Destined (War of the Covens 2)

“How do we know it was really Caia who sent you here?” Ryder threw out in desperation.

Vilhelm nodded, as if expecting that question. “She said to remind you of a conversation only you and she know of. She’d just started working for your Alpha in his store, and you sat with her in the showroom. You told her about your friend, David, who mated with a faerie. She hadn’t known some supernaturals could mate outside their own race, and you told her all about it. You told her stories about hunting, about a faerie who tricked you three times.”

Dread settled throughout his body. It seemed the boy might be telling the truth.

Goddess, he hoped Lucien knew what Caia was up to, that Caia knew what kind of fire she was playing with.

Wearily, he nodded. “I believe you.”

“I could hide them,” Reuben suddenly offered.

“What do you mean?” More than ever, he didn’t trust this guy.

“I can hide them so Marita doesn’t follow them to the pack.”

Before he could jump on this, Jaeden stiffened and turned to regard her friend in annoyance. “And how can you do that? She would come after you.”

Reuben smiled arrogantly. “I’ll be fine. I’ve been around, I have my ways.”

“No. You’re being an idiot,” she snapped.

As much as Ryder was glad to see Jaeden jump aboard the anti-Reuben bandwagon (even if it was out of some misplaced sense of concern), he had to settle with the boy and girl. “We’ll discuss that later. For now, they stay here. Caia entrusted them to me and to me alone.”

Visibly trembling, Jae approached him, her hand reaching for his. “Ryder, what’s going on? What is Caia doing?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

Jaeden looked at the girl, a mixture of sympathy and fear in her expression. “She saved me too.”

“What?”

“Caia,” she groaned. “She saved me too.”

“Still trust her?” Ryder asked.

“Do you?”

He chuckled humorlessly, looking back at the magiks who were listening intently. “Call me crazy, but … yes, I still trust her.”

“Alright then,” she agreed.

“I guess I’m not needed,” Reuben muttered from behind them.

“Hey.” Ryder stopped his departure. “You have to keep your trap shut about this.”

The vampyre sneered. “I’m not the gossiping kind.” And with his usual stealthy regality, he left.

Ryder looked down at his soon-to-be mate. “That means you too.”

Jaeden shook her head. “This is going to be impossible. My dad isn’t a wolf, he’s a freaking bloodhound.”

“Just channel pre-Ryder Jaeden.”

“Oh, har de har har.”

17

Soldier

The last meeting had dispersed and Caia stood in the main reception hall waiting for the others to join her. The Center was abuzz with anticipation. Even though the students didn’t know exactly what was going down, they knew it was something big. The hype level was agitating an already nervous Caia. She was thankful for Marion, who stood close by her side, watching as the others arrived. She was barely aware of Mordecai and the five magiks he had chosen from his unit to help take out the spies watching the MacLachlans.

Her mind unfortunately was all over the place. One, she was terrified their carefully strategized plan would fall apart in action; and two, she was worried how Vilhelm and Laila were faring with Ryder. Caia was supposed to have returned home almost immediately where she would’ve put her now-fully formed plan into action. When it became apparent that the battle was back on with du Bois, she forced herself to remain confident that it would still take Marita at least the length of the battle to figure out it had been Vilhelm.

For a start, they were focusing their investigation on the idea that a Midnight had somehow infiltrated their facilities to break Laila out (which was sending them into a massive panic). Because of this assumption, Vilhelm wouldn’t even be a suspect yet, not to mention he was a Traveler, a magik without the kind of power needed to do the glamour she had done to disguise him as Vanne.

Caia wasn’t stupid. Eventually someone would report Vil gone, but by then, she was hoping she would be back with the pack and there to take the heat off him.

She sighed heavily, watching as Michael appeared around the corner, body strapped with guns and knives. Behind him were the four other vampyres he had selected who were partnered with a lykan to take out the four Midnight guards du Bois was placing in a sort of rhombus formation around the edges of the forest.

Moments later, Anders emerged from one of the elevators with nine other lykans from his unit. Four of them would take out the guards; the other five would attack the spies sitting outside the MacLachlans’. The plan was, the MacLachlan pack would pretend to depart for their pack run. All of them would leave their houses and get into their cars and drive away. In truth, they would be heading to Magic Fitness where a magik would be waiting to transport them through the portal to the Center for protection.