Moon Spell: Part One in the Tale of Lunarmorte

by Samantha Young

  “I told you it’s not even a discussion. All I care about is getting Jaeden back.”

  His eyes brightened considerably, and he smiled, trying to look nonchalant. “And after that?”

  She shrugged. “I need to speak to Marion about it. I guess more training. For the war.”

  “Caia-”

  “Please, Sebastian. I don’t want to talk about it. I need to concentrate on Jaeden.”

  Sebastian sighed but nodded, and led her into the school. “Let me know when I should put my game face on.”

  Caia grinned, feeling a rush of anticipation. For the first time ever she felt in control and certain that she was capable of bringing her friend home, even if it meant facing off with Ethan. For the first time since she was told about the prophecy, she believed she actually stood a chance.

  ***

  Ah, the arrogance of youth.

  Ethan smirked at Lars as he railed on and on about how he would never have been so stupid as to have walked into the hands of the Daylight Coven, as Xylena had. Lars, who was twenty-five years old and could barely master a basic communication spell; Xylena had been a two hundred year old faerie who had worked her way up the ranks from peasantry to Ethan’s right hand. There was no comparison between the two.

  “Caia didn’t detect your presence?” Ethan interrupted.

  Lars shook his head quickly, sending sparkles of sweat flying from his hair; Ethan curled his lip in distaste. “No, my lord. In fact I was extremely fast in getting the information you needed. Xylena is dead and the pack now know about their missing pup.”

  Just what he needed. He grumbled and restrained himself from throwing something at the vainglorious idiot. “Fine. Change of plans. We don’t want the pack finding us here-”

  “But, my lord, I thought this was what you wanted? The pack weak and emotional over the loss of one of their own?”

  “Don’t. Ever. Interrupt me again,” he hissed.

  Lars blanched and backed up. “Forgive me.”

  Ethan jumped to his feet and began pacing. “Jaeden was never meant to be that kind of pawn; she was just a bonus punching bag. Now the pack is looking for her and I don’t have any inside information on what’s happening with Caia and her Portuguese lover.” He stopped and made a clicking noise with his tongue as he thought.

  After a tense few minutes he huffed and turned back to Lars. “We need to kill Caia.”

  “Isn’t that a little hasty? We don’t know for certain how things have progressed with her and the pack.”

  “Lucien’s her mate. It’s enough to send him crazy and obliterate order in the pack. We need Caia gone before they become aware of her trace magik. They’ll know for certain that Caia is the-” he choked off, hating to admit it. “Is the true Head of the Coven, and that the Midnights are incredibly vulnerable with her in Daylight hands. Once she’s dead we’ll attack. The pack will be too grief-stricken to keep up much of a defence.”

  “I don’t mean to question you my Lord but won’t that draw the attention you specifically wished to avoid?”

  “No,” Ethan sneered. “Why would it? It will just be you and me taking them down.”

  Lars paled. “Two of us against an entire pack?”

  “For Gaia’s sake man, they’re a tiny pack and we have everything we need to know about them from Xylena’s findings. We’ll sneak in after Caia’s death and take them out during their mourning. They’ll never see it coming.”

  “But won’t they be expecting our attack if we kill Caia.”

  Ethan smirked. “I didn’t say we were going to kill Caia.”

  ***

  “You ready to talk to me rationally yet?”

  Caia groaned and twisted around on her bed to see Lucian leaning casually against her doorframe. “Let me see. It’s been less than twenty four hours since I found out that you lied, and possibly tricked me, into becoming your mate. What do you think?”

  His face darkened and she took some satisfaction in the moment. “Tricked you?” He seethed quietly, prowling into the room and slamming the door shut behind him.

  “Uh-uh.” Caia scrambled off the bed and onto her feet. She flicked her hand and the door whooshed back open.

  “Getting pretty good at that,” he sighed and threw himself into her computer chair.

  “Lucien, get out.”

  “No.”

  “Fine. I will,” she huffed and headed towards the door. He cut her off in seconds, looming over her like a giant cliff face.

