Lucien was confused. “I can’t even remember them having a thing together before she left.”
“You were gone at the time.”
“Hmm.”
As they stood from the table Lucien’s gaze was drawn to Caia as she cleared it. She tucked a lock of pale hair behind her ear before she picked up some plates, her long eye lashes fanning her cheeks as she looked down. He sighed softly. She seemed so fragile. She awoke every protective instinct he had.
Ryder clamped a hand on his shoulder, startling him out of his musings. He was guided from the room by that hand and out onto the porch. His friend chuckled, but it was more disbelieving than amused. He leaned against the porch frame and stared out at the woods. “Were you jealous in there?”
Lucien felt an unexpected blow of annoyance at that question. “What?” He frowned, more than irritated that he’d been that obvious. “No.”
“You were certainly something.”
Lucien shrugged, not meeting his friend’s eye. “Well you were a little...”
“A little, what?”
“For a start, you said to the girl you were in love.”
Ryder guffawed, “It was a figure of speech.”
“It was flirting.”
“I wasn’t flirting with Caia. I was trying to make the girl feel at ease. She’s had this pained look on her face since she arrived.”
Ryder was right and he was wrong? Wow... that didn’t happen that often to him. As Pack Leader he was pretty self-assured, and usually 99.9% right in most situations. Lucien sighed deeply and wearily. She was throwing him off his game. How was he supposed to handle all this? “Argh,” he groaned, running his hand through his hair in frustration. “I’m sorry... I’m just... It’s just… I don’t know, what-”
“Lucien, you can do this. You just have to keep your head on straight.”
“By that you mean...?”
His friend glanced back inside, a sarcastic tilt to his mouth. “You can start by not getting all dreamy-eyed around her.”
“Pfft! Dreamy-eyed. She’s just a kid, I’m a grown man,” he hissed, looking back inside and hoping that their voices weren’t carrying into the kitchen.
“She’s not a kid. And she’s different. Different can be fascinating.”
“The only thing I’m fascinated by is her interaction with my pack. We’re keeping an eye on her, but not that kind of eye. OK.”
Ryder laughed, obviously unconvinced. “Man, whatever you say.”
***
Lucien leaned casually against the doorframe of Caia’s bedroom. He could hear her moving about in her bathroom, the water running. The laptop he’d bought her was open on the desk, but he couldn’t see the screen from where he was standing. Her bed was neatly made, and there were no clothes scattered about the place like most teenager’s rooms. She had, however, placed her things throughout the space, which pleased him; when he had checked this morning her suitcases were, worryingly, still standing at the bottom of the bed, unopened.
“Oh,” her startled voice ripped him from his thoughts. He looked up and smirked at her.
“Just checking you have everything you need.”
She looked around the room and back at him smiling dryly. “More than.”
“Good.” He jammed his hands into his jeans, trying to think of something else to say. But then she moved from behind the bed to put a can of deodorant back by her toiletries and any thought of using actual words left him. His eyes unwillingly travelled down her body. She was wearing girl boxers and a vest. For a lykan who was shorter than most her legs certainly seemed to go on forever.
Suddenly, Caia cleared her throat, bringing his gaze back to her face. She’d scrubbed it clean, patches of her skin red from it. It made her look so young and so innocent, his heart beat harder at the thought of what was to come for her.
“Caia …” Lucien began.
“Yes?” She asked warily
Is she scared of me? He groaned inwardly. That was the last thing he wanted. “I want you to come to me if you need me. That’s my job here.”
She nodded at him, her green eyes round on his. “Thank you.”
“You’ll be OK.” He promised, more for himself than for her.
Again, she nodded mutely, looking bewildered by his seriousness.
“Well.” He heaved up from the wall. “Goodnight.”
“Goodnight. Lucien.”
