“Maybe more,” Reuben interrupted, irritation bubbling under his tone, “It’s not a problem.”

“Oh yeah, I forgot you’re like a million years old or something. It’s completely gross how decrepit you are… thank goddess I didn’t go down that road. Ugh, can you imagine-”

“Jae,” Caia warned and her friend’s eyes glittered back darkly as if Caia had betrayed her. “I know you’re angry, you have every right to be. But I need us all acting as a team if we’re going to do what we’re about to do.”

“Which is what exactly?” Laila enquired quietly.

“We’re going to break Lucien, Ryder, the pack children and the Council out of the Center’s prison… and then we’re going to take the Center from Marita.”

“Holy-”

“No frickin’-”

“Oh my-”

“Be quiet,” Reuben’s cold voice rumbled around the room like an earthquake. Silence settled in its wake.

Caia rolled her eyes at him but refrained from commenting. “Look, we can do this. Vanne told us that I still have a few followers in the Center, including a lot of the Travellers. He’s very kindly re-opened the portal at Magic Fitness so we can get in. We’ll go over the strategy for takeover once we have everyone assembled and ready to fight.”

“You really think this will work?” Jaeden bit her lip nervously.

“As long as we can get the Council out, then yes.”

Suddenly a blur of color erupted in front of Ryder’s television and Saffron was before them, her usually expressionless face twisted in rage… and grief.

Reuben was the first to shoot out of his chair.

“Saffron?” he queried, striding towards her quickly. She braced a hand against his chest, her fingers curling into his shirt. Her uncharacteristic display of emotion put Caia on immediate alert.

“Reuben,” she hissed, her wide blue eyes searching his. “It’s Marion.”

Caia felt her breath leave her. “Marion. What about Marion?”

Saffron realized they weren’t alone and let go of Reuben’s shirt. She didn’t move away from him, however, their body language betraying their close relationship. “Caia.” She nodded deferentially at her. “Marion is… I tried everything but…”

“What’s happened to her?” Caia demanded, fear pulsing through her veins. Not Marion, not Marion. Please…

“The children told me she found them in their cages in some lab. That Marita appeared and Marion fought her before bringing the children to me via a communication spell. I was just lounging at home when she appeared before me with five children gripping onto her. And then she collapsed. She... couldn’t withstand the energy depletion created by travelling with five other beings.”

Grief marred Saffron’s every word and Caia shook her head in denial. “No. Take me to her.”

“Caia-” Reuben tried to interrupt.

“No!” she yelled, angry tears blurring her vision.

“She’s gone, Caia,” Saffron whispered, her own tears rolling quietly down her cheeks. “She’s dead.”

6 – Compartmentalizing

“I can’t take much more of this man,” Ryder’s grumble reached him from his place on the floor. The Hunter was sitting with his back against the cold brick wall, his knees drawn to his chest and his head tilted back to stare blankly at the ceiling. Lucien wondered if the ceiling was any more interesting than the blank wall he was staring at from his seat on the metal bench at the back of the cell. Another few hours passed and yet it could have been days. Their constant worrying over Caia and the pack had filled the cell with so much tension Lucien was sure one spark would blow the whole place up.

“I can’t hear anyone else down here, can you?” Lucien asked softly.

“Nope. Not a damn thing.”

Lucien grunted. They had tried to let the change happen, to shift into lykan form numerous times, but there was no getting around the spell cast around the cell preventing them from doing it. This helplessness was sure to drive him crazy. If not that, then the constant images of Caia would. He growled and threw his memory of finding her blood on the car out of his mind.

“Lucien?”

“I’m OK.”

“Uh-huh. Just think about other stuff.”

Despite his dismal mood he found himself smirking at his friend. “It is scary how well you know me.”

Ryder chuckled. “Nah, it’s just scary how other people think you’re actually hard to read.”

Scowling, Lucien scoffed, “I am hard to read. I’ve perfected being hard to read. If I wasn’t, Caia wouldn’t have taken so damn long to come to her senses now, would she?”

“Not to criticize your mate, but she’s kinda dense when it comes to you. I mean… she’s attracted to you for a start.”

“I could say the same thing about Jaeden.”

“When Jae agreed to be my mate she provided the world with an example of her supreme intellectual and emotional superiority.”

