Lucien. She had to get to Lucien.
Lucien didn’t know what he was thinking when he had asked Marion to come to his store to discuss what she’d offered to Caia. The witch was like a brick wall and she wasn’t moving.
“I’ve told you I can’t take back my offer because it isn’t my offer to take back.”
He tried not to growl and instead opted for intimidating pacing. “Marion, I thought you were a friend to this pack.”
“I am.”
“Well, how can you possibly think about taking an Alpha’s mate from him?”
Marion heaved a huge sigh and collapsed onto one of the stools that he kept in the workshop. “I told Marita all of this but I have to do what she asked Lucien and... Caia has the right to make her own decisions.”
He knew that. He did. Really. He just hadn’t thought that she would even contemplate leaving him, leaving the pack, once she knew how tightly bound they were. Mates did not leave each other for Gaia’s sake.
But she was leaving him.
Or seriously thinking about leaving him.
Lucien shook his head. He couldn’t believe it. Rage flowed through his veins as thick as the blood it rode and he clung to it desperately. It was better than allowing him to analyze just how hurt he was by her. And you could only be hurt by someone you cared about.
Right now, the last thing on earth he wanted was to care about her.
“I know you care about her, Lucien,” Marion said softly and he snarled, irritated that she could read him so easily. He forgot that magiks did that. Sensed emotions. What crap.
“She’s my mate,” he answered coldly.
“She’s more to you than just a responsibility. I’m not blind.”
He flushed, wanting to hit out at something, and instead turned his back on the witch, trying to control his breathing and his anger. The last thing he needed to do was insult the sister of the Head of the Daylight Coven. Although insulting the Head of the Coven sounded like a good idea right now. Interfering wench.
“You should tell her you have feelings for her. Maybe that’s all she wants.”
Lucien shuddered trying to control himself and he turned back to her, deliberately infusing ice and intimidation into his gaze. “I don’t want to discuss this with you. I just want you to tell your sister where to stick her invitations.”
“Now Luc-”
Scratch, scrape, scratch. Lucien’s ears pricked up at the eerie noise. “Ssh.”
“What?” She frowned.
Lucien shushed her again and listened. There it was again. A scraping noise coming from the front of the store. He strode out of the workshop and stopped.
“What is it?” Marion whispered.
Lucien sniffed and then turned back to the magik, puzzled. “Caia?”
The scratching sounded again followed by a whine, and Lucien was racing to pull open the store’s front door. He watched in silent horror as a blonde wolf limped into the store and collapsed, leaving a trail of blood in her wake.
“Oh my goddess.” Marion fell at her as he stood staring numbly at the sight of his mate bleeding to death on the floor.
“Caia?” he whispered.
“It’s her belly.” Marion’s lips trembled as she turned to look back up at him, her hands covered in Caia’s blood. “She’s lost a lot of blood.”
The copper smell pounded his nostrils like punches knocking him out of his daze and sending his heart into palpitations.
“Caia.” He threw himself down on the floor next to her and looked into green eyes that gazed up at him in fear. She whined, and he ran a comforting hand down her bloodied blonde coat, noting a strange black dried blood around her muzzle.
“What happened to her?” he choked, anger increasing the tempo of his heart.
“Now, Lucien, stay calm,” Marion muttered. “Her wound is bad but it’s healing as we speak.” She stopped and looked up. “Saffron!”
Suddenly the faerie was in the store looking nonplussed until she took in Caia. “Oh my.”
“Saffron, I need you to follow Caia’s trail of blood and see if you can find out what’s happened here.”
The faerie nodded militantly and left quickly.
Lucien looked down at his hands now coated in Caia’s blood and he clenched them into fists. “This is her uncle, isn’t it?” he growled and watched Marion flinch at the sound of the lykan in his voice.
“I told you to stay calm. She needs you to stay calm while I salt the wound closed.”
He nodded and stroked Caia’s head. She whined again and gazed back up at him and all his anger towards her just fell away.
“Caia,” he leaned down to whisper in her ear, while he continued to stroke her soothingly, “It’s OK, querida. You’re going to be OK.”
She growled and flinched as Marion literally poured some kind of salt onto her wound and Lucien had to hold her down so she didn’t snap her jaws at the witch. He hummed low in his throat to calm her and watched in amazement as the salt glowed like fire on a stick of dyn**ite, before it burned out, leaving a closed wound.
He frowned, realizing Caia had stilled beneath him.
“Caia.” He shook her head until Marion placed a hand on his forearm.
“She’s passed out. She’s fine.”
His heart beat ferociously. “She better be,” he threatened.
Marion chuckled. “Why, just five minutes ago I thought you couldn’t care less about her?”
“I didn’t say that,” his snarl of outrage shut her up and he guessed she realized now was not a time to tease him.
