Ascended (War of the Covens 3)

“Caia—”

She held up her hand, cutting him off, and pressed a button on her cell. “Reuben.”

She had the vampyre on speed dial? Lucien leaned closer to her to pick up the vamp’s end of the conversation.

“We need to get word to Nikolai.”

“What’s going on?”

“He’s in trouble.”

“He stopped that faerie from telling the Council about the mess at the Daylight Center. It’s all fine.”

Caia huffed. “No, it’s not,” she protested, clearly aggravated. “Between the two of us, who’s the one with the trace? Jeez, arrogant ass—”

“Get on with it.”

She exhaled in what Lucien sensed was growing exasperation. “The Council is going to have Nikolai deposed. They want to start sending out a task force against Daylights again. And if they do that—”

“They’ll find out about Marita,” Reuben finished and hissed, “Damn. Okay. Who exactly on the Council is doing this?”

She gulped, and Lucien reached over to soothe her. “All of them.”

“Ah, I see. Well, there’s nothing for it. We just get Nikolai out of there.”

“What do you mean? The Midnights will start attacking again.”

“They’ll just have to. We can’t deal with that and Marita.”

Lucien watched with pleasure as Caia growled down the phone at Reuben. The vampyre didn’t know her that well. “I’ll deal with it. I’ll just do what I was doing before. I’ll send reports to Alfred and the Council.”

“And what about our—”

“We’ll talk later. Warn Nikolai to get his ass out of there.”

She hung up, trembling.

“And what about our—” She’d cut Reuben off for a reason. Something was going on Lucien wasn’t aware of. He’d felt it every time he’d spoken with her in the last day. She had a guilty look in her eye. And it had something to do with the vampyre.

“What’s going on?”

“I thought you would’ve guessed from that conversation.”

“I’m not talking about Nikolai and the Council. I’m talking about you and Reuben.”

She guffawed. “What are you talking about? You’re not suggesting that Reuben and I are …”

He bristled at the implication. “No. But it’s funny that was your first thought. Something I should know about?”

“No,” she snapped, and he almost flinched at the resentment in her voice. “And need I remind you that you reprimanded me like a child for being jealous about Rose. It’s not an appropriate time, remember?”

Damn her for throwing that in his face. “That’s not what I was saying.”

“That’s exactly what you were saying.”

“No, that’s what you said. I was just asking what’s going on. Because you’re clearly hiding something from me.”

Surprised by the sudden silence that descended over the cab of the van, Lucien looked sharply at his mate. She was staring straight ahead, her hands twisting and untwisting the hem of her overlong T-shirt. His heart skipped a beat. Something was going on. And he knew he wasn’t going to like it.

Five minutes later, Lucien was struggling to contain his anger and disbelief.

“Please tell me you’re joking,” he managed hoarsely.

She shook her head, her eyes wide and pleading with him.

What? Is she expecting me to accept this? To understand?

“How the Hades can you even think about doing this?” he bellowed, not caring that it caused her to skitter back in her seat.

“Because I have to. You said before you trusted me to make the right decision.”

“Because I thought you would know that killing innocent people is the wrong decision!” he spat. “You don’t have to do this! How can you … Caia, these are innocent people! You can’t kill innocent people! How can you even—”

“You don’t know they’re innocent!”

He threw her a disgusted look. “Is that your argument? Jeez, Caia … do you even know if they’re innocent? Have you checked out the Midnights’ trace?”

“I haven’t had a chance yet.”

Lucien drew a deep breath. This was Caia. There had to be a reason she would even consider doing this, some reason he didn’t know about. His Caia would never—could never—hurt anyone, unless it was absolutely necessary.

“Why?” he managed quietly, calmly. “Why? There must be a reason.”

“There is. Lucien, Marita will only get more powerful with the trace. If I can get rid of the trace, then she’ll be a much easier target.”

Okay, that was not a good enough reason.

“Is this about the pack? About revenge? Because I already told you the pack is not getting involved in a vendetta. We have to move on.”

“And you can. But I can’t. I’m a part of this, and while I am, I might as well get some justice out of it.”

His fingers turned white on the wheel. “Caia, you have to give me another reason. There has to be another reason. You wouldn’t do this. You couldn’t.” He glanced at her, and he saw her mouth tremble. There was more. There had to be more.

“No. I just want this to be over.”

“So you’re going to kill the Septum? Seven innocent people?”

“Seven against thousands. Do the math, Lucien.”