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.
“Well,” Sebastian was whispering now in case of nosy lykan ears nearby, “I don’t think it would be wise. It would be different if you knew where she was. I mean, they obviously didn’t find her or you wouldn’t have had those visions.”
She nodded, her shoulders slumping. “I don’t want to lie.”
He seemed to understand and he drew her into a hug, his chin resting on top of her head. “No one blames you, Caia, for who you are. How many times do you have to be told?”
She didn’t say anything. It wouldn’t matter how many times they told her she was blameless, she would never believe that. If they had just left her in isolation none of this would have happened.
Seb’s arms tightened around her and she knew before the familiar dark voice said, “Am I interrupting?” that Lucien was standing in the doorway.
She drew out of Sebastian’s reluctant hold and winced. Crap. She didn’t even have to be half-magik to understand Sebastian’s body language. He looked Lucien straight in the eye and kept a possessive arm around Caia’s shoulders. Jeez. She really had to remember to lay off touching Sebastian. It was sending him the wrong message. A little worried, for some unknown reason, she glanced up at Lucien from under her eyelashes. And immediately wanted to flinch back. He looked furious.
Sebastian’s arm was abruptly shrugged off.
“I have news,” she said softly. “But I don’t want Dimitri to know.”
Lucien’s expression changed, his eyes widening in horror. “Jaeden’s not-”
“No,” she reassured quickly, still whispering, “But I think our time is running out.”
He nodded and stepped out onto the porch with them, shutting the door behind him. He brushed past them, perhaps knocking Sebastian back deliberately, and they followed him as he wandered down into the driveway so that they were further from the house.
“Speak.”
Caia drew in a breath. “I had another vision. At school.”
“That’s why you’re both cutting class.”
Trust him to notice that in the midst of a crisis. Caia waved the comment off as if she were batting at a fly. “Lucien, she’s in a bad way.”
“What I don’t get is how you can see Jaeden,” he replied, off topic as far as she was concerned.
“What?”
“Marion said you would be connected to the Midnight Coven, but Jaeden’s Daylight.”
Understanding dawned. Caia had already thought of that and shuddered at her theory. “I don’t think the visions I had before of Jaeden in the cage came from Jaeden. I think they were from Ethan.”
Silence.
“And today I think I was seeing through his eyes as he… well...”
More silence.
Caia bit her lip looking between the two males. They both had paled, forming mirror images, shoulders hunched with their arms crossed over their chests, legs apart. They still didn’t say anything. Oh goddess, they were just as creeped out as she was. Maybe this had finally toppled them over the edge. Until now, there had been no real evidence of her connection to the Midnights. She was just a magik and really a Daylight one at that. But forming some scary mind connection to Ethan... well... it was disconcerting to say the least. “Oh!” She threw her hands up. “For goddess sakes, say something.”
“Does this mean you can trace Ethan to Jaeden?”
Caia glared at Lucien. “You know if I had balls that would’ve really hurt.”
Sebastian snorted at her uncharacteristic comment and Lucien smirked. “I’ll take that as a no then.”
She nodded sharply. “I don’t know what Marion meant about me being able to trace Midnights but I feel nothing. I couldn’t tell you where he or any other Midnight was unless they were right here with us.”
Lucien nodded and then looked back at the house, his eyes narrowing against the sun. Caia’s heart stumbled as she let her gaze wander over his face.
“I’m not telling Dimitri,” he agreed. “They’ve only come back for some more supplies and are heading out into the west. Nothing so far. Telling him this would just disrupt the control he’s managing to maintain during the search. An uncontrolled werewolf is not exactly my idea of a party right now.”
“Especially not one like Dimitri,” Sebastian added, his eyes betraying his anxiety at the thought.
“Exactly. OK.” Lucien turned back, glancing at his watch. “School’s out now anyway so I doubt they’ll question your presence, Caia. Go inside.”
She wanted to protest at his command and then rolled her eyes. He was still the Pack Leader and that would pretty much be his argument if she snapped at him. Instead she nodded, jaw clenched, and muttered goodbye to Sebastian as she slumped off towards the house. As she opened the door she turned to look back at the two wolves. They were standing facing each other, and whatever Lucien was saying was having a decided effect on the younger male. Sebastian’s face paled and his shoulders drooped, his hands now hanging by his sides. About to go back and see if he was OK, Caia was stopped as a force pulled her inside the house.
“Ella?” She winced at the female’s tight grip. The door slammed shut behind her.
“Not thinking of disrupting pack business were you?” Ella mused, a smile tilting her lips, although her eyes were deadly serious as she indicated the driveway with a flick of them.
“Pack business?”
“Lucien needed to speak to Sebastian about something. When your Pack Leader asks you to do something, like say coming into the house and giving him some privacy, you do it.”
“You know even for a lykan your hearing is unnatural.”
“Supernatural, don’t you know.”
Caia smirked but couldn’t shake off her worry for Sebastian. Whatever was going on out there was seriously upsetting him.
“Do you understand then?” Lucien sighed, hating the look in the young male’s eyes. He had always liked Sebastian and had not wanted to tell him what he’d had to today. And the news may make him hate Lucien, but that was something he was just going to have to live with.