6 - Unwanted
She woke up the next morning feeling a little more optimistic about her return to the pack, and dare she say filled with that dangerous thing they called hope. Caia was calling last night’s dinner a success. There had been a few awkward moments, but in general the mood had been jovial, and the brothers had actually seemed to like her. To her surprise, and perhaps disappointment (she was unused to the feeling, so she wasn’t sure if that was what that little pang had been), Lucien wasn’t at breakfast. With him having already left for the store, and with Irini sleeping late, Caia found herself breakfasting alone with Ella. Caia didn’t mind in the least. In fact, she found the Elder’s presence soothing, despite how anxious the lykan seemed about making sure Caia was OK, and that her transition into the pack was going smoothly.
“You know, you have your father’s eyes,” Ella said, her smile bittersweet as she gazed down into her coffee.
“Were you good friends with my dad?” Caia asked curiously. This was really the first time anyone had offered a comment about her parents.
Ella chuckled at her obvious enthusiasm. “Actually, I was friends with Rafe before Albus was.”
“Really?” She hadn’t known that.
“We dated.”
She hadn’t known that either. She said so to her.
“It was a looong time ago. Your father was hunting a rogue, and he stayed with my pack-”
Wait. “Your pack?” Caia interrupted in confusion.
Ella leaned back in her chair amused. “I was born into a different pack, Caia.”
“Huh.” She shook her head in amazement. “I didn’t know that either. Or that my dad was a Rogue Hunter for that matter.”
It was unfair that there was all this history, their history, her history, and she knew very little of it.
Damn The Hunter.
Ella frowned at her tone. “Irini didn’t tell you much, did she?”
“It upset her too much to talk about the pack.”
“Hmm.” Ella was frowning again into her coffee, seeming lost in her thoughts, but Caia was eager to get more information about her father out of her.
“So you were in a different pack?”
“Hmm?” Ella blinked. “Oh. Yes. A younger pack. I met Rafe and we dated when he was with them. After he left I had a falling out with my family.”
“What happened?”
“Well.” She sighed heavily. “My father wanted me to mate with one of the males in my pack because he had the dominance of an Alpha, and they thought he might become Pack Leader. I hated the guy, so I ran away... to Rafe’s pack.”
Caia smiled, thinking of the result of that. “And you met Albus.”
Ella chuckled, resting her chin on her hand, her eyes twinkling at the memory. “It was instant. We just wanted to be with each other. I laughed when I told my parents I’d mated with another Pack Leader... but... we never spoke again.”
Having never been given the opportunity to know her own parents it seemed like a crime against nature that Ella’s parents had, in their own way, made her as much of an orphan as Caia was. She mumbled an empathetic ‘sorry’.
“Don’t be. They were never the family this pack has been for me.”
Caia nodded, letting that sit for a moment. And then... “So what happened with my dad?”
Ella smiled patiently, seeming to understand her curiosity. “Albus and Rafe had never been close. Albus really only trusted Magnus, and Rafe’s father hadn’t had the best reputation.”
Caia took a breath, her mind spinning. “My grandfather?”
Ella nodded. “Yeah, he was quite the trip. He tried to take Albus’ father’s leadership from him.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah, but your father was nothing like him. I soon got Albus to see that, and they eventually became great friends.”
“How...” Caia trailed off, wondering how her father could have been friends with them after having dated Ella himself.
Again, Ella seemed to understand. “Your father and I were just friends when I came to him after running from my parents,” she explained.
“Oh.” Caia smiled softly, looking down at her bowl.
“What?”
“It’s just nice to hear something about him.”
There was a moment of silence between them before Caia was jolted from her musings by the sound of Ella’s chair scraping back loudly from the table. The Elder smiled down at her. “Wait. I have something for you.”
She watched as Ella dashed out of the room and could hear her running quickly upstairs. The sounds of drawers being pulled open and shut and Ella’s amusing mumblings filtered down through the ceiling. Caia wondered what on Gaia’s green earth she was up to. It was a few minutes before she came sauntering gracefully back into the kitchen, clasping something in her hand.
