“OK. Well, never mind that it’s fictional, Jae, my reality is that my mother killed my dad.”
“Sydney inadvertently killed her mother.”
“I’m a lykan and have to hide within a human world.”
“She’s a spy and has to hide her identity from everyone she loves.”
“I’m prophecy girl.”
“So was she.”
Caia sighed. “OK, again … I actually exist, Jae... I think I win.”
“I guess you do. I was...” Jaeden exhaled noisily, and Caia could feel that she felt helpless for her. “I was just trying to make you feel better in a situation where that can’t possibly happen.”
“The fact that you tried means a lot.”
“I’m here for you, always.”
The sound of the floorboards squeaking outside her room brought her bolt upright. She narrowed her eyes as she felt waves of curiosity, mixed with guilt, filtering through the walls. “I’m going to have to go, Jaeden.”
“Wait!”
“What?” She really didn’t want whoever was outside listening to hear something they shouldn’t. She sniffed and Lucien’s scent hit her. He really wanted to piss her off didn’t he.
“I was just wondering what happens now?”
“Training with Marion. You’ll cover for me at school?”
“Of course.”
“OK. I gotta go, Jae. Talk later.”
“Bye.”
Caia hung up the phone and tip-toed over to the door. He was still standing outside, she could feel him. With perverse satisfaction she pulled the door open with lightning quick motion. Lucien stood looking at her aghast, his ear turned towards the door. If she hadn’t been so angry at him, the sheepish look on his face would have been comical. “I can feel you, remember,” she snapped.
“Oh. Right.” He straightened to his full six-six, and then shrugged the sheepishness from his face and demeanour; his body language and expression returning to his usual stoicism. “I was just making sure you were OK.”
“That’s not really your problem anymore.”
He growled, his face flushing with irritation. “I’m still your Pack Leader, Caia.”
“Do you lie to every member of your pack, or am I just special?”
He sighed, running his hand through his thick dark hair. “Caia, I am very sorry. I made an error in judgement but... can’t you understand? After everything this pack has been through, I was just trying to protect them.”
She did understand. It didn’t change the fact that he had hurt her like no one else had before. “I do understand that, Lucien.”
His body seemed to relax, the tension easing from his muscles. “So we’re going to be OK?”
“You and me?”
He moved towards her, taking her by surprise as he cupped her cheek gently with his large callused hand. “Yes. You and me. We can get through this together.”
A silence stretched thinly between them as their gazes locked, and for that moment Caia forgot her anger and could only remember the feel of his lips on hers at the party. As the moment continued to build, Lucien growled low in his throat and lowered his head towards her, his silver gaze caught intently on her mouth. She began to tremble with the desire to give into him, her heart beating erratically at his overwhelming closeness. But as his lips were about to touch hers, his warm breath fanning her face, sending shivers over her already confused body, an alarm bell rang inside her head, jerking her back from him.
Lucien frowned, trying to urge her closer, only for her to push his hand off and step back into the safety of her bedroom. “There is no you and me, Lucien.” She gripped the door and began to close it on his face, which was now mottled with a mixture of anger and sadness. “Just Pack Leader and prophecy girl.”
Caia turned around and braced her back against her closed door, listening as his footsteps slowly moved away. The feelings emanating from him were so raw; her rejection genuinely hurting him deeply. Maybe Jaeden was right. Maybe Alexa had lied to her, and just maybe Lucien wasn’t trying to butter her up. His emotions told her that his caring feelings were real. It didn’t matter. She and Lucien couldn’t be anything, now that she was some freak of nature who could bring total destruction to the pack and to him. No. She was going to train with Marion and then take on her uncle so that the pack would be safe from him. Once she was certain of their safety, she would leave the pack and Lucien. Her heart thundered in her chest at the thought, and she felt nauseas, a feeling likened to grief wrapping itself around her body. Hearing the water in her bathroom rush on, Caia cursed. “Let’s just work on controlling the freakish powers first, huh, Cy,” she muttered, and made to turn the water off.
***
“We have a slight problem.”
When did they not? Ethan thought in agitation as he zapped the mutt in its cage, its shriek of pain easing the headache he felt brewing. “Spit it out then.”
“They’re training her,” his spy murmured, obviously not wanting him to hear correctly. He could feel his muscles tensing, a warm heat of angry power flushing across his skin from his feet up. A bolt of white heat flew out of him, and an even louder, agonised howl deafened him.
“Damn,” he sighed, and crouched down to peer into the cage. He hoped he hadn’t killed the thing; it was important leverage.
“My lord?”
“Shut up,” Ethan snapped, turning his ear to the cage. He sighed in relief when a whimper escaped the creature. “Oh thank, Gaia.”
“My lord?”
“Stop ‘my lording’ me. We’ll need to take her sooner than we thought, that’s all.”
His assistant hissed, “There’s more.”
Ethan wanted to reach down the end of the receiver and choke the living daylights out of her. Unfortunately, he needed her for the time being as she was one of only three people within the Coven who knew about Caia: himself, her and Lars. Of course, he’d have to kill them both when this was over.
“What else?” He asked between clenched teeth, half afraid of the answer.
