Hunted (War of the Covens 1)

“Aaaahhheeeeaaaahhh!”

“What the—” Caia jumped to her feet at what sounded like a cat being tortured. Saffron’s energy hit her before she physically appeared, and Caia’s eyes rounded as Jaeden shrieked in outrage, her chair flying away from her. Her body wavered, flickering in and out, as she began muttering something in Greek under her breath, her eyes now a blazing onyx instead of their natural blue.

Before Caia could do or say anything, or even comprehend what was going on, Saffron materialized behind Jaeden and placed a hand firmly on her shoulder. Jaeden slumped and collapsed on the floor with a thud. Saffron’s eyes were onyx, too, as she cursed at the girl she’d just knocked out. She kicked her and Caia cried out to make her stop. She did, catching her breath, her eyes transforming back to ice blue.

“Would someone like to explain what just happened here?” Sebastian whispered, staring in horror at his friend’s unconscious form.

Marion flew into the room, her wild red hair plastered to her head with dark gunk in it. She glared at Saffron. “I’m getting tired of your dramatics, Saffron. My head is burning.”

It was then Caia noticed Saffron was wearing plastic gloves covered in hair dye.

Marion mistook her questioning gaze for the gunk on her head because she looked sheepish. “It never comes out the correct shade of red. I’ve tried all kinds of magik on it, but L’Oréal does it every time. It’s just th—”

“If you are done,” Saffron snapped. She pulled Jaeden’s body off the floor and dumped her into a seat. “Marion, put Hephaestion ropes around this one.”

“Why?” Caia snapped, making a move toward Jaeden. She was blown back by Marion.

“Good grief,” the witch cried before Caia could complain, her attention switching between Saffron and Jaeden. “Dimitri will be devastated.”

“Why?” This time both Caia and Sebastian asked fearfully.

“Caia—” Marion’s face crumpled in sympathy, causing Caia’s heartbeat to speed up, those old butterflies flapping their wings around the pit of her stomach. She looked at Jaeden, now tied to the chair unconscious, and she remembered that unfamiliar trace.

“What’s going on?”

“That’s not Jaeden. That’s a faerie from the Midnight Coven.”

Jaeden tried to contain her sigh of relief as Ethan walked away from her cage. He always came back if he felt her relief and would push the pain to her limits. She’d also learned to suppress the urge to vomit. He enjoyed her fear and pain too much. It spurred him on.

Once the light from his flame disappeared and she could no longer sense him in the dank basement, she shuddered and whined from her fresh burns. The bastard put a spell around the cage that stopped her from changing into a lykan; otherwise he would never have been able to hurt her.

But trapped in her human form, naked as the day she was born, Jaeden was covered with healing wounds that would’ve mended much faster had she been allowed to change. The new burns sliced across her back. He must be in a good mood. When he was angry, he always targeted her stomach, one of her more vulnerable areas as a lykan.

She pulled her knees tighter against her chest, curled in a fetal position, but the movement tightened her back and thus her burns, sending another involuntary whimper into the darkness.

When they first took her—drugged her—she’d woken up in the cage and tried to listen to what was happening. She knew this had to do with Caia. And soon she knew that Ethan was Caia’s uncle. She waited, hoping and praying that her rescue would come soon. Her father would have the entire pack after her once they discovered her gone.

She clung to that hope through the torture and taunting, but as the days passed (or was it weeks?) her hope crumbled. Where was the pack?

And then Ethan, in one of his more sadistic moods, told her about the faerie who’d infiltrated the pack disguised as her.

Now there was only darkness and pain, and the never-ending breath of time. When once she waited hanging on to her hope, she now waited for the moment when Ethan would go too far … and end the agony for good.

21

Realities

Caia watched numbly as Lucien and Dimitri manhandled the faerie who looked like Jaeden. They tried to secure her so she couldn’t pull anything while they took her down to the basement.

“What are they going to do?” she asked bleakly.

Magnus stood by her, eyes blazing with fury and concern. Before he could reply, Caia jumped at the hideous crack of Dimitri’s hand across the faerie’s face. “CHANGE!” he roared at her.

Caia flinched, an unexpected tear rolling down her cheek. Dimitri bristled with a rage she’d never witnessed before.

The faerie spat out blood and glanced anxiously at Dimitri. “I can’t with these ropes on me.”

Lucien, eyes full of sympathy, and anger too, shook his head. “I’m sorry, Dimitri. We can’t take them off her.”