“Really,” she explained, “You should have had these before we placed you into hiding. But everything was done in such a rush... anyway, you should have them now.”
Caia took photographs from her hand. She gasped, gazing at the first one. It was of a toddler standing in between a man’s knees as he bent down to huddle her close. Their green eyes matched, twinkling mischievously.
“Is this... my father and me?”
“Yes.”
Goddess, her father had been just as gorgeous as the rest of them. She snorted as she looked at herself. Even as a toddler she had looked scrawny and weird, her head just a mass of blonde curls and her eyes too large for her face. There were two other photographs; one of her father by himself, gazing into the camera with this weary sadness in his eyes. The last of her and her father again, except a younger Magnus was in this one with them. Magnus had her on his shoulders and her father was trailing at the back of them, seeming to protest at her being up so high. His eyes were happier with her, his love palpable even in these old pictures. For the first time in years she felt that searing stab in her chest at the pain of his loss. She blinked, a tear falling onto the picture.
“Oh!” Ella jumped, and Caia looked up to see that the kitchen tap had come on full blast, splashing water onto the floor. She ignored it as Ella rushed to switch it off, muttering under her breath.
“Thank you.” She smiled at Ella, brushing the tears from her cheeks. “This means a lot. Ella?”
Ella looked back her distractedly. “Yeah?”
“Do you have photos of me with my mom?”
Ella seemed to blanch. “Uh-”
“Hey, party people!” They both turned to see Jaeden bouncing in the doorway.
“Hi honey.” Ella smiled brightly at her. She looked almost relieved by her appearance. “Well, I’ve got errands to run.” She strode towards the kitchen door, brushing an affectionate hand down Jaeden’s cheek. “Look after her.”
She was gone before Caia had spoken another word.
***
Jaeden talked non-stop in the car on the way to school. Having learned that Ryder had made an appearance at dinner the night before, she was full of questions.
“And you... what... spoke to him?” She asked in awe.
“No, we had conversation through the power of thought,” Caia answered sarcastically.
Jaeden rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean?”
“The guy is really not that intimidating. Not compared to Lucien.”
“Pfft. Ryder makes Lucien look like a border collie.”
Caia didn’t believe that for a second. “He really is cool, Jaeden. You should try talking to him. Mention movies.”
The girl shook her head in disbelief. “Here for two days and you managed to speak more words to that guy than I have in a lifetime.”
Caia glanced sharply at her, worried that she may have annoyed her new friend already. She knew girls could get weird about guys, and Jaeden had kind of warned her. But no, she breathed a sigh of relief, Jaeden was smiling at her, her eyes laughing. “Movies huh?”
“Movies.”
“I’ll give it a shot.”
***
“Class, this is our new student, Caia Ribeiro,” the overly enthusiastic English teacher sing-songed. “Why don’t you find a seat, Caia?”
She wanted the floor to open up and swallow her. There were a few seats available in the classroom, but the problem was that one of the vacancies was beside Alexa. Everyone had seen her sit in the cafeteria with her yesterday, so if she didn’t sit with her now it would look like she was snubbing her. Enter the real problem: Alexa’s dislike of her. Crap, she thought, as she teased her lip between her teeth, nervously walking towards the seat. This was why she was a loner at her old school. She gave Alexa a small smile. The dark beauty almost snarled back at her. Groaning, Caia slid into the chair, fully aware of the students looking at her. It seemed like forever before the teacher finally started doing her job, and the class were once again preoccupied.
“You don’t mind too much, do you?” Caia mumbled under her breath, aware that Alexa could hear her with her sensitive lykan ears. “About the seat?”
“You can sit wherever you want. It’s a free country.”
Caia let that go, listening to the English teacher as she handed out copies of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense as part of the American Literature curriculum. She sighed. English Lit was her favourite subject, and she had sort of been hoping the class would be interesting enough to take her mind off the she-devil sitting on her left side, but she’d read that one already at her last school.
