“By leaving me, by leaving the pack?”

Caia nodded. “After Jaeden is home and safe, I’m leaving with Marion.”

Lucien made a choking noise, his hand clenched in his hair in frustration. “Caia, do you not know what this means? This will destroy the pack as we know it. This will lead to a Lunarmorte after my death. The pack will be in disarray.”

Her heart cracked a little at his argument. “Because you can’t have children with anyone but me?”

She didn’t need him to answer and he didn’t. What had she been expecting? Of course his family line was the most important factor here! Not declarations of love. She wasn’t even sure she loved him so why should he say it to her? And would it make her stay? She didn’t even want to contemplate the answering yes that was dying to burrow its way out of the hollowness in her chest.

“I’m sorry, Lucien,” her voice cracked. “I have to put the good of the all before the pack.”

He snorted. “How heroic.”

“Don’t.”

“Don’t what?” His gaze pierced her with his sorrow and disgust. “You’re drunk on your power and nothing else matters.”

Caia flinched. How could he think that? “I guess you don’t know me very well,” she whispered.

Lucien chuckled, low and incredulous, and when he looked at her again his eyes were flat and emotionless. He had never looked at her like that before. “I guess I don’t. But you don’t have to worry about me interfering in your plans. The pack means everything to me and I won’t have anything to do with someone who puts it last. I don’t want a mate like you. Not ever.”

A fierce, sharp pain throbbed in her chest.

After a moment of gazing at those blank eyes, Caia numbly turned from him, pulled his shirt carefully over her head and replaced it with Sebastian’s discarded Killers t-shirt. When she turned back, Lucien remained like stone, his eyes not even flickering over her change.

“We have one thing left in common, Lucien. And that’s getting Jaeden back. Can you do this one thing with me?”

He nodded sharply, militantly, and resumed his Alpha mode. “I’ll call the others in.”

His heart was beating ferociously and he hoped the others couldn’t hear. As they sat in the motel room going over their plans Lucien almost sweat with the exertion it took to remain cool and aloof. The others were all aware of the tension in the room, of the cool politeness he was showing Caia. He could feel Ryder’s worried gaze and tried to shrug off his friend’s concern.

It was over.

He couldn’t believe it. For most of his life he had fought the fact that his dad had taken away his choices and given him to Caia like a toy. But then his father had died and he knew he had to protect the pack at all costs, even if that meant becoming mate to a half-lykan, half-magik young girl who had no attachments in this world.

He hadn’t expected to fall in love with her.

And now he hated her for being able to walk away so easily when he felt as if his world was ending.

Lucien tried to concentrate on the plans to get Jaeden back. Jaeden who was the sweetest, kindest young female in the pack; Jaeden who loved the pack, who would do anything for the pack; who had been taken because of a young half-lykan, half-magik who would sooner have glory than give a flying fuck for the pack! Jaeden deserved his concentration. She didn’t deserve to be put on the back burner while his hands still itched to claw the life out of Sebastian as he stroked Caia’s arm comfortingly. Was she in love with the young lykan boy? Was that why she was leaving?

“What do you think, Lucien?”

He quickly looked up at Ryder, ashamed that he didn’t know what he had said. “About what?”

Ryder sighed. “A quick bite before we go?”

Oh good, he hadn’t missed anything important.

“Sure.” He nodded.

Jaeden, he clenched his fists. It’s all about Jaeden.

28 - Lunarmorte

They decided to leave Sebastian’s car at the motel and take only Lucien’s truck. He drove with Ryder and Aidan up front beside him. Caia sat in the truck bed with Sebastian and Christian, enjoying the wind that tangled with her hair and beat against her face. Lucien hadn’t spoken a word to her that he hadn’t needed to utter. Hate she could deal with. It was an emotion. It meant he cared enough to at least do that. But the blank indifference in his gaze was like a knife cutting her into pieces. She had thought she hadn’t known who she was before she came back to the pack. The pain of that was nothing compared to this new self-destruction of what could have been.

“We’ll get her, Caia, don’t worry.” Sebastian drew her into his side, misinterpreting her silence.

She glanced up at him, and then at Christian who twirled his wedding band around and around on his finger. His face was drawn and anxious, his eyes incredibly sad. He looked so exhausted.

“If we get her back,” Christian suddenly spoke quietly, “It doesn’t change what’s happening here. What we’ve decided to ignore.”

“What do you mean?” Sebastian whispered in confusion.