  “Look, finding myself bound to a teenager is bad enough, but to a magik. Thanks.” He laughed humourlessly up at the ceiling as if talking to the gods, and then he looked back down at her, glaring. “So, why don’t you cut me some slack and help me deal with this.”

  Caia snorted and crossed her arms over her chest defensively. “Deal with this? This is how I’m going to deal with this. I am not binding my life to a guy – any guy – especially not some jumped up Alpha, who doesn’t trust me let alone love me. How’s that?”

  “Caia.” He looked pained as he brushed his damn hand through his hair like he always did. “I do care about you. But you have to understand this has not been the usual situation and yeah... I’ve screwed up.”

  She wanted to believe him. Gazing up into those intense silver pools, feeling his heat so close to her, Caia was dealt with unfortunately timed flashbacks from last night. A flush erupted across her skin and she cursed inwardly. Lucien’s own eyes darkened having felt her heat. He made as if to move towards her and she backed up, holding her hand up, warding him off. “Whoa, stop. I know enough about a mated couple to know that the attraction thing is just part of the deal OK, but this.” She gestured between the two of them. “Will not be happening again.”

  “Caia, you can’t deny a mating.”

  “Doesn’t it bother you? Don’t you feel cheated? What if you fall in love with someone, Lucien, and you can’t have a family with her?”

  He shrugged. “I’m not falling in love with anyone. Neither are you for that matter because you are my mate. Mine. So deal with it.”

  A silence descended over the room like a thick, uncomfortable blanket.

  Caia cleared her throat. “I’m not going to be your mate, Lucien. You deal with that.”

  She flinched at the snarl that ripped from his throat - her hair even blew back from the deep breath of his growl. And then he was gone, slamming the door so hard the entire upper floor shook.

  “Well, that could have gone better,” she muttered and turned determinedly back to her bed. Time to connect to her evil uncle and see if Jae was alright.

  25 - Personal Daemons

  Two days passed. Caia was growing increasingly more irritable. Two nights now and she hadn’t been able to connect to Ethan in her dreams, and she was beginning to worry what that meant for Jaeden. On top of that, Lucien was thundering around the house like a lion with a thorn in his paw, refusing to look at her or to acknowledge her existence.

  Jeez, you would think he was the one who had been deceived.

  In fact, everyone was being pretty lousy to her, except Sebastian, and it might have had something to do with Marion and Saffron’s return. They had shown up the day after Lucien had stormed out of her room. That morning had been her first edgy - downing coffee, snapping at burnt toast in frustration - morning, because she hadn’t dreamed of Jaeden. It did her nerves no good to have to be sociable to her mentor, who had wandered into the quiet kitchen with a warm smile.

  “Morning, Caia.”

  “Mmmff,” she’d mumbled, chewing angrily.

  “Where is everyone?” Marion queried gently, sitting across from her, whilst Saffron wandered around the kitchen looking bored.

  “Bed,” she snapped.

  “Oh my, we are in a good mood,” Saffron drawled behind her, but Marion held her hand up to shush her, sensing Caia’s mood.

  “I guess we are a little early.”

  Caia didn’t say anything, just kept chewing and frowning and wonder
ing what on earth she had done wrong last night not to have been able to connect to Ethan.

  “I can feel an awful lot of tension in the house, Caia. And you smell... different... Oh.” Caia looked up now to see Marion’s eyes widened. “You and Lucien... he told you.”

  “You knew!” Little bits of toast and coffee projected out with the accusation.

  Marion achem-ed and wiped delicately at her face. “Yes, I knew.”

  “Always the last to know, huh? Don’t know why I’m surprised. I suppose the tree knew too.” She thumbed behind her at Saffron.

  “Oh, dear Gaia, no.” Saffron appeared in front of her, her slender hands sitting defiantly on her narrow hips, “Please do not even think of imitating that idiot.”

  “Ryder’s my friend, watch your mouth.”

  “Oh my.” Marion exhaled. “You’re really not taking this well. I don’t remember you having this much attitude.”

