“Alexa,” she said, grabbing the lykan by the arm and hauling her into the ladies’ toilets. She kicked at the stall doors to make sure there was no one in the room with them and turned back to Alexa only to be confronted by a scared female. Caia rolled her eyes. “Relax. I’m not going to hurt you.”

Alexa’s upper lip curled and she bent her knees, lowering her body into a defensive stance. “What do you want then?”

“An answer.”

She snarled but Caia wasn’t fooled. She could sense the fear rolling off of her and, sadistically, felt a little good about it.

“Did you sleep with Lucien or not?”

This visibly surprised Alexa and she straightened from her stance to cross her arms over her ample chest. She huffed in amusement. “So that bothered you, huh? I thought that was why I was blasted across the classroom but I couldn’t be sure. Well,” she shrugged her shoulders elegantly, “You should really put that to rest, honey, because there is no way on Gaia’s green earth that a tainted being such as yourself could ever be Lucien’s mate.”

Caia tried not to flinch at the insult. She was actually proud of herself - she really, truly had her powers under a lot more control. “Just answer the question.”

“Yes.” Alexa smirked. “Yes, I slept with Lucien.”

The lie swelled out of her skin and settled into a smile on Caia’s face.

“What are you grinning at?” Alexa snapped.

“You’re lying. I can feel it.”

“What?”

Caia inhaled deeply and gave the lykan one last sweet smile before turning out of the door with a, “Pathetic,” as she sailed out of the ladies, feeling a little lighter than she had in days.

23 - Duplicity

Ethan was furious. More than that, he was anxious. Xylena hadn’t called in when she was supposed to and, without what should have been his right by birth, he couldn’t feel out her trace to see where she was, or if she still even was. He tried not to panic. He had royally pissed her off last time they had spoken and perhaps this was her shallow attempt at getting back at him. No. He would give her until tomorrow. If there was still no word then, he would have to change the plans a little.

He yanked at his hair in frustration and then blew the television set up without thinking. Damn. There had to be a more constructive way to deal with his fury.

Oh yes, he smiled evilly, getting to his feet. There was.

The smell of fear and sweat hit him before he even reached the bottom of the stairs in the basement. His own personal punching bag. Sometimes he just liked to come down in the dark, when she couldn’t see or feel him, and watch her suffer. It soothed his pain. Yes, her spirit was waning every day. He chuckled, thinking about the uncontrolled rage that would greet him when the lykans found their filthy female in such a twisted mess. They would get stupid and he would get revenge.

“Morning, Jaeden!” he called out as he slithered towards the cage.

Caia had been feeling better after her confrontation with Alexa. Not only had the knowledge that she was half-witch, half-lykan boosted her confidence rather than drained it, but the heavy raincloud that had been hanging over her heart had cleared up a little: that is the corner that belonged to her Pack Leader.

She might as well admit that she had forgiven him for keeping her heritage a secret. The pack had no way of knowing who she was going to be since the last time they had seen her, or how in fact she was going to react to her magik. Lucien had just been doing what he did best: protecting his pack. But since then he had made it perfectly clear that she was just as much a part of the pack, and that he didn’t hold who her mother was against her. It meant a lot, considering none of the pack, except for those closest to Lucien and his family, had visited the house since, and the usual pack run had been cancelled due to Jaeden’s kidnapping. She knew for a fact that Yvana still hated her and now she could understand why.

You look like your mother.

Yeah, definitely not the greatest thing ever… being the spitting image of the snake that had killed a few of the most beloved members of a small pack. If Yvana hated her then she was pretty sure there were others who were only civil to her for Lucien’ sake.

For that she was grateful to him.

And now she knew with absolute certainty that he hadn’t kissed her and then went off and had sex with another female. So what did that mean? That he meant to kiss her? Unlike Sebastian who was so open his emotions were pretty much a neon sign blinking in his aura, Lucien was good at masking how he felt. Yeah, now that the pack were slowly finding out that one of her abilities was being able to sense surface emotions, they had all gotten good at strapping them down and shutting her out. Caia had, however, felt that Lucien at least cared about her, but then she had felt that same stirring feeling from him when it was directed at other lykans. What use was being a magik if you couldn’t even tell if the guy you like liked you back?