Lucien snorted. “I’d like-”

“Ssh,” Ryder interrupted gesturing for him to be silent. He jumped to his feet noiselessly.

Immediately Lucien’s own ears perked up, and he heard the sounds of footsteps approaching. They shared a wary glance just before Marita appeared before them. His heart, seeming to perceive something he didn’t, began to pump loudly in his chest at the sight of her. Usually so together, so coiffed, Marita stood before them somewhat disheveled, her eyes filled with a war of emotions.

“I’ve come to update you,” she informed them crisply, hollowly. “My sister, under your suggestion, found the laboratory. She was… unwilling to reach an agreement with me and foolishly tried to fight me off.” She stopped as if trying to compose herself, and when she looked back at him he was almost knocked off his feet by the fury he saw there. “She took the children on a suicide mission.”

Ryder tensed just as he did. Lucien cleared his throat, hating to ask. “What does that mean?”

Marita hissed like a snake readying to strike. “She did a communication spell with five children clinging to her. I know her destination was her faerie Saffron’s, where despite much investigation I’ve never been able to find – treacherous bitch. I know she reached there.” She stiffened and bleakness flashed across her eyes before disappearing altogether. “I know the children survived. I know she died. The spell is too much for any witch or warlock, no matter how powerful.”

What? Was she saying…?

“Is…” he shared a brief look of horror with Ryder, “Is Marion dead?”

Marita nodded, her lips pinched cruelly. “Thanks to you.”

His blood boiled instantly. “Thanks to me?! Thanks to you! What am I supposed to tell Caia?! I will kill you for this! I will-”

His last words were cut off as he was blasted back against the wall, his head connecting with eye-watering accuracy on one of the shelving units. He slumped to the floor trying to focus his vision. In all that pain all he could think about was how devastated Caia was going to be. Marion meant the world to her.

“I don’t care what Caia thinks,” Marita clipped. “She was my sister. This is my pain, not hers! Any thoughts I had of granting that little perversion of nature you call a mate mercy is gone now. She is the reason our Coven is falling apart, that my sister, one of the greatest magiks of our time, killed herself trying to save some low-bred lykan pups!”

“Do you hear yourself?” Ryder countered, as Lucien got to his feet. “You sound like a Midnight.”

Marita flinched. “How dare you? I have no racial prejudice against other species, but no society, natural or supernatural, can survive without class order. My sister, a witch of noble lineage, should not have had to die for five common lykans.”

A growl erupted from Lucien’s chest so suddenly he was just as taken aback as the insane witch in front of him. “Your sister was a hero. She has upheld her place within your ‘noble lineage’ as you call it. You… have shit all over it. And you can bet when you travel to the Underworld the dead won’t be as understanding as the idiots in this Center pandering to your lunacy.”

She made no comment but he was satisfied by the paling pallor of her skin. She narrowed her eyes and straightened her shoulders, pretending his words hadn’t affected her. “I just came to warn you that your time is nearly up. I will be executing the Council in a few days and with it… I will be executing you. By then I hope to have found your precious mate so she can witness your death. Before I send her to her own.”

She couldn’t catch her breath. She could feel the others hovering outside the bedroom door, their worry and grief adding to the thick claustrophobia she felt clawing at her throat. How could Marion be dead?

A sob caught in the back of her throat, but she refused to let the tears spill. They all thought she was in here crying her heart out but in truth she was trying to plug the hole the death had made in it. She was trying to force her brain to switch off, to pretend that Marion was alive, that she hadn’t died trying to protect the children she had left alone down in that lab. Oh goddess, it was like losing Sebastian all over again.

No, she snarled at herself, physically shaking her head as if she could empty the thoughts right out of her ears.

“Caia,” Reuben’s cool voice filtered through the door.

She took a deep breath. She could do this. She had no other choice but to do this. Slowly, she made her way to the door and peeled it open, unsurprised by the four anxious faces staring back at her. Caia frowned. “Where is Saffron?”

Jaeden’s lip trembled a little. “She’s gone back to look after the children. She’s keeping them safe while we…” she stopped, her huge blue eyes glimmering with pity. “Caia, are you going to be OK?”

She shouldered past them, quite a feat considering how small she was compared to the three of them acting as a wall. “I don’t want to discuss it.”