Destined (War of the Covens 2)

More importantly, they had no idea a war was raging, and that if a certain young woman didn’t live up to her prophecy, that war might spill over into their lives.

There would be nothing left of them.

She walked through the building’s dark entrance and quietly jumped down the stone stairwell at the back. Jae could hear voices from the end of the hallway and smiled as she approached the sliding steel door. Lily and Adam were fighting over the Xbox again. She rapped on the door and it slid back within seconds. With an annoying crease of concern between his eyebrows, Reuben stepped back to allow her entry.

“Where have you been? You missed all the action.”

Jae shrugged and nodded at the two vampyres playing video games. Josh and Styx were sleeping in one of the back rooms. She wandered through the apartment, dropping her leather jacket here and her blades there. She placed the ax in safekeeping on a wall mount in the bedroom she used to share with Lily. She could feel Reuben prowling behind her.

“Jae, what’s up?” His cool hands slid up her arms and massaged her shoulders.

She shrugged him off and sat on the bed, pulling off her boots as he glared at her from the doorway.

“Well?”

“I hunted a rogue by myself.”

He nodded, biting on his lip ring, a tic he had when thinking hard about something. “You’ve been doing that a lot lately.”

She knew where he was going with this, and she was just too damn tired. Ignoring him, Jae pulled off her T-shirt and rifled through her drawers for a clean one.

Reuben hissed, bringing her gaze snapping up to him. His eyes narrowed on her as he looked her over. “Some people would call that teasing.”

Inwardly, she flinched; outwardly, it pissed her off. “Is that a warning, Reuben?” she sneered, pulling on a clean shirt.

“Maybe.”

She blanched at the anger in his voice. “I’m sorry, okat? I just forget. Lykans are used to undressing in front of each other.”

“I know. Just try to remember. I’m not made of stone.”

She flushed, an awkward silence falling between them as they both remembered the night he kissed her—and was thoroughly rebuffed.

He cleared his throat, and she sensed a now-familiar discussion on the horizon. “Why the solo hunting?”

She was right. “I’m tired.”

“I want to talk about this. Hunting by yourself? You’ve been doing it since that night in here with Lily.”

Jae winced just thinking about it. “She could’ve been killed.”

“But she wasn’t,” Reuben replied, approaching her. He sat down beside her on the bed, seeming afraid she would snap at him like a wounded animal if he got too close. “You’ve been controlling your telekinesis.”

Not that night. Not when she had nightmares. When she was awake and in control, she was able to harness whatever energy it was that gave her the ability to move things with her mind. But as soon as her emotions went into overload, there was no stopping the chaos. She had been fine around Reuben and his gang—killing vampyres who preyed on humans, pouring her hate into pounding the living daylight out of them and feeling nothing more than a tangible connection to these good vamps she worked with. They were colleagues, nothing more. She wouldn’t let them be.

But two weeks ago, she’d started having nightmares about her time in the cage. She didn’t know why or how … but they were vivid and horrifying and kicked her telekinesis into high gear. She’d been awoken by Lily’s screams. Six blades were stabbed into the walls around them, her precious ax embedded above Lily’s head as she cowered in the corner. Books, furniture, and clothes were strewn everywhere, and Lily’s nose was bleeding, a black bruise blossoming on her porcelain face. Jaeden had refused to let her sleep in the same room with her since, refused to go hunting with any of them in case she got them killed.

“Only when my emotions are stable. I can’t take chances.”

For her, that was the end of the discussion.

“Do you want to talk about these nightmares?”

“Uh, no.”

“What about that?”

Jae frowned and looked up. He was pointing to her ax mounted on the wall. “What about it?”

He tried to appear calm, but his jaw clenched. “If you’re saying you can’t control it, why do you have a weapon in here that could kill you in your sleep?”

Because it doesn’t matter.

She didn’t say that. Reuben would kill her himself if she said that. He wanted her to be so happy here with him and the gang, taking out bad guys, living off Lily’s inheritance. But she was miserable. She ached for the pack with every part of her body. She wanted her mother and father and her little niece Jaela. She wanted to run free with them through the woods behind Lucien’s house and play and tussle with Sebastian. Her dresser began to shake at the thought of Seb, and she quickly threw him out of her mind.