Ascended (War of the Covens 3)

“The children told me she found them in their cages in some lab. That Marita appeared and Marion fought her before bringing the children to me via a communication spell. I was just lounging at home when she appeared before me with five children gripping onto her. And then she collapsed. She … couldn’t withstand the energy depletion created by traveling with five other beings.”

Grief marred Saffron’s every word, and Caia shook her head in denial. “No. Take me to her.”

“Caia—” Reuben tried to interrupt.

“No!” she yelled, angry tears blurring her vision.

“She’s gone, Caia,” Saffron whispered, her own tears rolling quietly down her cheeks. “She’s dead.”

6

Compartmentalizing

“I can’t take much more of this man.” Ryder’s grumble reached him from his place on the floor. The Hunter was sitting with his back against the cold brick wall, his knees drawn to his chest and his head tilted back to stare blankly at the ceiling. Lucien wondered if the ceiling was any more interesting than the blank wall he was staring at from his seat on the metal bench at the back of the cell.

Another few hours passed, and yet it could have been days. Their constant worrying over Caia and the pack had filled the cell with so much tension, Lucien was sure one spark would blow the whole place up.

“I can’t hear anyone else down here. Can you?” Lucien asked softly.

“Nope. Not a damn thing.”

Lucien grunted. They had tried to let the change happen, to shift into lykan form numerous times, but there was no getting past the spell cast around the cell preventing them from doing it. This helplessness was sure to drive him crazy. If not that, then the constant images of Caia would. He growled and threw his memory of finding her blood on the car out of his mind.

“Lucien?”

“I’m fine.”

“Uh-huh. Just think about other stuff.”

Despite his dismal mood, he found himself smirking at his friend. “It is scary how well you know me.”

Ryder chuckled. “Nah, it’s just scary how other people think you’re actually hard to read.”

Scowling, Lucien scoffed, “I am hard to read. I’ve perfected being hard to read. If I weren’t, Caia wouldn’t have taken so damn long to come to her senses now, would she?”

“Not to criticize your mate, but she’s kinda dense when it comes to you. I mean … she’s attracted to you for a start.”

“I could say the same thing about Jaeden.”

“When Jae agreed to be my mate, she provided the world with an example of her supreme intellectual and emotional superiority.”

Lucien snorted. “I’d like—”

“Ssh,” Ryder interrupted, gesturing for him to be silent. He jumped to his feet noiselessly.

Immediately Lucien’s own ears perked up, and he heard approaching footsteps. They shared a wary glance just before Marita appeared. His heart, seeming to perceive something he didn’t, pumped loudly in his chest at the sight of her. Usually so together, so coiffed, Marita stood before them somewhat disheveled, her eyes filled with a war of emotions.

“I’ve come to update you,” she informed them crisply, hollowly. “My sister, under your suggestion, found the laboratory. She was … unwilling to reach an agreement with me and foolishly tried to fight me off.” She stopped as if trying to compose herself, and when she looked back at him, he was almost knocked off his feet by the fury he saw there. “She took the children on a suicide mission.”

Ryder tensed. Lucien cleared his throat, hating to ask. “What does that mean?”

Marita hissed like a snake readying to strike. “She did a communication spell with five children clinging to her. I know her destination was her faerie Saffron’s, where, despite much investigation, I’ve never been able to find—treacherous bitch. I know she reached there.” She stiffened and bleakness flashed across her eyes before disappearing altogether. “I know the children survived. I know she died. The spell is too much for any witch or warlock, no matter how powerful.”

What? Was she saying?

“Is …” He shared a brief look of horror with Ryder. “Is Marion dead?”

Marita nodded, her lips pinched cruelly. “Thanks to you.”

His blood boiled. “Thanks to me? Thanks to you! What am I supposed to tell Caia? I will kill you for this! I will—”

His last words were cut off as he was blasted against the wall, his head connecting with eye-watering accuracy on one of the shelving units. He slumped to the floor trying to focus his vision. In all that pain, all he could think about was how devastated Caia was going to be. Marion meant the world to her.

“I don’t care what Caia thinks,” Marita clipped. “She was my sister. This is my pain, not hers! Any thoughts I had of granting mercy to that little perversion of nature you call a mate is gone now. She is the reason our coven is falling apart, that my sister, one of the greatest magiks of our time, killed herself trying to save some low-bred lykan pups!”