She thought he loved Rose? She had moved on? She thought he had moved on? How could she think that after everything...?

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.

He had said those awful words to her in the motel room before they rescued Jaeden. Could she really have believed he had meant them?

Yes.

Shit.

Marita – 1, Lucien – 0

She couldn’t breathe. The pain was that bad. She couldn’t cry. The heat of her anger had dried them all up.

Lucien loved Rose.

A brittle disquiet had captured her body as she sat perched on the side of her bed. She could feel herself shutting down, her walls shooting up, locking her soul in and the world out. A deep retreat was in progress and she shivered, feeling the icy blockade settle around her.

In that moment she loathed her magik blood. A lykan would be tearing the room to shreds, expelling their ire from their body like sucking poison from a snake bite. Half-heartedly she turned to the lamp that sat on her bedside table and lifted it slowly with her magik. With a flick of her eyes she sent it speeding into the fireplace and took a momentary satisfaction in the way its destruction caused the flames to flare up and out, displaying their anger in the way she wanted to. But there would be no white heat from this pain, no involuntary destruction of property. This was a kind of suffering she wanted to hide from.

With a shuddering breath the tears began to fall.

So it had happened. She had fallen in love with Lucien. Maybe she had always been in love with him. How could she love him when he didn’t love her back? How could he stand to be around her when she was the reason he couldn’t have children with the beautiful red-head?

It felt like she sat there for hours, broken porcelain badly glued together. She could either fall deeper inside herself to escape the thought of Lucien with Rose, or she could fall deeper into a problem she might be able to fix. Laila’s image wavered in her mind. She had gone to Lucien to finally confide in him, to ask him to help her get Laila out, to tell him that after they helped the MacLachlans she was leaving the Center, that she was no longer fighting for Marita. The beginnings of a plan were forming in her mind - it wasn’t much, but so far it was all she had. It was all Laila had. It was all the next generation had if she was going to be able to enforce the beginning of the end of a millennia-old racial war.

“Caia?”

She bolted upright at the sound of Mordecai on the other side of her door, and jumped off the bed, flicking her wrist to replace the lamp she had broken, wiping her hand across her face to glamour away any evidence of her crying.

“Mordecai,” she greeted him brightly and gestured for him to come into the room. He regarded her with an odd little smile as he took a seat.

“Are you alright?”

“Of course.”

“Marita said you visited the Midnight.”

Caia’s smile tightened. “Yeah. I was curious.”

He grinned back at her. “I wondered what had happened in the lecture hall. I keep forgetting you’re the true Head of the Midnights.”

“I’ve been hearing that a lot.”

“Well, I just came up to fill you in on training today.”

Caia nodded and listened patiently as he explained the strategies that had been utilized in the woodland simulator.

“I’ve never worked with Anders before but he’s an extremely good leader.” Mordecai laughed as if remembering something. “Of course, he and Marion have been placed in charge of the taskforce but Phoebe has other ideas. I don’t think her and Anders like each other very much.”

“Sounds like I missed some drama.”

He nodded, and then seemed to grow quiet.

Eventually…“Caia...?”

She frowned. This was the first time the self-assured magik looked uncomfortable and unsure. “Yeah?”

“The simulator... well... after your run in it the other night, there was some energy picked up around a certain oak?”

She flushed. Oh dear. How to explain that one?

“I uh...”

“Was it you?”

There was nothing to do but be honest. And she knew she could trust Mordecai.

“Yes. I’m so sorry. I just... got angry. And killed it. I replaced it, though.” She threw him an imploring smile.

Mordecai grinned back at her. “Yes, you did.”

Caia watched as he took his glasses off to rub a smudge from the lens. “Was it deliberate?”

“No.”

“Cy, I know what you did to Ethan.”

“Do you, ‘cause I don’t,” she quipped, but he only smiled at her like he pitied her.

“The tree? Was it an unfortunate victim of your anger over Rose and Lucien?”

Oh crap, this was even worse than she thought.

“Maybe,” she hissed through clenched teeth.

“Does that happen a lot, when you get angry? Can you not control it?”

How to explain something this weird?

