Ascended (War of the Covens 3)

1

THE CAGE

He hunkered onto his haunches so they were face-to-face and he winced. “I’m sorry I hit you so hard. I wasn’t sure how much strength I’d need to knock you out. However … you’re pretty fragile for a lykan.”

A growl rumbled from the pit of Caia’s chest and erupted into snarling snaps. She had never wanted to tear at someone the way she wanted to at Reuben.

He studied her with a look akin to sadness. “We don’t want you in this cage, Caia. You’re only there until we’re sure you aren’t going to attack Nikolai. We don’t want to hurt you.”

She guffawed. “Hurt me? I’d worry about myself if I were you.”

“Caia, please don’t try anything foolish. You’ve been out for twenty-four hours. You’re very weak.”

Twenty-four hours? How was that possible?

“Again, apologies for my friend’s overzealousness.” Nikolai glared at Reuben.

She searched the two desperately for any clue as to why they had her here. She’d been gone a day. Lucien would be going crazy, not to mention Jaeden and Ryder and everybody …

“Jaeden,” she snapped at Reuben. “She trusted you.”

His face remained expressionless. “I needed her. So I fudged with the truth. She can still trust me.”

“Oh yeah, ’cause kidnapping her Alpha’s mate is such a trustworthy thing to do.”

He nodded, silently telling her he understood her anger. She didn’t want his damn understanding.

“Perhaps you will allow me to explain myself?” he queried, regret lacing his words. She broke eye contact and stared pointedly around the cage. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Reuben stood. “Nikolai, a chair, perhaps?” Instantly a comfortable armchair appeared behind him and he sank into it while Nikolai stood vigilant at his back. “We need you, Caia … to end the war.”

Caia chuckled. Of course he did. And what did he think? That she would blithely follow his orders when she was doing everything in her power to remove herself from Marita’s rule? “I have no intention of fighting for the Midnights. Nor the Daylights. That’s not my plan.”

“It would seem we agree on that much, but your actual plan is crumbling around you as we speak.”

She frowned. What the Hades did he know about her plan? “What do you mean?”

“Marita has dissolved the Council and imprisoned them.”

How did he know that? Her expression must have asked as much because he shrugged elegantly, crossing one leg over the other and relaxing into his chair. “I have important assets inside the Center.”

Her mouth fell open and a riot of butterflies erupted in her belly. She had no idea who she was dealing with, but the fact that he had assets inside the Center … “What do you want from me?”

“I want what you want. I don’t want to kill Daylights or Midnights. I just want this war to end … and I’ve been working on bringing it to a conclusion long before you were born.”

“And I’m supposed to believe that?” she sneered, the dull throbbing in her head worsening.

“Of course not. That’s why I’m going to go back to the beginning. I’m going to tell you my story, Caia. I’m going to tell you why this war really began.”

2

The Iliadic Truth

Athens, Greece, 461 BC

His heart thudded rapidly behind its thick-boned prison, the pulse in his neck throbbing. He almost smiled at that. If he weren’t a vampyre, his parents, Phaedrus and Xanthippe, would consider him an impossibly delicious meal with that vein pulsing them into temptation. Instead they looked up at him in bewilderment, their mouths and chins smeared with the blood and skin of the unconscious man in their arms.

They sat crowded together on one of the pillowed klines in the andron where his father held symposia in their home. The man’s feet dragged to the floor, the light chiton he wore coming undone from the obvious struggle he’d undergone at the hands of Kirios’s parents. Blood stained the fabric and ran in rivulets from the victim’s masticated neck to puddle on the mosaic floor. Kirios watched as it spread into the expensive tiling, wondering how they would explain the stain. He frowned. Perhaps his father would say wine had been spilled during one of the vigorous symposia he held to blend in with the men he served with on the Heliaia, the jury of the supreme court of Athens.

“We thought you might like to finish him off?” Xanthippe smiled, a horrifying, gory gargle of the man’s lifeblood distorting her voice.

Kirios shook his head in a mixture of anger and despair. His parents were never going to understand. They were so old, two of the first souls to be sent by Hades back from the Underworld to wreak revenge. They had once been so savage, it was a miracle they’d ever fallen in love with one another. But two thousand years of immortal nomadic life seemed to have grown dull for them, and they’d fallen into a companionship of killing, making love, and looting tholos tombs, before growing rich on the growing Mycenaean trade.