Blood Solstice: Part Three in the Tale of Lunarmorte (32 page)

She
smiled wryly. “If only I had thought of it sooner, huh?”

Then we wouldn’t be awkward with each other because I wouldn’t
have lied to you and you wouldn’t have kicked me out of the
pack.

As usual
he seemed to understand and covered her hand with his own, giving
it a quick squeeze.

“
Anyway, he said the gods already knew what I wanted and he
was waiting on their reply.”

“
You’re telling me this guy has a direct link to the gods?”
Aidan asked astonished.

Caia
grinned ruefully. “Yup. And the gods have a funny sense of humour.
They made me wait weeks for an answer.”

Jaeden’s
eyes sparkled with excitement. “But they said yes,
right?”

“
They said yes.”

A whoop
rushed around the pack before she quietened them, laughing at their
encouragement. “That’s all fine and dandy but it means this… this
war isn’t over for me.” She couldn’t look at Lucien. “This annulet
on my palm is part of a blood oath I took to the Council. I
promised them that if they made me Head of the Coven I would
complete the rite to the gods and have them take away the trace. If
I don’t, all my powers will be given to the Council.”

“
What the hell kind of risk is that to take?” Magnus
grumbled.

“
One I had to,” she insisted. “And now I have to go back to
the Centre and finish this.”

At their
continued silence Caia finally managed to lift her gaze from the
table top to look into Lucien’s face. His eyes told her he loved
her, but his expression told her how torn he was. He had made a
promise to the pack.

And she
understood that. As much as she didn’t want to.

Magnus’
cough broke their eye contact and they looked over at uncle. He
pinned them both with a stern stare. “Now look here, this stuff
about protecting the pack from the war is nonsense. We’ve been in
this war for a long time and we’re not getting out of it without
every other supernatural on the planet getting out of it as well.
And we will follow you, Lucien, no matter what. Look, Marion told
me after she took Eliza to the Council and explained about her
being alive and all that-”

Caia
almost laughed at the blasé way he said it.

“
-they offered the pack a home at the Centre until this is all
over. So let’s go with Caia. We can’t leave her alone in
this.”

A spark
of hope flared inside of her and she switched her gaze to Lucien
hesitantly. He was looking around at the pack, reading them all
carefully. Finally, he turned back to her and that spark burst to
fire at his slow grin of agreement.

27 – Save
Our Souls

White Lies
played softly from the
mp3 deck the Centre had tricked out in their suite. It was dreary
outside in Paris, shadowing the room in a grey-blue gloom that was
counteracted by the candles Jaeden had lit all around them. The
atmosphere outside their door was tense and expectant. Inside, she
lay snuggled against Ryder as they dosed on a sofa, careless of
anything but one another. It was nice to forget about the last few
months of horror, to forget about the fight that lay
ahead.

“
I like Anna as a name,” Ryder suddenly mused, stroking his
fingers up and down her bare arms. Goosebumps immediately rose
where he touched and she smiled at his turn of
conversation.

“
A name for what?” she teased.

“
Uh, the Hummer I have a deposit on,” he replied
sarcastically. “A kid, Jae, a little girl.”

“
Whose little girl?”

“
Well I was going to say ours but this conversation is rapidly
making me rethink procreation with you.”

Jae
chuckled. “Sorry. I just can’t believe you’ve thought of names.
What else have you thought about?”

He
huffed, “I don’t know. I thought we could wait a few years, have
some time just the two of us. And then I was thinking maybe we
could get a house next to Lucien and Caia so that our kids grow up
close, you know. Maybe have three or four kids…”

The
warmth of his sweetness settled like a pleasant ache on her chest.
“Boys or girls?”

“
I don’t know. What do you think?”

“
Three boys and a little girl.”

Amusement
laced his words as he replied, “Ah, so you have thought about this,
too?”

“
I guess. I always thought that would be nice, you know;
having three big brothers.”

“
I thought Christian drove you crazy?”

“
Oh he does,” she whispered, thinking about her brother these
last few weeks. He had been wonderful to her mother when Jae
hadn’t. But now she was acting like a sane person again they were
getting through the loss of Dimitri with one another. Her brother
had taken on this paternal role that was annoying… and yet so
welcome. “But I don’t know what I’d do without him.”

She felt
Ryder press a kiss into her hair. “Then three boys and a girl it
is.”

She
laughed. “Just like that?” she twisted around to look at
him.