These wicked, girlish musings had been progressing into mush after lunch and she barely paid attention to her classes. She was kind of disgusted with herself actually.

Mooning over a guy when she had a war on her hands.

It didn’t stop her mooning, though.

It wasn’t until the last hour of the school day when said mooning was brought to an abrupt halt by an intense pain ricocheting behind her eyes. She hissed loudly and slammed back in her chair. Feeling the stares of some of her classmates, she quickly righted herself and pretended nothing had happened. But what the hell had happened?! The lingering nausea from the pain was hard to control. She took a few deep breaths, praying she wasn’t going to be sick. Just as she was beginning to relax another bout of lancing pain shot through her head.

“Aah,” she whimpered quietly, slapping her hand to her eyes.

“Caia, are you alright?”

She managed to push her eyes open and through the blur of tears saw she had captured the teacher’s attention, as well as everyone else’s.

“I’m not feeling well,” she managed.

“No, you don’t look it.” The click-clack of the teacher’s heels grew closer. A gentle hand helped ease her out of her chair. “Let’s get you to the nurse.”

She shook her head adamantly. The last thing she needed was the nurse. “No. I just need a minute. Can I get a bathroom pass?”

The teacher clucked her tongue. “Oh, I don’t know, Caia. You’re very pale.”

“I always am,” she whispered weakly, and then realized she had better stop clinging to the teacher’s arm or she would definitely get sent to the nurse’s office. She straightened. “I just a need a moment. I promise.”

“OK.”

After the teacher had let her go she began heading towards the nearest toilets to pull herself together. Then the pain, ten times intensified, blasted her head, and with it her body, against the lockers in the hallway. She wasn’t even aware of smacking the back of her skull against them or sliding to the floor. What she was aware of was the icy cloying she had felt on the faerie who had pretended to be Jaeden, and with it disrupted images of blood and a horror-filled eye. The eye was a familiar dark blue.

Caia snapped her eyes open breathing rapidly, glad to be alone in the halls. And then the panic set in, and tears of frustration and anger began pouring down her cheeks. Angry at her own weakness and damnable habit of crying she swiped at the salty streams with enough force to leave red splotches. Once they were gone, however, another set waterfalled over her lids.

“Jaeden,” she whispered in agony.

Jae was being tortured again. Right now. As Caia lay there in a useless lump of girlish hysterics, Jae was in extreme physical pain. But what terrified Caia the most was the bleak numbness she had felt swelling out of her.

If they didn’t get to her soon it wouldn’t matter if they found her breathing or not.

They would be bringing back a dead lykan.

Cutting class was nothing to Caia’s mind. The world had shifted enough on its axis for such things as war, torture, and imminent death to put perfect attendance on the back burner. After giving herself a good talking to, Caia had scrambled to her feet and had gone after Sebastian. He was in Shop and had managed to sneak out easily enough.

“What’s happening?” he finally asked as they slid into his car.

“It’s Jae,” she whispered, choking on the name. “She’s... it’s getting worse.”

His hands tightened on the steering wheel, knuckles going white with rage. “What’s happening to her?”

“Believe me, Sebastian, you don’t want to know.”

“Yes I do,” he snapped.

Caia drew a breath, grabbing either side of her seat as he whirled them out of the parking lot. “You might want to cool it or we’ll never make it to my house.”

After he eased on the accelerator, Caia explained to him what she could of the images she had seen.

“And you’re sure that it definitely means Jae’s being-” he cut off, flinching. The thought of a sweet girl like Jaeden being subjected to anything as horrifying as torture was just too unbearable to voice out loud.

“Yes. It’s not dreams. I don’t know how or why I know with such certainty, but I do.”

“I believe you. I wish to Artemis I didn’t, but I do.”

They remained in tense silence until they pulled into Lucien’s driveway. Sebastian exhaled, “Dimitri and the others are back.”

Caia didn’t even wait for him to shut the engine off. She was out of the car and rushing towards the house with him on her heels.

He caught up to her just as she was about to open the door. His hand gripped her wrist almost painfully.

“What?” She whirled on him, trying to pull out of his grasp.

Sebastian looked pained, his eyes flicking from hers to the house. “Are you going to tell them what you saw?”

Dimitri. He would go ballistic at this kind of news.

“Oh.” She heaved a sigh. “I didn’t think.”

They stood for a moment in silence.