“It just happened with Ethan and the tree. And once with a female from my pack. It’s like a white heat that just explodes out of me. But I think I’m beginning to control it. With Alexa, the girl from my pack, I just blew her across the room because I would never hurt a member of my pack intentionally. With Ethan… he was going to kill Lucien, and I knew he was evil so I guess it made whatever it is stronger. Marion thinks that it’s something to do with my water element. The tree... well my focus was on it when I let myself get mad enough about the Rose situation.”

He nodded. “So you don’t think it’s a problem?”

“No. I was going to talk to you about it, but I think I’m getting a handle on it now.”

He appeared uncertain, as if he had more questions he wanted to ask. Instead he settled back to ask why she had blown Alexa across the room. Soon she was telling him all about the pack.

“They sound great.” He grinned. “I wish I could meet them.”

“Maybe you will.”

“Jaeden sounds like a riot.”

A feeling of melancholy swept over her. She wondered how Jaeden was, and if Ryder had managed to get her back to the pack safely.

“She was.”

“Don’t you mean is? She sounds tough, Caia. She’ll be alright.”

“I hope so. What she went through was unbelievable.”

Mordecai shuddered, his face twisted in sympathy. “What did he actually do to her?”

She shook her head. That was nobody’s business but Jaeden’s, and no matter how much she liked Mordecai, she wasn’t going to give him the sordid details.

“I’d rather not talk about it.”

He snapped back in his seat looking abashed. “Oh, of course. I didn’t mean to pry.”

“I know.” She smiled kindly.

He sighed and stood up. “You look exhausted. I’m going to leave and let you get some sleep so that you’re prepared for the training tomorrow.”

Yeah, like she was going to sleep with Lucien, Rose and Laila rattling around in her mind.

And then there was Vilhelm.

Don’t forget Vilhelm.

Because first chance she got, she was going to find that young magik and see how he felt about Laila’s imprisonment.

12 - Homecoming

“He knows you’re OK, better than OK, actually, so why isn’t he high tailing it back to the city? I thought he was your little gang’s leader?”

He waited for her answer as they passed the sign welcoming them into town. Ryder was P-O’d big time. Not only had he had to sit through breakfast with that chump, Reuben, while he ooohed and aahhed over Jae, the idiot couldn’t take a hint, and had travelled behind them all day, stayed at the same hotel, and had taken a room next to theirs. Ryder flexed his hand on the wheel. That was when things had started to get really irritating. Reuben wasn’t happy that Jae was sharing a room with Ryder, and had gotten even more unhappy when Ryder had politely (well, maybe not politely) told him that Jae was going to be his mate. Jaeden explained the situation, assuring Reuben that this was what she wanted. Hearing her say that had gone a long way to smoothing Ryder’s ruffled fur.

His calm disposition lasted all of five seconds.

Reuben had insisted on staying the night in their room so he and Jae could talk and reminisce. Come morning, the vamp had decided he wanted to come back with them to visit the pack. Ryder still didn’t get why.

“Stop being condescending,” Jaeden muttered, her head turned away from him as she gazed out of the passenger window of his truck.

“I’m not.”

“Yeah, you are. Why are you so jealous? You know, if I wanted to be with Reuben I would have done it back when we were in our ‘little gang’ together.”

“I’m not jealous. I just don’t get why the guy is still hanging around. Why he wants to meet your family.”

When he was met with silence he threw her a longer glance before turning his attention back to the road. She was tense as Hades, her entire body stiff, her jaw clenched. Concern -choking, unfamiliar concern - hit him with hard impact.

“Jaeden, are you OK?” This was what Lucien was always going on about with Caia. This overwhelming protectiveness that you knew was irrational, and yet was too powerful to control. Having always known when to stop pushing someone when they didn’t want to talk, it was unpleasant to realize that with Jaeden he no longer had the option of politely backing off. He had to know what was going on with her. His grip tightened on the wheel again.

“Jae...” he warned, his lykan entering his voice.

She huffed beside him, but the noise immediately relaxed him. That huff usually signified that she was ready to talk.

“I’m nervous, OK. No, not nervous.” She sighed heavily. “Nervous doesn’t cover it. I haven’t seen my family in months and I’m a five minute drive from them. Reuben is hanging around because he knows about the telekinesis; he knows how worried I am about it... all of it.”