Ascended (War of the Covens 3)

Laila shrugged. “My family kept our gifts hidden because we knew we would become targets. Not only is it against the law to bring someone back from the dead but it is a much-coveted gift. My family are gone. I’m the only one left.”

“She risked a lot healing me in front of the Daylights,” Lucien said, his voice rumbling against Caia’s chest.

“I couldn’t let you die,” Laila retorted, but her eyes were on Caia. And Caia understood. She meant she couldn’t let him die for Caia. Tears bubbled up again.

“Thank you so much,” she whispered, more grateful than the little magik would ever understand.

“Laila must be protected from now on,” Marion insisted.

Caia bit her lip, trying not to show fear. “No one will harm her for breaking the law?”

“Everything is a mess right now, Caia. There is very little hold for the law.”

“So that’s a no, right?”

“That’s a no. But there will be a lot of people interested in acquiring her.”

Caia felt a primitive growl shudder in her chest. “They’ll have to go through me first.”

Laila beamed, and Marion grinned appreciatively. “Then I think she’ll be fine. Outside the hospital walls there is a world of very shocked, awed, and frightened supernaturals.”

“Frightened of what?”

Lucien huffed, “You.”

Caia’s eyes widened and she gripped Lucien tighter. “Me?”

Jaeden rushed at her. “Caia … you’ve been unconscious for five days.”

“W-w-what?” She shook. Five days? What had happened? Who won? Was the pack all alive?

The questions rocketed through her and as she tried to ask them, they tumbled out in a jumble of nonsense. Lucien stroked her back and Marion spoke again, “When you found Lucien …” The witch shook her head in wonder. “I don’t know what happened. I saw you fall across him and then this white light exploded out of you, along with this inhuman screaming.”

The others nodded, seeming to remember. “I was blasted off my feet. I couldn’t hear or see a thing. And then after a few minutes, the light faded and I could see again. And when I got up … there were no Midnights left. Ash blew into the breeze, whispering by me with Midnight energy. Caia … you killed them all.”

34

Blood Solstice

A week passed during which Caia and Lucien tried to rebuild their energy. Caia often wondered how Lucien was feeling. Did he feel different now? Could he remember the Underworld?

“No.” He’d seemed amused by the question. “I don’t think I was gone long enough.”

After Caia killed the Midnights, a feat she still couldn’t come to grips with, she collapsed, unconscious. The pack scrambled over to them, grieving at the sight of Lucien’s body, when little Laila pushed through them all, dropped to her knees, placed her hands upon Lucien’s chest, and sang.

Marion told her it was the sweetest, saddest song she’d ever heard, and as it filled the air, magik—the likes of which Marion had never felt before—lit up Lucien’s body, giving off an ethereal warmth that eased everyone’s pain. Marion watched in awe as Lucien’s flesh regenerated, his heart reforming, his gaping wound closing, the color returning to his body. And then he gasped for breath before his eyelids slammed closed and he fell into unconsciousness.

Caia found a reason every day to see Laila, somehow needing to be near her, to reassure her she was real and that she was alright. In one act of kindness, she had become one of the most important people in Caia’s life.

As for the pack, they’d been incredibly lucky.

“Luck had nothing to do with it,” Lucien huffed. “We are an exceptionally wily bunch. I knew we could take ’em.”

Caia laughed. It was amazing. Despite some wounds, they’d all returned in one piece, along with Saffron, Reuben, and Vanne.

Alistair MacLachlan and his pack hadn’t been so lucky. Three of them had been killed, some wounded, but when Phoebe came to visit Caia, she reassured her that to them, it had been a great death, and a victory. She hugged Caia, and Caia knew as the Rogue Hunter left her suite that in Phoebe, she had a friend for life.

But the loss Caia felt most keenly was that of Nikolai who had fought his way through the crowd to attack Orina Beketov. Caia was unsure of what damage he may have inflicted on Orina, for like the other Midnights fighting against them, she was gone in the wind.

Nikolai, despite being a powerful earth magik, had perished from Orina’s fire attack. Caia was saddened by his sacrifice, as was Reuben, the magik’s truest friend.

As for the Council and the Center, it was all a little chaotic. After what she’d done on the battlefield, even Benedict was politer to her, although the fear in his eyes made her uncomfortable. She didn’t want anyone to be afraid of her. As for the rest of the Council, they were awed and gratified; Vanne had bet her she would be on the Council in no time. It worried her a little, thinking perhaps Lucien would be upset by the notion—not just Lucien but the entire pack.