“You don’t believe me but it’s already begun. I am half-Midnight and yet I stand and fight with Daylights, I stand and fight with two other Midnights who are willing to die for us.”
“And they will!” Someone screamed out at her in the distance.
Ignoring the sickness that roar encouraged, Caia forced herself on. “You don’t believe our world can exist in peace but the trace that bound us to the war is gone. And after today… so will the war itself be!”
War cries of support and growls of anticipation battled against roars of hate and disdain. Caia turned her back on the Midnights, showing them she was unafraid of them, and walked ‘calmly’ back to her spot on the front line. Her insides felt as if they had all snapped apart.
Lucien nudged her leg and she ran her hands through his pelt in thanks.
A rumbling sounded in the distance as a first wave of daemons began moving as one towards the Daylights.
“Faeries!” Alfred cried from the back. “Take out those daemons!”
A thundering exploded in Caia’s ears as the faeries leapt forward as one. Their large paws pounded into the ground propelling them forward at awesome speed, their muzzles drawn back, their eyes focused on their enemy. Caia’s heart raced in her chest knowing Saffron was among them.
“Magiks on the left flank move forward.”
The awe of the beauty of the faeries race across the beach, the blur of colors, momentarily made Caia forget what their goal was. And then, as she had known they would, three hundred yards from their target the leading faeries, many of whom were leopards, shifted as smoothly and as wondrously as a waterfall. The ground shook under their feet and what sounded like trumpeters deafened Caia as they turned from graceful feline into over-sized elephants and massive rhinoceros’ with lethal tusks. A cry rose among the Midnights but they weren’t quick enough to defend the daemons who were crushed beneath their feet. Some of them managed to scamper out of the way and attempted to clamber onto the shapeshifters to pierce them with their weapons. They were merely shaken off and trampled underfoot. Behind those faeries leapt those still in cat form. They launched around the mass of bodies and huge mammals to attack the Midnight faeries behind the daemons.
An order rose from the Midnight Council and faeries in the front line moved into help while the magiks that had stood to the far right closed ranks, covering the gap made in the line.
She watched on in horror as screams and whines rent the air as cats fought cats, and vultures whooped onto elephants and rhino’s, pecking at their eyes to blind them. Even from her position she could see blood flowing in the sand.
“Vampyres!” Alfred bellowed. “Front and second line! Move forward!”
As the vampyres sped off in a blur of movement, led by Reuben, Caia felt the earth behind her tremble as the magiks who had guarded at the back of her closed in, in front of the Council. The vampyres were in among the battle in no time and the urge to throw up grew greater as she watched the mass of struggling bodies. Most of the elephants and rhinos had disappeared in the crowds. Caia assumed they were either wounded or found fighting as a cat more efficient. When the magiks guarding the Midnights front line suddenly moved in on the battle sparks of fire and cascades of water crashed through the air onto the scene. Caia felt the change in the atmosphere as air magiks began to fight; she watched as huge rocks came out nowhere and crushed the Daylights underneath them as earth magiks triumphed.
It all seemed like moments but Caia knew she had been standing shivering with terror for a long time.
“Lykans!” Alfred screamed. “Take out those magiks!”
As the wolves rushed across the sand Caia morphed instantly into her own wolf self and ran with them. The sand didn’t kick up around them as they sprinted and the ground acted as a wonderful springboard for their flight. The air rushed by in fragile lightness and Caia realized just how perfect the spellcasters had made this terrain for them. As lykans collided into the fold, tearing magiks who screamed in outrage, gore and body parts flying, clamping jaws on necks sending spurts of blood splattering, Caia changed. Instantly she had to put up a shield as rocks and earth shattered against it. She caught the eye of the magik who had targeted her and narrowed her eyes, flooding his lungs with water. He gasped and fell to the floor. At that she turned, pulling witches and warlocks off of lykans and faeries with her magik, dousing vampyres who had been set on fire, rescuing faeries by sending up shields. She was battered and targeted, exhausted by her need to defend not only herself but others, while being on the offensive at the same time.
Magik came out of nowhere and Caia felt her lungs squeeze as they filled with water. She fell to her knees, grasping at her throat as a woman approached her with victory in her eyes. There was a blur of movement and suddenly the water dissipated and she could breathe. Reuben stood before her with the woman’s head in his hands, her body already decomposing on the sand.
“You’re welcome.” He grinned and then was off into the fight at warp speed.
Her eyes took in a sight she would never forget. The ground swam with blood and pieces of supernaturals. Insides spilled out onto the sand, limp hands trailing into the gore. Blank eyes of Daylights and Midnights alike looked up at her as she stumbled over their bodies. The noise of the battle grew muffled as she dove in front of a tiger, a bolt of fire heading towards it. Her water hit the fire and the magik cancelled out. The tiger growled and sprang at the attacking warlock, its claws slicing Caia’s arm as it swiped at the enemy. Caia hissed back a growl at the stinging agony and looked down at the bleeding, oozing claw marks on her arms. Caia turned as the warlock’s muffled screams reached her ears. She couldn’t imagine how painful his death had been if a ‘scratch’ like this hurt so badly. Dazed, Caia morphed her hand into wolf and back and then spun around. Immediately her heart exploded in her chest.