  “It’s called being lied to, too many damn times to count.”

  Marion shooed Saffron away again and leaned across the table, gripping one of Caia’s hands comfortingly. “I know you must be upset, but it doesn’t take away your choices, Caia. You’re too important for that.”

  Now she had her interest. “What do you mean?”

  “Yes, what do you mean?”

  They turned to see Lucien sauntering into the kitchen, his body language said casual whilst his expression yelled ‘warning, warning!’ Ella and Magnus trailed at his back. Caia hadn’t even known Magnus had stayed over. He smiled weakly at her but she looked away. She was mad at everyone just now.

  Marion’s smile didn’t falter. “Perhaps you should all take a seat.”

  Hmm, this was going to be interesting.

  When they were all seated, Lucien, thankfully just as mad at Caia, sat as far away from her as possible.

  “I spoke with my sister and her husband,” Marion began.

  “And?” Ella asked, pouring her and Magnus some coffee.

  “Well.” Caia might have been seeing things but Marion’s smile looked a little nervous now. “Marita and Vanne are impressed with what I had to tell them about Caia, and of course very anxious that she remain safe.”

  “Of course.” Magnus nodded.

  “They are aware of the situation with Jaeden and understand that Caia would like to stay here until its conclusion.”

  Lucien drew in a sharp breath. “I don’t like the sound of where this is going.”

  “Caia.” Marion ignored him and Caia happily followed suit. “Marita would like to offer you a home within our Centre, where you can train with the very best in magik. Where you can train to be a soldier for Daylight, but most importantly where you can really put your tracing magik to good use and help us to prevent anymore Midnight attacks.”

  No one breathed. Caia couldn’t look at anyone but Marion - Marion who had come back and with her brought a huge gust of air, allowing Caia to breathe again.

  “Really?” She asked, trying not to sound so excited.

  “Over my dead body.”

  She closed her eyes and slumped in her chair, refusing to look at the big oaf.

  What ensued was one of those seething, quiet controlled arguments fired back and forth between Marion and Lucien, but as it stretched and heightened their voices started to rise, and with that Ella and Magnus joined in trying to smooth the situation over. Caia sat there listening to the argument but not really processing the words, all she had been able to think about was how she was being given the opportunity to be somewhere where they really accepted her, and they really needed her. Wouldn’t her father have wanted her to do everything in her power to stop the Midnights after all they had done to him and the people he loved?

  “...don’t care. You are not dragging my mate off to be used as a weapon-”

  Caia cut him off by standing so abruptly her chair clattered hard against the island behind her.

  “Marion,” she said evenly, feeling everyone’s eyes on her. She drew in a deep breath. “You would be right that I’m not going anywhere until I get Jaeden back, so my answer right now is that I will think about it. I will really, really think about it.” She smiled, a real smile for the first time in days. “And thank you.”

  She had thought Lucien would start yelling and railing at her, but when she was met with only silence Caia dared to look at him. And he was looking back at her as if he had never seen her before. A hurt, a deep hurt, burned his eyes and swelled out of him to gnaw angrily at her heart. She didn’t have to look at Ella and Magnus to see their reaction because she felt their hurt and astonishment, too. They all thought she was betraying them.

  And so that was why everyone was treating her with icy disdain.

  Sebastian had been different. He swore he just wanted her to be happy, going on and on about how even if she did go it didn’t mean he couldn’t come visit her. He had heard the Centre was full of lykans and vampyres. Hey, maybe he could even train to be a soldier, too. Yeah. He was surprisingly chipper about the whole thing and Caia suspected it had more to do with it meaning she wouldn’t be with Lucien than anything else. So now it was just the two of them against the world, and two days gone and no such luck on her mission to rescue Jaeden.

  “Ignore them,” Sebastian said as they sat alone in the cafeteria. He was referring to the way she kept guiltily glancing over at the others who refused to look at her. She found it especially weird being confronted with Mal’s actual anger. He had never been serious about anything in his life, but there he was glaring at her. “You know they’re just being loyal to Lucien.”

