Hunted (War of the Covens 1)

And then everything went black.

29

Sebastian

“Caia.” Someone shook her and her eyes rolled back before opening. She felt exhausted. As if someone had taken all the muscles out of her body and left her limp and useless.

“What?” she croaked and tried to open her eyes.

“Caia.”

“Lucien?”

“Yeah.”

She opened her eyes at the same time she tried to sit up. Lucien hissed in pain as he helped her, and her eyes widened on his wounds.

Ethan!

She whipped her head around to see Lars, grotesquely dead on the floor, and a naked Ryder lifting Jae into his arms. His eyes found Caia; they seemed blank with shock.

Ethan was nowhere to be seen.

Her eyes fell upon the spot he’d stood, and she felt her stomach turn. Correction: Ethan was everywhere. Literally. Pulp blood and gore lay across the floor and over the counters. He was even stuck to the walls.

“Did I?” she whispered in disbelief, her eyes finding Lucien.

He nodded, speechless.

Alive. She cried out and pressed a hand against his cheek without thinking. He’s alive, she laughed happily. They were all alive. They had done it.

“We have to go.” Ryder marched by them, holding Jae as if she weighed nothing. “Sebastian’s badly hurt.”

And like that, her joy died.

Despite his pain, Lucien helped her to her feet and through the house to the back door. Ryder waited at the edge of the woods with Jaeden and only marched forward when he was assured they were behind him.

“Wait, where’s Seb and Aidan and Christian?” She stumbled, clutching onto Lucien.

“At the truck. I told them to go on while I made sure you guys were okay.”

It seemed to take forever to get there. Lucien changed to heal himself quicker and shot off ahead, following the scent of the others back to his truck.

Caia couldn’t speak. Ryder didn’t speak. But every time Jae whimpered, Caia would stroke her hair.

“We’re nearly there,” Ryder grunted.

Caia nodded. If she could have run, she would have. To get to Sebastian.

“What happened?” she managed eventually, hoping to Artemis Sebastian wasn’t as badly hurt as Ryder had made it sound.

“The daemon was tougher. Fought back even with all four of us on him. He sliced Sebastian open pretty good. Too much damage for him to change so he could heal.”

Caia tried to slow her escalating heart rate. “But he’ll be okay?”

His silence was heartbreaking.

Caia began to run, stumbling and cursing at her stupid muscles that had decided to give up on her just when she needed them.

Finally, she burst out of the woods and slammed against the truck.

They all turned at her whine when her eyes landed on Sebastian. Without thinking, she jumped into the truck bed.

“Caia—” Aidan tried to hold her back, but she pushed at him.

“Let her,” Sebastian hissed.

His stomach was packed with as much cloth as they could find around the truck, but already, it was soaked in his blood. Ryder was right. His wound was far more severe than Caia’s had been—it wasn’t just a slash across his stomach. His gut had been ripped open.

Sebastian coughed, drawing her attention back to his face. “Come on,” he cracked, wheezing and shivering. “Can’t be that bad.”

“Everyone into the truck,” Lucien demanded, back in human form. Ryder slid Jaeden into the cab and pulled her onto his lap so Aidan could sit up front with them. Christian sat beside Sebastian in the truck bed. “We’ve got to get to Marion. She’ll help.” Lucien nodded at Sebastian and then climbed in behind the wheel.

Caia grabbed on to that hope and slid down beside Sebastian, shifting him as gently as possible so that his head was cushioned on her lap. The truck pulled away, Lucien driving as fast as he was able.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered, and a warm tear trickled off her face and onto his.

Sebastian looked at her, still shuddering in her arms. “Don’t.” He coughed. “Don’t you do that.”

“Sebastian,” she moaned.

He smiled and winced at the effort it took, but his tawny eyes never left hers. “I wanted to do this. And you got Jae, right? We got Jae.”

“We got Jae.”

“She’s all right?”

“Sebastian …” It was Jaeden’s voice, and her slender, bruised arm slid through the partition from the cab to grasp a hold of Sebastian’s sleeve. He rolled his eyes enough to see the top of Jaeden’s head.

“Hey, beautiful,” he croaked.

“Thank you,” she whispered, and Caia couldn’t look at her rescued friend for fear of falling apart at the sound of her grief.

No. He is going to be okay. He is going to be okay. Marion will fix this.

“No”—he shuddered hard—“no problem, mi amiga.”

See, he’s joking and teasing. He’s going to be okay.

She clutched him tighter.

“Cy,” he whispered, and her eyes got caught in his again. “I love you, Cy.”

“Don’t,” she choked on her tears. “You’re going to be okay.”

He smirked. “I love you anyway.”