“Well, it appears Lucien and Caia’s relationship is now been put asunder due to a female member of the pack’s jealousy.”
That was the last thing he wanted to hear. Another wave of heat flew from his body but he made sure it wasn’t directed at the mutt in the cage.
“My Lord?” She asked again, worriedly.
He waited a few seconds so that he didn’t accidently kill her down the phone line. When he was sure he was under control, he said in restrained breaths, “You will need to go in as quickly as you can and reunite our lovely couple.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“I don’t have to remind you that Caia’s relationship with her animal friends is pivotal to weakening the pack. Particularly her relationship with Lucien.”
“I’ll go in immediately. As soon as I’m allowed. They have her under lock and key at the moment.”
“Then break the damn lock!” Jeez, you just can’t get reliable help these days. “You can’t wait any longer than a few days or else her powers and control will develop. Get in there and get those two lovebirds together, or I will personally eviscerate you.”
He took enjoyment in the catch he heard in her throat. She knew he was perfectly serious. “Of course, my lord.”
“And Xylena?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Once your mission is complete I want your first kill to be the bitch lykan female that put a kink in Caia’s relationship with the Pack Leader and a kink in our plans.”
“Gladly.”
19 - Lessons
“That’s it, Caia. Hold it... hold it... hooold iiiit.”
Caia sighed, her head aching with the pain of trying to contain the water. Marion had set up a heavy duty hose out in the backyard and was attempting to train Caia in controlling it. Right now, instead of the water pouring out directly and falling with gravity, she had Caia separating the water flow into two halves, each spraying in the opposite direction. It w
as the strangest feeling; having to reach beneath herself and tap into the energy that she now felt hovering above the energy she used to tap into her wolf side. The trace buzzing above the lykanthrope energy was sharp and airy - like steel vapour; her lykanthrope more a tingling heat. The first day of training had been excruciatingly frustrating as she kept tapping into her lykan trace, fur exploding across her body at the slightest attempt to harness her magik. But the amount of focus it took was keeping her heartache at bay, and allowing her to function normally.
Well.
As normal as she could be.
Although she felt heartache at the truth of her family’s past, she also felt a weird sense of relief and freedom from finally knowing the truth. She doubted the new lease of life she felt was an entirely ‘human’, or a normal reaction to the situation, but her embarrassing emotional breakdown when she first heard the news was human enough for her, thank you very much.
So there she was, now on the third day of training, and she had finally managed to conquer her duelling energies when Marion began throwing her off her focus with her obnoxious cheerleading coach persona. She’d obviously had way too much caffeine.
“Marion,” she warned between clenched teeth, the pain in her forehead increasing.
Marion laughed, clapping her hands together. She was being wonderful, she really was, but she also had a perverse sense of humour. At Caia’s warning, Marion magiked a whistle out of thin air and started blowing on the damn thing, jumping from one foot to the other. “Go, Caia, Go, Caia. Go Go Go, Caia. Whhhiieettt!” She blew the whistle shrilly and was silenced abruptly by a spray of water in her face.
Caia laughed, letting the water return to its natural flow.
Instead of frowning, Marion smiled brightly. “Very good, Caia; managing to direct a third stream of the water in another direction. We’ll just forget the fact that it was on my face...” she did frown now, glancing down at the whistle around her neck. “I think you literally wet my whistle, though.”
Caia chuckled and then collapsed onto the grass. “My head aches.”
“It will at first.” Marion gracefully sat down beside her.
“What next then?”
“Well, I think we should soon begin on creating water from air.”
She rolled her eyes. “And I do that how?”
“You think about it, and it will happen.”
Caia grunted. She made it sound like a piece of cake. It wasn’t.
She had asked from the very beginning of her training why she had the power to harness water. If she was going to be this weird hybrid of lykan and witch shouldn’t she have really cool powers? Not some weak ability to quench her thirst whenever she wanted. Marion hadn’t been amused by her blasé opinion on being a water witch. Apparently it was one of the most powerful kinds.
“You see, Caia,” she had relayed patiently, as if to a child, “There are four kinds of magik. Water, Fire, Air and Earth.”
“Wasn’t that a band?”
Marion had rolled her eyes. “I’m sure you’re thinking of Earth, Wind & Fire. Please, Caia, can you take this seriously? It is pivotal to everyone that you take this seriously.”
She had sobered at the reminder of her great destiny, whatever that meant. “So the elements, huh?”
“Yes,” Marion said primly. “I’m a fire witch. I can harness fire.” She stroked the air with her fingers and a flame appeared in front of her.
Caia jumped back in surprise with a childish ‘whoa’.
“I can control it.” The flame started to dance across the room, whilst Marion sat, just looking at it, not moving. “I can manipulate it.” The flame suddenly roared, nearly scoring the ceiling.
“Holy Artemis!” Caia cried. “You could warn a person before you do that.”
The witch had merely smiled and turned back to her, the flame disappearing as it if it had never existed. “A fire magik is one of the most powerful,” she explained without arrogance. “However, a water magik is more powerful because of the obvious.”
“In a fight we can douse you.” Caia had nodded in understanding.
