“I don’t want his comfort!” she spat causing Caia to flinch at the venom. “All he and Lucien have been spouting for the last 24 hours is how we have to accept this and come to terms with their deaths. Well I don’t want to! I want to find Marita and I want to rip her apart because that’s what she’s done to me, OK!”

“I’m with her on this.” Alexa suddenly appeared in the doorway. There was dark circles under her eyes, her mouth pinched, giving her the appearance of being older than her eighteen years. She brushed past Caia and sat down on the bed beside Jaeden. To Caia’s surprise she reached for Jaeden’s hand and they gripped onto one another. They looked up at her with twin expressions of fury. And she didn’t know what to say, what to do to make it better.

“W-what can I do?” she asked softly.

“I have an idea.”

The three of them snapped around to find Reuben standing in the doorway. For once there was no mocking in his eyes or lazy languor in his body language. He was dead serious. His eyes dark with sympathy.

“What idea?” Alexa asked urgently.

He slowly shut the door and wandered into the room to take a seat at Caia’s old computer desk. “Lucien and Ryder are out making preparations for the funerals at the moment.” Stalactites might as well have formed on the ceiling for how cold the room grew with that one sentence. Reuben ignored it. “I thought I would speak with you privately.”

“What’s the idea?” Alexa insisted.

The vampyre glanced up at Caia. “Caia already knows my plan.”

“What plan?”

Jaeden shifted. “You mean the trace thing? How is that helping destroy Marita?”

“Because if Caia gets rid of the trace then Marita no longer has that power over the Daylights. She can no longer gather people to her easily and she can no longer hunt down the people she wants destroyed. Once the trace is gone, we can hunt her.”

A feeling of helplessness swept over her as she watched Jaeden’s eyes glow with the news. Even Alexa, who was confused as to the actual technicalities of the discussion, was looking surprisingly animated.

“Explain?” Alexa asked quietly.

Long-suffering, Caia decided to answer instead. She couldn’t help the flatness in her tone. “The trace magik was created by three members of the Daylight Coven and four of the Midnight. It is believed that killing the seven direct descendants of those first members will destroy the trace.”

Alexa’s eyes widened. “Seriously? How? How can we kill them?”

Caia’s mouth dropped at the blasé question, shocked at her eagerness, but it was Jaeden who answered, “Only Caia can. You see they have to be killed simultaneously in the exact same manner of death.”

“Then do it,” Alexa demanded, her dark eyes flashing. “Fricking do it and we can get Marita!”

Jae nodded. “Caia, please,” she begged.

Oh dear goddess. Do they know what they’re asking of me? Of course not. All they could think about was their own loss, their own selfish need for justice.

And she couldn’t hate them for it.

Reuben smirked at her.

Caia wanted to kill him. He was preying on their grief. And they were preying on her guilt and anger. “It’s not that simple,” she whispered. “These people are innocent.”

“You don’t know that, you haven’t checked,” Jaeden snapped.

“Jae,” she entreated, “Think about what you’re asking me to do?”

The lykan shuffled off the bed and strode around it to tower over her. “I’m asking you to avenge my father,” she bit out and with the words came the tears. “My father who loved you; who protected you as if you were his own.”

When she heard Alexa’s choked sob behind Jae she wanted nothing more than to run from the room and keep on running. “I want to.” She trembled. “I want to, but you can’t ask me to just kill people. That’s not avenging your father. They didn’t hurt Dimitri or Morgan and Natalia. These are just people.”

“They’re magiks,” Jae spat. “Magiks who started this stupid war in the first place!”

“No!” Caia hissed. “They just had the unfortunate luck of being their descendants.”

“Caia, please,” Alexa implored. “We’ll come. We’ll help. The last thing I said to my dad was that just because he wasn’t brave enough to fight didn’t mean I wasn’t,” she choked. “How could that be the last thing I said to him? I have to do something. Help me do this.”

Caia began shaking her head, her ears filling up with their grief-stricken pleading.

“Girls.” Reuben stood up slowly, quieting their demands. Caia trembled at the ruthless aspect of his face.

“What?” she whispered, her heart thudding in her chest.

“You’re going to do this for them, Caia – no don’t shake your head. You’re going to do this or the safe haven I promised for the pack and the assurance from myself that I will manipulate every member of the pack’s trace so that Marita can’t find them will be nil and void.”