“Do you have a blanket?”
Lucien shook his head, not taking his eyes off of Caia. A blanket suddenly appeared over her small furry self.
“It’s for when she comes around. She’ll need to change in order to get proper rest.”
Lucien choked again, not wanting to think about what Caia had just gone through and he hadn’t been there to protect her. “What do you think happened?”
“Well,” Marion sighed gravely, getting to her feet, “Saffron will fill us in but... I can feel something unfamiliar in her energy... ”
“Unfamiliar?”
“Daemon.” Saffron strode through the door, a grimace on her face. “Daemon,” she repeated and then looked down thoughtfully at Caia. “Is she OK?”
“She will be. What do you mean daemon?”
Saffron eyes flicked back and forth between the two of them. “The blood led to the parking lot at the mall, where I found Caia’s car obliterated and turned up on its side. It was cast in magik, Caia’s magik, so I’m guessing she used it as a weapon. Smart girl.”
Lucien couldn’t even process that. Caia had used her car as a weapon? He looked back down at her in awe. Who was this kid? “That doesn’t explain how you know it was a daemon.”
“Well.” Saffron actually looked gleeful. “I found a decapitated daemon several yards from the car. He had a spiked chain link coated in Caia’s blood so I’m guessing that’s how she got wounded. She must have changed into lykan to heal and then literally tore his head off. I’m impressed.” She chuckled. “That girl has some serious attitude.”
Marion was smiling as well. Lucien wanted to hit them both. Caia had just been attacked by a fricking daemon for Gaia’s sake!
“Well,” Marion said briskly, catching his murderous look. “I better head out and clean up the mess. You two get Caia back to the house.”
The throbbing pain in her stomach woke her up with a start. It felt like her lower belly was on fire. “Ow.” She trembled, opening her eyes and reaching for where it hurt, but just as quickly as she moved, her hands were clasped tightly away from her torso.
“Caia, don’t.”
“Lucien?” she asked, wincing at the pain. “It hurts.”
“I know, querida, I know. Marion will be back any time now, I’m sure she can take care of the pain.”
“What happened?”
“You don’t remember?”
Slowly, painfully, Caia peeled her eyes open. She was lying in her bed. Lucien was sitting beside her, her wrists clasped gently in his hands. He had a blood smear on his cheek and his eyes were filled with something she had never seen before.
Lucien was scared.
She tried to reach for his cheek, concerned. “You’re bleeding.”
He just shook his head. “Not my blood.”
“Sss,” she hissed, another rip of pain lancing across her stomach. “Daemon.”
“You do remember.”
Yeah, she remembered alright. The bastard tore her stomach open. She tried to pull at her wrists to inspect her wound but Lucien held firm.
“My stomach, Lucien,” she complained, hating the fear in her voice.
“It’s OK. Marion closed the wound but you’re still weak from blood loss, not to mention burning a fever.”
Caia slumped back against her pillows, exhausted from that little attempt at movement and in a blinding agony that rippled through all her nerve endings. She curled her toes down into the mattress her fingers mirroring the action, as if anchoring into the bed would take away the pain. “Where is Marion? I think I need drugs.”
He chuckled softly, letting go of her hands and tenderly brushing her hair back from her face. She opened her eyes to gaze up at him as he bent over her, and again she was taken aback by the emotion roiling in his silver gaze and off of his body. “She’ll be here soon. She’s cleaning up the mess you made in the mall lot.”
Of course. And it was quite a mess. The Daylight Coven would have her killed if a human happened by the dead daemon and the upturned car.
“I uh, guess you heard about the car,” she whispered sheepishly.
Lucien snorted. “Heard? I saw it. Really, Caia, did you have to destroy the car I gave you? I know you’re mad at me... but it was brand new.”
She cracked a smile and then remembered in the pain that, yeah, she was supposed to be mad at him.
“Ah no.” He shook his head comically. “You smiled, you can’t take that back.”
“It’s my smile, I can do anything I want to.” But she couldn’t stop herself from smiling weakly again. It was nice to have him near.
Quirking an eyebrow, he shifted even closer and leaned over her. “Does that mean that you forgive me?”
“Well...” Caia groaned, “A daemon almost killed me tonight. What you did seems paltry in comparison.”
She had meant it as a joke, but Lucien’s eyes darkened and he drew in a sharp breath. “I nearly lost you.”
Caia didn’t know how to reply to that. It was the first time she had seen him so lost looking... and all because she gotten hurt. As she gazed at him, wishing she could read his mind, Lucien slowly lowered his head and pressed a soft, sweet kiss to her lips. When he pulled back the look of anguish still strained his expression.
“Hey,” she cracked, wincing again at the sharpness in her wound. “No taking advantage of the patient.”
“My thoughts exactly.”