“Exactly. We can use fire to destroy, but so can you with water. I actually fought a water magik from the Midnight Coven a few years ago. He almost killed me,” her voice lowered at the memory. “He was able to fill my lungs with water so that I was asphyxiated. If it hadn’t been for the opportune arrival of my brother-in-law, Vanne, who is a powerful water warlock himself, I most certainly would have died.”
“What did Vanne do?” Caia asked in awe. This woman had seen and done things she couldn’t even begin to imagine.
“He wrapped the enemy warlock in a cocoon of water and he drowned. In doing so his power over me was broken, and the water disappeared out of my lungs.”
The thought had terrified Caia. That she had the ability to do something so horrendous to a person. That she would most definitely have to do something like that to Ethan in order to protect the pack.
A more terrifying question pierced her mind.
“Do you know what kind of warlock Ethan is?” She had asked quietly.
“Fire.” Marion had smiled triumphantly.
Caia could see Marion thought she was more than capable of taking him on because she was a water witch. Caia wasn’t so sure. She had only just been told she was a water witch. And now here she was, three days later, exhausted and in pain from the smallest of tasks.
“Do you need to take a break, Caia?” Marion asked gently and then she stroked the air with her fingers, a glass of lemonade appearing in her hand. She handed it to Caia, who took it, blinking incredulously.
“If you’re just a fire witch how can you conjure things from nothing, and if I’m just a water witch how could I blast Alexa off her feet and make furniture move?”
Marion smiled smugly. “The element is just the basis of our power. Gaia would never be so selfish as to bestow only measly gifts on her children. We can have, and do, whatever we want, but we have rules to protect ourselves and the human society.”
“I guess you should tell me about them.”
Marion groaned at the monotony of it. “I’ll get around to it.”
“But what if I break a rule in the meantime?”
She sighed, rolling her eyes again. “Are you going to utilise your magik to kill a human?”
“No.”
“Are you going to utilise your magik to force a human or Daylight supernatural from their own free will?”
“No.”
Marion grinned. “Then I think we’re OK for now.”
Caia smiled back at her. “It’s kind of like you’re Robin Williams and I’m Aladdin.”
“Excuse me?”
“You know... ‘Genie I want you to make me a prince!’”
The witch shook her head in confusion, and apparently worry. “Are you OK? Maybe you’re getting too much sun.”
Caia sighed in frustration. “Aladdin? Disney? Can’t kill anybody, can’t make people fall in love, can’t bring anybody back from the dead...‘It’s not a pretty picture, I don’t like doing it!’”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“You’re killing me here,” Caia sighed. That had been her best Genie impression.
“Maybe we should just proceed to manipulating water.”
Caia nodded, feeling more of an alien freak than ever in the company of her pop culture free companion. “I was kind of hoping you could help me control the whole telekinetic thing first. I’m getting tired of being my own personal poltergeist.”
Marion shook her head again, pulling Caia to her feet. “You are the strangest girl.”
“Ryder gets me.”
***
Lucien tried not to wince as he watched Marion train Caia on how to control her telekinetic abilities. The first few hours had been gruelling as the witch taunted Caia with her past, and insulted her abilities in every possible way in an effort to incite her temper. At first it didn’t seem to be working, a
nd Lucien had laughed quietly from his place at the kitchen door, amused at Marion’s disgruntlement and Caia’s ethereal coolness. But when she mentioned Adriana’s name, the hose pipe they had been using earlier suddenly whiplashed into the air and missed knocking Marion’s head off by an inch. The witch had smiled triumphantly and continued to push Caia, until the young lykan-magik was able to control the telekinesis, and stop it from happening when her emotions were toyed with. Now they were working on Caia’s ability to utilise the telekinesis whenever she wanted. Marion had nearly been killed by many a flying object.
“Shi-” he hissed, and ducked his head as a large branch flew at him. It crashed past him and into the kitchen, skidding across the table and smashing his mother’s fruit bowl and some glasses that had been left there. He turned wide-eyed to see Caia smirking at him. “It’s OK!” he called. “I’m OK.”
Marion walked towards him sheepishly. “Sorry, Lucien, that was an accident. Didn’t know you were there.”
“I did.” Caia shrugged and smiled too sweetly.
Lucien groaned, “Still like that is it?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
Marion frowned at her protégée. “I think we should take another break.”
Caia nodded and turned away from them, heading into the woods. Lucien sighed, his eyes following her closely. When was she going to come around and stop being pissed off at him? He had said he was sorry.
Marion strode up the porch steps and glanced back at Caia before she reached him. She smiled sympathetically when she turned back to him and gave him a reassuring pat on the shoulder. “She doesn’t hate you, Lucien. She just needs someone to be angry at right now.”
He grunted. “That makes me feel so much better.”
The witch chuckled, her eyes twinkling. “Well, the fact that she’s chosen you as the one to be angry at should make you feel better.”
“And how’s that?”
“Well, generally to be angry at someone they have to have done something to upset or hurt you, and to be able to upset or hurt someone means you having to have meant something to them in the first place.” She smiled as he took this in, and then slid past him gracefully into the house.
Moon Spell: Part One in the Tale of Lunarmorte Page 18