Bastard. Is he really… that bastard!

Her chest tightened. Her fingers curled. Her teeth sharpened. “Are you blackmailing me?”

“Yes. Do it and I’ll protect the pack. Don’t… and I leave them here to rot.”

There was no time for thought of repercussions. Caia lunged for him. Her claws unleashed as she swiped for him. A band of restraint enveloped her waist and she struggled and twisted in Alexa and Jaeden’s secure hold.

“Tut tut, Caia.” The vampyre smiled humorlessly at her. “You need to control that temper.”

Her tongue had gone thick with humiliated rage. It took her a moment to speak. “I was actually beginning to trust you, you son-of-a-bitch!”

“I’m doing what needs to be done.” He shrugged unapologetically. “I’ve never pretended to do anything else.”

Remember, Caia, you can’t hurt him. Take a deep breath. Find some Zen. Control your animalistic urge to hunt and kill the wily fox.

She let her body relax, breathing in and out, in an effort to cool her temper.

“Caia, please,” Jae whispered, slowly letting go of her. “You have to do this for us.”

“What if I can’t?”

“At least try,” Alexa snapped. “For the pack.”

Gradually, as the implications of Reuben’s threat settled in along with Jae and Alexa’s beseeching, Caia began to nod. “OK,” she croaked. “I’ll do it. Under one condition.”

Alexa nodded. “Anything.”

“It goes no further than this room that I was blackmailed into this.”

Jaeden frowned. “Why?” she glanced anxiously at Reuben.

She thought of her mate and his reaction to her decision. There was a huge possibility he wouldn’t speak to her ever again. Still… she loved him… so… “Lucien already feels terrible that he wasn’t here to protect the pack. Telling him about Reuben’s ultimatum will only make him feel worse.”

Reuben smirked at her. “So gallant and self-sacrificing of you, Caia.”

“Bite me, asshole.”

Jaeden shook her head. “Seriously, Caia… he might not understand like we do. He’ll be mad at you.”

“Then he’ll be mad at me.”

With that Jaeden hugged her tight and whispered thank you into her ear.

Caia trembled and walked away from the cremation sight, glad Jason had cloaked the smell of her pack’s burning bodies. She didn’t think she’d be able to cope otherwise. So deaf to the world she wasn’t even aware of Alexa and Jaeden on either side of her until Lucien’s hand clamped down on her shoulder opening up her senses again.

“Jae, Alexa, can you give us a moment. And Jae, Ryder wants a word.”

Jaeden grunted and walked away, her hand clasped in Alexa’s. Caia watched them, thinking how sad it was that death had been the one to create a friendship between the two young women.

“Caia.” Lucien sighed, and she snuggled into his chest as his arm slid over her shoulders, drawing her into his heat. “How are you holding up?”

Not good. You see I have to kill seven people in a few days or the pack will be in constant threat of attack from Marita. You want to help me kill the blackmailer instead?

She didn’t say that. She mumbled incoherently and tightened her grip on him. “How are you?” She whispered.

He dropped a soft kiss on her head and she heard the tears in his voice as he replied, “Ask me that question later.”

They walked in silence, holding on to one another until they came out of the woods and rounded the house. Six cars were parked around the driveway as well as three moving vans. A lot of stuff had to be left or thrown away. Lucien kissed her again and moved away unhurriedly towards one of the vans as if lumbered with a heavy weight. Ryder pressed keys into his hand and nodded towards the other moving vehicle. Magnus was supposed to be riding with Lucien in one of the vans because they weren’t that comfortable.

Caia shook her head as if she were conversing with them. No. she would ride with Lucien, not Magnus. Part of her bargain with Reuben was a safe haven for the pack. Apparently a twenty-four hundred year old vampyre tended to collect real estate. He owned a large hotel in the middle of nowhere the next state over. It hadn’t been in operation for ten years but he had paid a couple of magiks to clean it up for the pack coming. They could use it for as long as they needed (ha! As long as Caia kept to the bargain that was). The drive was a good few hours. And it was quite possibly going to be the last few hours that Lucien respected her. She strode towards Magnus and him.

“Magnus, I’ll drive with Lucien,” she said quietly.

The Elder frowned. “No, honey, you don’t have to-”

“I want to,” she cut him off, giving her mate a pointed look.