Around fifteen minutes into the class, an adult Caia didn’t recognize walked into the room and murmured something in the teacher’s ear.
The teacher sighed and turned to them. “Open your books and read the introduction while I deal with this,” she grumbled, leaving the room. The hum of noise rose to an extraordinary level. Not that any of the noise pertained to the book that was being discussed.
“You understand I don’t trust you,” Alexa hissed from beside her.
Startled, Caia turned to the girl, curious as to what she had done to emit such a reaction.“Why?” She shook her head in confusion.
“You’re not like the rest of us, Caia, and that’s plain to everyone, even you.” She sneered, “I bet you think you’re better than us.”
Caia’s eyebrows puckered in confusion. There was that ‘you’re not like us’ stuff again. She felt the heat under her cheeks and hoped to goddess Alexa couldn’t see it. Unused to confrontations of any kind, Caia squirmed uncomfortably. “I don’t think I’m better than anybody. You don’t even know me.”
“Whatever. Just know that I’m watching you. I’m not going to be taken in by your ‘I’m so fragile and innocent’ crap, and I’ll make damn sure Lucien isn’t either. And if you do anything to jeopardise the pack, I’ll be the first one there to gouge a piece out of your hind.”
She was being threatened? Unjustifiably? She felt a flush of what could only be described as white hot heat. It flickered over her skin, up her neck, and into her face. Of a sudden Alexa’s chair was pushed with force away from Caia’s body and into a startled girl, who started batting at Alexa to get off of her. The class was snickering, gazing at Caia like she had done it. Alexa’s eyes flashed on her angrily, half collapsed on the girl, and half draped over the chair that was tilted up at a precarious angle from the crash. She was blazing with fury.
I didn’t do it, Caia thought defensively, why is she mad at me?
“Girls, what on earth is going on over there?” The English teacher queried in annoyance as she re-entered the room.
Alexa got to her feet, glaring at Caia and pushing her chair back beside her. “N
othing,” she replied smoothly, sweetly, not taking her eyes from Caia.
“Just stop the shenanigans.”
“Sorry.” She slid gracefully back into her seat and turned to Caia, whose eyes were still round as saucers with shock.
“You just made a huge mistake.” Alexa smiled evilly. “Kicking my chair with the force of your strength in front of ‘them’,” she whispered, indicating the room of giggling human students, all of whom were still looking at the two of them. “Lucien would not be happy if he knew.”
Caia shook her head rapidly. “I didn’t kick you.”
“Oh cut the innocent bull. Your ass is mine. You better keep me happy, or I will tell Lucien.”
***
Caia tried to shake what had happened with Alexa, but found it difficult to concentrate on much of her classes before she broke for lunch. The success of last night’s dinner was suddenly overcast with Alexa’s clouds. Lost in her thoughts as she picked up some food for lunch, she only became aware of the whispering as she walked towards the pack. Looking around, she saw human eyes following her, and heard snatches of their conversation. They were discussing how another newbie had been sucked into the ‘weirdo’s’ group.
Maybe they hypnotise pretty people.
Caia almost laughed at that, but was too concerned to make much of an effort. It did look odd, she thought, approaching these gorgeous creatures. Mal didn’t even look like a teenager.
“Hey,” she greeted them as she slid in beside Jaeden. She avoided Alexa’s eyes.
“So, how was the second day thus far?” Jaeden chirped, biting into her sandwich with gusto.
Caia glanced at Alexa whose face was surprisingly smooth. She returned her gaze, but her dark eyes didn’t narrow, and her full lips didn’t pinch. What was she playing at now? “It was fine.”
They began talking amongst themselves, with Caia barely paying attention. For some reason she was filtering them out and her hyper sensitive ears were filtering the human kids in. They seemed truly disconcerted by the pack.
“Don’t you hear them?” She suddenly asked, and then wished she hadn’t when the pack all narrowed their eyes in confusion at her.
Moon Spell: Part One in the Tale of Lunarmorte Page 6
