Ascended (War of the Covens 3)

Everyone was angry, everyone felt guilty. However, Lucien was keeping them together. He didn’t want vengeance; he wanted them all to take the time to grieve, to accept their new lives. For the most part, the pack seemed to have heard. It was a quiet and stoic grieving.

But not for Jaeden and Alexa, who weren’t handling it well at all. There was more rage than sadness there, and Caia was hovering on a tightrope that threatened to throw her in with them. It had never occurred to her she would be the one battling the overwhelming need to punish. She’d always thought, with his volatile temper, she would be the one soothing Lucien. But after destroying pretty much everything in the house he could get his hands on, Lucien had cooled and put his efforts into helping the pack rather than taking vengeance—he was the one calming her. And he was almost succeeding.

It was just that every time she looked at Jaeden or Alexa or thought about Dimitri’s death, she wanted revenge. Torturous and painful revenge.

She took a deep breath, trying to deal with her emotions. “Maybe you should talk to him. He lost his mom too. You should be comforting each other.”

“I don’t want his comfort!” Jaeden spat, causing Caia to flinch at the venom. “All he and Lucien have been spouting for the last twenty-four hours is how we have to accept this and come to terms with their deaths. Well, I don’t want to! I want to find Marita and I want to rip her apart because that’s what she’s done to me!”

“I’m with her on this.” Alexa appeared in the doorway. There were dark circles under her eyes, her mouth pinched, giving her the appearance of being older than her years. She brushed past Caia and sat down on the bed beside Jaeden. To Caia’s surprise, she reached for Jaeden’s hand and they gripped onto one another. They looked up at her with twin expressions of fury. And she didn’t know what to say, what to do to make it better.

“W-what can I do?” she asked softly.

“I have an idea.”

The three of them snapped around to find Reuben standing in the doorway. For once there was no mocking in his eyes or lazy languor in his body language. He was dead serious, his eyes dark with sympathy.

“What idea?” Alexa asked urgently.

He slowly shut the door and wandered into the room to take a seat at Caia’s old computer desk. “Lucien and Ryder are out making preparations for the funerals at the moment.” Stalactites might as well have formed on the ceiling for how cold the room grew with that one sentence. Reuben ignored it. “I thought I would speak with you privately.”

“What’s the idea?” Alexa insisted.

The vampyre glanced up at Caia. “Caia already knows my plan.”

“What plan?”

Jaeden shifted. “You mean the trace thing? How is that helping destroy Marita?”

“Because if Caia gets rid of the trace, then Marita no longer has that power over the Daylights. She can no longer gather people to her easily and she can no longer hunt down the people she wants destroyed. Once the trace is gone, we can hunt her.”

A feeling of helplessness swept over Caia as she watched Jaeden’s eyes glow with the news. Even Alexa, who was confused as to the actual technicalities of the discussion, looked animated.

“Explain?” Alexa asked.

Caia decided to answer instead. She couldn’t help the flatness in her tone. “The trace magik was created by three members of the Daylight Coven and four of the Midnight. It’s believed that killing the seven direct descendants of those first members will destroy the trace.”

Alexa’s eyes widened. “Seriously? How? How can we kill them?”

Caia’s mouth dropped at the blasé question, shocked at her eagerness, but it was Jaeden who answered, “Only Caia can. They have to be killed simultaneously in the exact same manner.”

“Then do it,” Alexa demanded, her dark eyes flashing. “Fricking do it and we can get Marita!”

Jae nodded. “Caia, please,” she begged.

Oh dear goddess. Do they know what they’re asking of me? Of course not. All they could think about was their own loss, their own selfish need for justice.

And she couldn’t hate them for it.

Reuben smirked at her.

Caia wanted to kill him. He was preying on their grief. And they were preying on her guilt and anger. “It’s not that simple,” she whispered. “These people are innocent.”

“You don’t know that, you haven’t checked,” Jaeden snapped.

“Jae,” she entreated, “think about what you’re asking me to do.”

The lykan shuffled off the bed and strode around it to tower over her. “I’m asking you to avenge my father,” she bit out, and with the words came the tears. “My father who loved you, who protected you as if you were his own.”

When she heard Alexa’s choked sob behind Jae, she wanted nothing more than to run from the room and keep on running. “I want to.” She trembled. “I want to, but you can’t ask me to kill people. That’s not avenging your father. They didn’t hurt Dimitri or Morgan and Natalia. These are just people.”