No!
Her eyes darted from witch to warlock as one by one they pulled out vials of golden liquid and threw it into the air, controlling it with their magik as it descended on the nearest lykan they could find. A girl shuddered back into human form, followed by an older female, followed by Alistair MacLachlan. Stunned, she stood there unable to comprehend that the fluid discovered by Pierre Du Bois had found its way into Midnight hands again and she hadn’t known about it.
A young lykan girl went up in flames. Caia roared in disbelief and threw up her hands, a tidal wave appearing among the battle. Like last time she tried to avoid Daylights but was afraid some were soaked despite it. The wave crashed down on two of the offending Midnights and Caia rushed the water into their mouths. She saved Alistair, and the Alpha began making his change back into wolf – Caia put a shield up around him to let him do so. Once he had transformed she focused on finding magiks with the fluid. A blasting of fire and magik exploded above her head and Caia looked around to see Daylight magiks approaching the battle. Thank goddess. One by one she took out the witches and warlocks with the liquid; her body bruised and bleeding from the hits they had managed to get past her; her throat was dry from oxygen deprivation from having encountered air and water magiks.
Satisfied she made to take on another warlock when her neck began to prickle in warning. A dark feeling crept over her. A sense of unreality descending and Caia turned around slowly.
A flash of black hair on the ground in the distance caught her eye.
No.
Blasting the man in front of her back absentmindedly, Caia stumbled through the fight, her view of the body growing sharper.
No.
Being trampled upon by fighting magiks and lykans, a nak*d Lucien lay among the sand, bloody and empty. A hole burst through his chest where his heart should be, his silver eyes blank as they stared straight up into the heavens.
No.
Caia fell upon him, her hand knocking away a vial with a tiny drop of golden liquid. Her hands fluttered over the gaping wound uselessly.
“No.” She shook her head and then grasped his cold face in her hands. “No.”
Caia pressed on his shoulders. “Lucien, wake up,” she whispered and then hissed as rocks smacked against her back sending her over him. Sobbing, she lifted her face, now bloody from Lucien’s fatal wound, and moved up his body to gaze into his eyes. He wasn’t in there.
He was gone.
An unbearable pain ripped across her chest.
Something inside her died.
Replacing it was an unforgiving fury.
She screamed with agony as a fire incinerated her insides, travelling from her toes like a snake slivering up her body. It wound its way around her heart and squeezed and seemed to burst the organ into gory pulp. White light blinded her, and the sensation of falling accompanied her scream of death, her soul begging for the destruction of those who had dared to fight them for their right to peace.
33 – Laila
It was the whispering that brought her out of unconsciousness. Followed by the pain. The pain was like a harsh, pounding, mashing wake up call. Her eyes flew open with a gasp and Caia shrunk back from the white of the room.
“It’s OK, it’s OK,” a gentle voice soothed her and she felt a cool hand on her forehead.
Caia groaned. This kind of exhausted, ‘been ran over by a truck’, feeling was familiar and yet so intensified it was alien too. One by one faces started popping up in front of her eyes. She blinked. Jaeden. Ryder. Laila. Magnus. Marion.
“Come on now, get back, let her rest,” Ella’s familiar voice called from the bottom of the bed and her pack shuffled backwards.
Her pack.
Lucien.
“No, no, no.” She started struggling violently with her bed covers and then with Jaeden as her friend paled and tried to press her back onto the bed.
“Ryder, help,” Jae screeched and Caia thrashed against them both, too weak to do any serious damage.
“No!” she cried, tears gushing down her cheeks as the image of Lucien lying murdered in the sand flashed through her mind. She didn’t want to be alive if he wasn’t with her. Panic made her hyperventilate and she struggled to draw breath.
“Someone help her,” Jae pleaded.
“Caia, breathe. Caia… Caia.”
Her heart stopped at the voice and she drew in a ragged breath, her chest opening up. Jaeden smiled at her and moved aside so Caia could see past her into the next hospital bed.
Sitting upright, tucked under his own set of covers, was the most beautiful man she had ever seen. He wasn’t real. How could he be? Could everyone else see him? Looking up through blurry eyes Caia watched the expressions on the pack’s faces as they glanced from her to Lucien.
“Is he real?” she croaked.
A tear slipped down Jaeden’s cheek and she gave her a wobbly smile. “He’s real.”
There was no stopping her as Caia ripped back the covers and bounded out of the bed and onto Lucien. She pretty much collapsed in his arms as her body seemed to lack any real energy. But she was strong enough to return his mammoth hug and pepper kisses on him whenever she could get around the kisses he peppered her with.
“How, how, how?” she mumbled against him, breathing in his wonderful scent.
Lucien’s arms tightened around her, his chest rising and falling rapidly. “Laila,” he breathed.