Hunted (War of the Covens 1)

“Advised how?”

“By learning from experience. We’ve moved our monthly run up to next Sunday. You will run with us.”

Her heart raced a little faster at the thought. Unlike the pack, she enjoyed the privacy of the change. She had to share her favorite thing with these strangers? With him?

He seemed to understand, his large hand settling on her shoulder in what she guessed was supposed to be a reassuring gesture. It felt a little threatening. “Loners don’t fit well into packs, Caia. I won’t have them in my pack. Especially not you.”

What did that mean?

She was about to ask this but stopped as his “talk” triggered a far more pressing question. “I have to start learning, huh?”

Lucien nodded, countenance implacable.

“Fine. Here’s a question you can answer that Irini wouldn’t.” Caia watched curiously as his expression shifted to guarded. “Why … why did the Hunter pick me? My parents?”

The big lykan heaved a heavy sigh and leaned against the counter beside her, crossing his arms over his chest. Caia tried not to notice the way his muscles rippled with the movement.

“At first,” he began, his eyes not quite meeting hers, “we thought it was an attack on the pack, that we were one of the unfortunates the Midnight Coven had targeted. It was confusing because we’re a small pack. Small packs don’t tend to draw the eye of the Midnights. But we later realized it was a member of the Midnight Coven acting independently. Your mother and father had taken a trip and apparently while on it, they came across a Midnight—the Hunter.

“Recognizing what they were, the Hunter tried to take them out. Your father killed one of the Hunter’s followers, and the Hunter tracked them back to us, and to you. He killed your parents and tried to get to you, but you were well protected. And as you know, he didn’t give up. He came back for you four years later and again, he failed.”

Caia quickly processed this new information. “It doesn’t make sense.”

“Why?” Lucien frowned. “What?”

“Why, when he got to the pack, did he just kill my parents? Surely he would have gone back to the coven and told them about the rest of the pack?”

Lucien shook his head, looking irritated by her questions. “No. He went against the orders of his coven. He would have been reprimanded for his attack rather than rewarded. Besides, the Hunter is called exactly that because he is insane, obsessive. He wanted your parents dead and any trace of them—that would be you—gone, and that was that. There is no rhyme or reason to creatures like him.”

Before she could reply, a bright voice called from the doorway, “Oh, how good it is to be home to a kitchen that’s bigger than a cereal box.” Irini practically crooned as she danced into the room.

“Our kitchen wasn’t that bad, Irini,” Caia mumbled, not only reeling from what Lucien had said but also from having overheard Irini’s conversation with Ella the night before. Irini didn’t know she’d heard, and Caia didn’t want her to. She slid a placid mask over her face.

“Ha. Speak for yourself.” Irini poured herself some coffee. “It was tiny for a girl who was used to … well … this.” She gestured with both hands as she smiled at the large space.

“Glad you’re back.” Lucien chuckled as he held out his own mug to be refilled.

Caia’s mind wandered from the kitchen as brother and sister bantered easily, as if the last eleven years of separation hadn’t happened. She was lost in a mass of whys and hows—furious and relieved at the same time. She was furious to learn that if her parents hadn’t taken some stupid trip away from the pack, they would still be alive; furious that Irini hadn’t told her and saved her years of worrying about the pack … which led her to relieved. She was relieved that her parents were the targets of some weird, persistent hunter, and not a soldier of war sent by the Midnight Coven to wreak havoc and destruction upon their small pack. Boy, if she’d known that for the last eleven years, imagine the hours of sleep she wouldn’t have missed.

She wanted to be angry at Irini—she really did. But it wasn’t in her nature to growl and hiss and spit; neither was it in her nature to hold grudges. And how could she when Irini’s face was flushed with a happiness she’d never witnessed there before? Her eyes bright with what she could only imagine was a new lease on life. Irini looked so young. As if the eleven years had melted away and she was eighteen again.

No, Caia couldn’t be angry with her. Irini was ecstatic to be home. If it hadn’t been obvious before, it definitely was now—she had genuinely been too upset to discuss anything of the past with her young charge.