  “I can’t believe it got around the whole pack so quickly.”

  “Gossip travels fast amongst wolves.”

  Caia snorted and played with her food, her expression grim. “What if I can’t reach her again?”

  Sebastian didn’t even mention her change of topic. “You will. Keep faith.”

  “I swear to Gaia if this has anything to do with me stressing over other things, I will be supremely pissed.”

  “Caia.”

  She looked up at him to be met with his strange, focused, tawny gaze. “I believe in you.”

  Those words struck her so hard they knocked the breath out of her and she had to stop herself from reaching over to touch him like she wanted to. He really had become her rock. Her frown melted into a smile and the tension eased from her body. “Then I guess I better find her quick.”

  ***

  Magik was exhausting.

  “I think you’ve killed me,” Caia wheezed, flopping onto the ground.

  She heard Marion’s soft chuckle and resisted the urge to flip her off.

  After she had gotten home from school (to an empty house for the third night running) Marion had pushed Caia right back into her training, and this time it was all squadrons go. The back yard was now a battle zone where plants were either drowning or dying in ashes. For the last two hours Marion had chased Caia around the yard, throwing fire at her whilst she had to douse them with water or duck. The strain on her focus, and not to mention the non-stop running out of lykan form, had reduced her ribs to a tapestry of stitches.

  “Was that really necessary? Ella’s going to kill you for destroying her yard.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with the yard.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Caia sat up and shut up just as she was about to gesture at the war zone. There was no war zone. Everything looked just as neat and alive as it had two hours ago. She looked wide-eyed at the witch. “You did this?”

  Marion nodded and ambled gracefully over to her. “Of course.”

  “Wow.”

  “You’ll learn soon enough how to do it. It’s called glamour.”

  “I see.”

  “No, you don’t but you will. I’m starting off with the hard stuff, we’ll get to the easy stuff later.”

  “Glamour is easy?” Caia asked incredulously.

  “Believe me, in comparison to what we’ve been doing for the last few hours i
t is.”

  Caia didn’t reply, just gazed around in wonder at the yard as Marion folded herself in sitting position beside her.

  “You know, Caia, normally I would never do an exercise such as what we’ve doing this afternoon with someone so early in to their training. The fact that you not only rose to the challenge but doused ninety percent of my fire is...” She chuckled sounding amazed. “Impressive.”

  Caia wanted to blush. Marion was this mega magik and she was telling her that she was impressive. She listened as the witch rambled on and on about the extent of her power, what she could be capable of doing. Her abilities with trace magik for the Midnights was what really fascinated Marion, and the more and more she talked about it, the more and more Caia wanted her to be right. She needed her to be right.

  After a while, the sun had fallen beneath the trees and the moon danced in the sky, Caia decided it wouldn’t be rude now to take her leave and head off to bed. She was buzzing with a new found desperation to find Jaeden.

  “Caia,” Marion called back to her as she wandered up the back porch.

  “Yes?”

  “I know what you’re trying to do. In your dreams.”

  “What about it?”

  “Marita told me a little about how it feels to be connected to Daylights. She’s dealing with a potential rogue magik from the Coven, who is in Scotland at the moment. To find him she delves into his head in her dreams like you’re doing with Ethan. She told me when she’s inside it’s like she’s sharing his body more than his thoughts and that to tap into that part she can’t just sit docile and wait.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “She said she visualises the space she occupies inside him as a room with a door that leads to his thoughts. Some are easy and all she has to do is open the door and everything she needs floods into her. Others she spends some time kicking the door down.”

  Huh, Caia breathed, “You think that’ll work?”

  Marion shrugged, smiling apologetically. “I wouldn’t know, I don’t have trace magik. But I believe Marita when she says that’s what she does.”

  Caia stood a moment, just looking at her. If what she said worked, Caia was going to kill somebody. I mean something that simple and it’s been within my grasp all this time. She wanted to huff and scream like a petulant teenager. Instead she just smiled tightly, thanked her and headed up towards her room.