Destined (War of the Covens 2)

“Caia?”

She started at the warm hand on her shoulder and looked up into Lucien’s concerned face. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Rose glide past with the others, her gaze washing over them as she did so. Lucien had obviously asked for a moment alone to talk to her.

“What?” She didn’t mean to snap. There was just too much to concentrate on; her self-control over this issue didn’t seem important at the moment.

He blinked, seeming surprised by her tone. “I just wanted to say good luck and please don’t do anything stupid.”

His concern, his tenderness, created an urge to scratch her claws across his face and spit and growl and snarl until she was hoarse. She didn’t want to see that he worried about her. She didn’t need the confusion.

She twisted her mouth in derision and jerked away from his grasp. “Why don’t you save the concern for Rose? I can handle myself.”

Dark uncertainty fell over his features. “Caia, wh—”

She didn’t stay to hear the end of that question. Instead she almost ran for the portal, knowing he wouldn’t be able to plague her with his questions once they were through. A rush of pressurized air blasted her hair back, almost as if she were on a roller coaster … on a roller coaster in a very, very dark place.

A feeling likened to seasickness engulfed her, and she knew she was through the portal. Hesitantly, she opened her eyes, taking in the sight of Remnant Forest, which, even with her lykan vision, seemed to swallow them in its alien blackness. She could feel the energy of the amassed Midnights beckoning from the north like tendrils of hair blowing in the wind. It was strange to equate the usually familiar and welcoming smell of a damp wood with this adrenaline-charged anxiety.

Ducking to the ground, Caia took in their position. Unit Two was already making its way through the woods toward the perimeter guards. She turned to Marion huddled behind a fallen tree in which the growth covering it created a wall of defense.

Lucien was the last to come through, and he snapped down to the ground behind the tree so quickly, she heard Anders laugh and whisper, urging him once more to join his unit at the Center. Marion shushed them and turned to Caia. Her eyes closed, and she called on the trace to do its job. She was able to hold on to the five spies’ energy in sync, each like a different window on one screen of a computer. The first members of the MacLachlans left their house, followed closely by the three other families on that street. As their cars pulled away, the Midnight watching sent a text message to du Bois. Caia almost smiled at that; their outfit wasn’t quite as swanky as the Center’s.

Remembering what all this meant, her amusement quickly faded, and she pressed the earpiece. “Unit Three, you’re safe to proceed.”

“Roger.”

Wow, that was loud in her ear.

Anders and Phoebe were grinning in anticipation of the fight.

Within a few minutes, each Midnight spy had completed their task. Caia sent in all of Unit One, each asserting within minutes of her order that the Midnight was dead. After watching the first magik being chewed from the inside out, after the reminder of her own fight with a daemon not too long ago, Caia had been blasted with empathy a soldier couldn’t really afford. The surprise and shock, the undiluted fear, the panic, the horrendous pain, and the awful realization of approaching death clawed at her throat. She knew they were magiks bent on doing a despicable thing, but it didn’t make it any easier to watch them die.

She’d pulled out of the trace and hadn’t watched while the other Midnights were killed. At the confirmation of their deaths, Unit Three exhaled a unanimous breath of relief and triumph.

“Unit Two,” Caia whispered over the comms, “proceed to the guards.”

“Roger.”

The sounds of all those voices whispering down their comms made them flinch, and she hoped to Artemis that it hadn’t distracted Unit Two. She felt her unit staring at her as she observed through the trace. It was done so smoothly, so perfectly executed. The magik distracted the Midnight momentarily, while the vampyre, without a ruffle of clothing or intake of breath, surreptitiously slipped up behind the Midnight, clamped a hand over their mouth to occlude any warning shouts, and slit the guard’s throat. It was gruesome and underhanded, and Caia experienced more pangs of disgust that this was even necessary. Feeling their stares on her burning cheeks, Caia ignored her regrets, and gave them a brittle nod at the exact moment the teams began confirming the guards dead over the comms.

Now it was their turn.

Mordecai, Michael, and Marion were to wait as the lykans changed into wolf form. While they stripped to nothing and initiated the change, Caia was already there. With her magik, she could transform within seconds to wolf without having to strip. Using glamour, she could transform back fully clothed. She waited, however, until Lucien, Anders, and the women were done.