess, Jaeden.
They appeared, their expressions reflecting their inner turmoil. Not only that, but Dimitri’s knuckles were smeared with blood. Caia sniffed subtly. Not his. She winced, but then stamped out any sympathy for the faerie who’d caused more bloodshed than Caia cared to know about.
“Well?” Ella trembled.
Dimitri bowed his head, his breathing erratic as if he were drowning. Lucien ran his hand through his hair in that familiar gesture of frustration. “She’s alive.”
They all let out a collective breath of relief.
“But?” Caia asked, bracing herself. Jaeden may be alive, but there was a reason Dimitri looked like a grieving father.
“They’ve had Jaeden for weeks.”
An unexpected growl erupted from Magnus, and Ella squeezed his hand tightly, trying to rein in his furious shock.
Caia was angry, too, but at the moment, confusion won out. “How? I … I sensed something different in Jaeden’s trace today, so I assumed that …” Her voice cracked. “I assumed she’d been taken recently.”
Dimitri glowered at her. “What do you mean you sensed something different?”
She stumbled back under the force of his ire. “I just thought something was off … but—”
“You knew!” he yelled and moved toward her. Lucien jumped in between them, his teeth bared. A low, menacing growl erupted from deep in his chest. Caia’s heart raced frantically.
“It was the transition,” Marion’s mellow voice broke the tension. They all turned to her as she walked calmly into the room. “With Caia’s powers under control, her senses have opened up. She would not have sensed the unfamiliar trace on Jaeden until afterward. And as far as I’m aware, this was their first meeting since Caia became aware of her heritage and started training with me.”
Dimitri seemed to relax, and Lucien followed suit. He moved to stand beside Caia, though, proclaiming his position as her protector. For once she was glad of his nearness.
“How long has Jaeden been gone?” Ella asked.
Lucien grimaced. “According to that thing downstairs, she was kidnapped and replaced two weeks after Caia’s return.”
Oh my—Caia’s head swam with the news, and she grabbed her stomach, nauseated. She’d only known Jaeden—the real Jaeden—for two weeks. Her best friend was some scheming faerie bitch from Hades! Oh, Jaeden, she whimpered inwardly as images of her friend in a cage burned behind her eyelids.
Magnus stood from the kitchen table. “We need to start a search. Did she tell you anything?”
Lucien nodded, pain flitting across his face. “She gave Jaeden to Ethan. She wouldn’t give us a location, but she hinted he wasn’t far away. Obviously, Dimitri and Christian will be in on the search, and I’ll send Ryder and Aidan with them.”
“Shouldn’t you send more than that?” Caia asked.
He shook his head. “No. I don’t know Ethan’s plans. She refused to say anything—”
“Refused?” she interrupted, noticing his use of the past tense.
He shrugged, obviously no longer bothered by what he’d had to do now that he understood the reality of the faerie’s crimes. “Marion’s spoken to the Daylight Coven. She’s not a useful POW if she’s not talking, so they told Saffron to take care of her.”
Caia swallowed hard, glancing toward the hallway. After everything she’d been through, it took the fact that a dead faerie lay in the basement—an executed faerie—for her to comprehend fully what their war meant.
She had a feeling this was just the beginning.
“Anyway,” Lucien sounded weary now, “she wouldn’t tell us what he plans. So I’m staying here, and so is Magnus, to protect the pack. I’m afraid it will just have to be enough that I’m sending my strongest males out to find Jaeden.”
“It is,” Dimitri said hoarsely.
“Right. We better get ready, then—”
“I’m sorry to stop you all,” Marion interrupted again. “But you seem to have missed a very pertinent fact. Understandable given the circumstances.”
No one said anything. Caia tensed, however, when Marion’s gaze rested on her once again.
“If you have learned anything in the last few days, you should remember that only a faerie can sense another faerie’s trace, with the exception of the Head of the Coven it belongs to.”
“What are you getting at?” Dimitri snapped, his patience gone.
