“Do you think it was Marita?”
“She wouldn’t have dared hurt her.” Ryder shook his head in denial.
A darkening beast was uncurling in Lucien’s chest, growing stronger and more furious every minute he stared at the blood on his truck door. Caia had been missing for an hour. She had gone missing after Marion had turned up. The beast roared with bloodlust.
“We better hope she hasn’t,” he ripped out in a voice he didn’t recognize, “Or my muzzle is the last thing she’ll ever see.”
Epilogue - The Deception
Caia’s head throbbed with impossible pain, a pain that shot from the bloody lump on the back of her head down her arms and into her back. She blinked, her eyes adjusting in the darkness of the cold, damp room she now found herself in. She hit up against something hard. As the light filtered into her eyes she realized she was in a metal cage. Bile rose up in her throat, her heart pounding with terror. What had happened? Where was she? Oh goddess, had Marita kidnapped her? A door opened with a burst of artificial light revealing the face of the distinguished man who stepped quietly into the room.
“Who are you?” she asked immediately, her hand wrapping around the bars. It was then she realized that a glow surrounded the cage. Magik. A shield to stop her attacking with her own.
He winced as he looked her over. “He hit you harder than he should have.”
“Who are you? How did I get here?”
“Take a moment, Caia.”
At those words her trace began tingling with its familiar icy vapor and Caia slumped back in disbelief. “Nikolai?” she gasped.
“Well done.” He smiled gently at her, and she pushed trying to feel his intent. Pain exploded in her head. She was too weak from the knock she had taken.
“How?” she croaked.
He stepped aside from the doorway and another figure strode in, a smug smile on his face. “I’d like to introduce you to someone. This is Kirios, Caia.”
Kirios’ dark hair flopped over his forehead in familiar disarray, his pale handsomeness a punch to the gut...
She snarled in impotent fury.
“Reuben.”
The End