“I mean we’ve been happy to hide ourselves away, protected by Marion. But while we’ve been doing that how many other brothers and fathers and husbands have had to hunt down their loved ones... or bury them... or die dishonored because they failed those under their protection,” he choked and Caia knew he was filled with as much guilt over Jaeden’s predicament as she was. He looked up at Caia now, his blue eyes, so like Jaeden’s, burned with determination. The tension rioted throughout the entire truck. They were all listening to Christian’s words. “This isn’t just about us anymore. You’re the reason we even have a lead on my sister. And if we find her, Caia, if we save her, then that’s because of you. You can’t just let power like that go to waste.” His eyes flicked towards Lucien who had visibly tensed. Caia began to wonder if the others had been eavesdropping on her and Lucien’s argument. “You have to do what you can to bring the Midnights under control and end this war. Even if it means leaving the pack.” Yes they had been eavesdropping. “I for one wouldn’t blame you.”

A single tear rolled down her cold cheek. “Thank you,” she whispered and he nodded before turning away, closing his eyes to the wind.

So maybe she had destroyed the person she could have been for the pack. But Christian was right. Leaving the pack wouldn’t take away who she was, it would just change what she was going to be... and maybe for the better for everyone.

When the icy sensation she had now come to know as Ethan’s was crawling through her skin like tiny bugs, Caia made Lucien pull over. They sat on a road that ran through woodland, and like a virtual tour in her head she could see that one mile to their left, through thick trees, past a small creek and a deer that chewed casually on foliage, was a house that was built like a large shack. The house itself was L-shaped and to the rear, where they would enter from the woods, was a small porch door guarded by an energy she could now put down to being a daemon. They would be safe from the front of the house where another daemon they would have to take care of stood. Caia concentrated and walked through the back door and into the home. It was dark, stark and dismal with the distasteful residue of Midnight magik in every corner. The sitting room with its beat up sofas and broken television was empty. Caia strolled past it, checking out the two bedrooms that were also empty. Finally she turned the corner and walked into the large kitchen. The floor in the center was completely devoid of furniture, the kitchen itself consisting of plain white cupboards and counters running the outskirts of the room. But she wasn’t interested in that. She turned and walked through the pantry door and to the end of that room to pull open the door that would lead her to the basement. She inhaled and could smell Jae even on her virtual tour. To her surprise the energy she recognized as Ethan’s was merely residual. He wasn’t home.

Coming back to herself, Caia glanced at the males who waited expectantly by the side of the truck.

“There are two daemons.” She nodded. “One at the back, one at the front. We’re going to enter from the back, so the daemon there will be the trickiest to take out without alerting the other one. Ethan’s not there. But Jaeden still is.”

Christian drew in a breath of relief. “So all we have to do is deal with two daemons and we have Jaeden home free.”

Caia nodded. “If we move quickly. I suggest that you,” she gestured to Christian, “Sebastian, Aidan and Ryder all change. Lucien and I will remain in human clothes to get Jaeden out.” She glanced up at Lucien to see if he agreed.

Despite looking annoyed that she had taken control, he nodded.

“Good. Now let’s talk strategy... ”

Once they had formulated their plans, the four males changed and Caia and Lucien began walking into the woods. They said nothing to one another, but the tension remained thick around them. Turning, as the woods whispered behind them, Caia smiled gently at the four large lykans who padded towards her, sniffing the ground as they went. Sebastian, tawny and beautiful, padded over to her, brushing his face against her leg affectionately. She patted him and ignored the ever growing coolness emanating from Lucien.

“No heroics,” he said between clenched teeth. “In and out. I mean it.”

“Of course.”

A quarter of a mile from the house they went into stealth mode, moving so quietly no one could hear them. Hopefully, that included the daemon that they were closing in on. Caia kept checking ahead of them to make sure there still was only the two of them. Nothing had changed.

And then they were there, hiding by the trees and peering out into the clearing where the house sat, a large daemon identical to the one she had killed stood guard at the back door. She felt a tingle across her now almost completely gone scar at the thought of that bloody fight. The taste of his disgusting blood still made her want to gag.

Poor Aidan and Ryder, she winced, thinking of the plan. And just like that, Aidan sprang from her left a few yards away, and launched through the air. He landed a mere few feet from the daemon who gaped in amazement and had little time to respond before Aidan pounced again, his jaw ripping into the daemon’s jugular. His brother was seconds behind him, clawing his way up the daemon’s struggling body, ripping in to any part of it he could find before sinking his own teeth into the other side of its neck. The death was quiet and sickening, neither lykan willing to stop their attack until, like Caia had done, the daemon’s head rolled from its body.