“Caia sensed the faerie’s trace.”
A silence descended over the room as the weight of her meaning fell upon their shoulders.
“It’s not possible,” Caia whispered.
A smile played on Marion’s lips. “Not only sensed the faerie but with a single touch, garnered much about that faerie, including the conditions of Jaeden’s kidnapping. Adriana was heir to the Midnight Coven, and you are her daughter.”
“What does this mean?” Ella asked.
“It means we know how desperate Ethan is.” Marion strode farther into the room. “He’s not the Head of the Midnight Coven, and the coven doesn’t even realize it. It also means that he has none of the powers that accompany it.”
“Such as?”
Caia wasn’t even sure who asked that. Her brain overloaded, her heart sped out of control.
“In time, Caia should be able to trace every member of the Midnight Coven, no matter where they are.”
It was like a bomb that kept on exploding.
“Don’t you see?” Marion was getting excited now. “This is Gaia’s plan. The Midnights won’t be able to attack anyone without Caia knowing exactly when and where. The war will eventually come to an end once they know there is no hope of victory.”
Caia trembled at Marion’s announcement. “Wait. Wait.” She was terrified by the hope that seemed to bloom in everyone’s eyes. “I don’t feel anything. I only sensed some trace. I can’t even tell you where Ethan is. If what you say is true, I should be able to do that!”
Marion shook her head, refusing to be wrong. “It’s something that will come with time. I don’t know how long. But you are the rightful Head of the Coven.”
“I think I’m going to be sick.”
She felt Lucien’s hand clasp her shoulder, and in her weakness, she took comfort from him.
“This is good news.” Dimitri cleared his throat. “But I need to move and get my daughter back.”
Caia reeled, eyes on the floor, listening to him stride toward the hallway.
“Caia?”
She looked up at him as his eyes blazed.
“If what Marion says is true … if these powers come to you … you’ll inform me right away of Ethan’s whereabouts?”
“Dimitri—” She wanted to protest. She didn’t want anyone’s hopes up because she didn’t believe for one second she was capable of the kind of power Marion suggested. However, one look at those eyes
, eyes that not long ago had held strength and warmth and were now shattered by guilt and fear, Caia could only nod.
“Of course.”
Knowing that pack members were out searching for Jaeden and she couldn’t made Caia feel useless. She’d changed and run through the woods for hours in the hope that it would do something for her angry restlessness, but by the time she crawled through her bedroom window, she was even angrier, felt even more useless.
But most heavily weighing on her shoulders was the guilt. If she hadn’t returned to the pack, none of this would’ve happened.
She slid in between her cool sheets. If only there was a way to get in contact with Ethan, to trade herself for Jaeden. Surely, he would go for that. If what Marion said was true, then Ethan needed her out of the picture in order to become the true Head of the Coven.
She moaned and turned onto her side, staring out the window, into the woods. Could she sacrifice herself for the pack? An image of Jaeden in the cage caused a horrible ache in her chest. That image was replaced with something that knocked the breath right out of her.
Lucien. Dead. Trying to protect her.
Hell yeah, she could sacrifice herself for the pack.
“Jaeden, where are you?” She tried to see through the darkness. Wherever she was smelled of sewage, but underneath the stench was the smell of damp earth and … fear. “Jaeden!” she yelled.
A flame suddenly lit up in front of her, illuminating a small part of the room, enough to show the corner of what looked to be a cage to her far right.
“Jae.” She stumbled toward it, but the flame went out, bringing her to a standstill in complete darkness again. “Jae?”
A whimper.
“Oh goddess.” Caia’s panic eased somewhat at the sound of her friend’s nearness. Carefully, she lowered herself to the damp floor and crawled on her hands and knees toward where she thought the cage was.
“Ow,” she whined as her nose came up against cold bars. “Jaeden?” She couldn’t see anything, but she could smell Jaeden, and the area in front of her was rife with fear.