Ascended (War of the Covens 3)

Once he had transformed, Caia focused on finding magiks with the fluid. A blasting of fire and magik exploded above her head, and she looked around to see Daylight magiks approaching the battle. Thank goddess. One by one, she took out the witches and warlocks with the liquid, her body bruised and bleeding from the hits they’d managed to land. Her throat was dry from oxygen deprivation from having encountered air and water magiks.

Satisfied, she made to take on another warlock when her neck prickled in warning. A dark feeling crept over her. A sense of unreality descended, and Caia turned slowly.

A flash of black hair on the ground in the distance caught her eye.

No.

Blasting the man in front of her back absentmindedly, Caia stumbled through the fight, her view of the body growing sharper.

No.

Being trampled by fighting magiks and lykans, a naked Lucien lay in the sand, bloody and empty, a hole through his chest where his heart should be, his silver eyes blank as they stared straight into the heavens.

No.

Caia fell upon him, her hand knocking away a vial with a tiny drop of golden liquid. Her hands fluttered over the gaping wound uselessly.

“No.” She shook her head and then grasped his cold face in her hands. “No.”

Caia pressed on his shoulders. “Lucien, wake up,” she whispered and then hissed as rocks smacked against her back, and she sprawled over him. Sobbing, she lifted her face, now bloody from Lucien’s fatal wound, and moved up his body to look into his eyes. He wasn’t in there.

He was gone.

An unbearable pain ripped across her chest.

Something inside her died.

Replacing it was an unforgiving fury.

She screamed with agony as a fire incinerated her insides, traveling from her toes like a snake slithering up her body. It wound its way around her heart and squeezed and seemed to burst the organ into gory pulp. White light blinded her, and the sensation of falling accompanied her scream of death, her soul begging for the destruction of those who had dared to fight them for their right to peace.

33

Laila

It was the whispering that brought her out of unconsciousness. Followed by the pain. The pain was like a harsh, pounding wake-up call. Her eyes flew open with a gasp, and Caia shrunk back from the white of the room.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” a gentle voice soothed, and she felt a cool hand on her forehead.

Caia groaned. This kind of exhausted, “been run over by a truck” feeling was familiar and yet so intense, it was alien too. One by one, faces popped up in front of her. She blinked. Jaeden. Ryder. Laila. Magnus. Marion.

“Come on, now, get back, let her rest,” Ella’s familiar voice called from the bottom of the bed and her pack shuffled backward.

Her pack.

Lucien.

“No, no, no.” She struggled violently with her bedcovers and then with Jaeden as her friend paled and tried to press her back onto the bed.

“Ryder, help,” Jae screeched, and Caia thrashed against them both, too weak to do any serious damage.

“No!” she cried, tears gushing down her cheeks as the image of Lucien lying murdered in the sand flashed through her mind. She didn’t want to be alive if he wasn’t with her. Panic made her hyperventilate, and she struggled to draw breath.

“Someone help her,” Jae pleaded.

“Caia, breathe. Caia … Caia.”

Her heart stopped at the voice, and she drew in a ragged breath, her chest opening. Jaeden smiled at her and moved aside so Caia could see past her into the next hospital bed.

Sitting upright, tucked under his own set of covers, was the most beautiful man she’d ever seen. He wasn’t real. How could he be? Could everyone else see him? Looking through blurry eyes, Caia watched the expressions on the pack’s faces as they glanced from her to Lucien.

“Is he real?” she croaked.

A tear slipped down Jaeden’s cheek and she gave her a wobbly smile. “He’s real.”

There was no stopping her as Caia ripped back the covers and bounded out of the bed and onto Lucien. She collapsed in his arms as her body seemed to lack any real energy. But she was strong enough to return his mammoth hug as they smothered one another with kisses.

“How, how, how?” she mumbled against him, breathing in his wonderful scent.

Lucien’s arms tightened around her, his chest rising and falling rapidly. “Laila.”

Caia stiffened and managed to turn in his arms to find Laila by her bed, Vil standing behind her, protective as always.

“How?”

Laila smiled shyly.

“She’s an Asclepian.” Marion squeezed the magik’s slight shoulder.

Through the haze and confusion, Caia’s jaw dropped. “An Asclepian? I thought they were extinct?” Little Laila had the power to heal and bring people’s souls back from the Underworld? Caia shook the moss out of her brain. “I mean … I thought there were none of you left?”