His
expression was serious as his eyes drank her in. “Of course. What
do I gotta do to make you understand I’d do anything to make you
happy?”

I love you.

Ignoring
her suspiciously prickling eyes, Jae reached for him, pressing a
soft kiss to his lips. A soft kiss that suddenly grew heated. Ryder
groaned underneath her and she felt a tug on her shirt as he began
opening buttons.

A gentle
tapping filtered into her consciousness.

“
Jae!”

Caia.

Ryder
growled under her lips and she peeled herself off of him. “Her
timing sucks,” he groaned.

Smiling
ruefully, Jae began buttoning her shirt again. “Coming!” she called
and then threw Ryder a warning look. “I’m letting her
in.”

He
squirmed uncomfortably, a slight flush rising on his cheekbones.
“Well given me a minute.”

Snickering at his predicament, she thrust a cushion at him
and hurried over to the door. Caia stood on the other side looking
a lot more put together than she had in the last few days. She
seemed to look over Jae quizzically and then blushed. “I didn’t
interrupt anything, did I?”

How did
she know?

“
You’re hair…” she gestured vaguely.

Jaeden
felt her head and realised her hair was twice as big as it usually
was from Ryder running his hands through it. “Oh… I um… was
experimenting.”

She
ignored Ryder’s snort.

“
Anyway what’s up?” She stood aside to let her
pass.

“
Hey, Ryder.” Caia gave a little wave, and threw him an
apologetic look after taking in the candles and obviously romantic
setting. “I really didn’t mean to bother you guys.”

“
No bother,” he assured her amiably.

“
So what’s up?” Jae asked as soon as they were all seated. “I
thought you would be busy getting ready for the ceremony tonight.”
Caia was being made Head of the Coven in a matter of
hours.

“
Nah, I know what they want me to do. I’ve been hanging at the
library.”

What the
Hades was she hanging in the library for? “Why?”

Caia
shrugged. “Oh, just reading up on the ceremony and
stuff.”

“
Oh, makes sense.”

“
Yeah.”

After
another pause Ryder coughed, “Do you, uh, want me to
leave?”

Caia
shrugged again and threw Jae a pensive look. “It depends if
Jaeden’s comfortable talking about her telekinesis in front of
you.”

A sick
feeling settled in her stomach and she felt her defences rise.
“Yes. Ryder can stay.”

Her mate
was frowning. “What is this about?”

Shaking
her head, Caia’s hands fluttered nervously, reading their sudden
tension. “No, I don’t want to alarm you; it’s nothing too serious.
It’s just… well... when we were at Eliza’s home fighting… Jae,
didn’t you realise that your telekinesis worked on the lykans in
wolf form?”

Huh.

She knew she must look stunned. Because, truthfully, the
thought hadn’t even crossed her mind. Wow. It
had
worked against the lykans. “Oh
yeeaahh.”

Ryder
looked confused. “What does that mean?”

“
I don’t know.” Caia watched Jae tensely. “I don’t want you to
worry about it though… I just think that at some point it’s
something we should look into.”

She
stiffened, panic tightening her chest. “Look into how? By
experimenting?”

Caia
looked aghast at the suggestion. “Gaia, no! I just thought maybe a
blood test. We don’t know if your telekinesis is part of a transfer
of magik from Ethan or if it’s an emotional parting gift from what
happened to you. There are theories that severe emotional trauma
can cause us to tap into the parts of our brain that we don’t
normally use, thus giving us access to things like
telekinesis.”

This
whole conversation was starting to make her uncomfortable. “Does it
matter?”

“
Not to me.” Caia smiled gently at her. “But if it’s magik
then somehow you’ve managed to discover a new kind that penetrates
the biggest defence a lykan has. That’s important. And also… if it
is magik, does that mean it’s genetic?”

Ryder
relaxed back into the sofa. “You mean will our kids have
it?”

Caia
nodded.

Wow.
Jaeden hadn’t even thought of that. Was this something her kids
would get from her? And did that make her and any kids she had a
threat, because she could hurt lykans in wolf form?

“
Is this a problem, Caia?” she whispered, trying to chokehold
the nervous butterflies waking up in her stomach.

Caia
stood up, and as she did so, her power seemed to crackle around
her. “No,” she replied firmly. “I came here to suggest that we keep
it between us. Only Lucien and I, and now you guys, know about
this. I think we should keep it that way. If after all this you
want to know more about it then we’ll look into it. But I think
it’s safer all round if this never gets out, and that you refrain
from utilising your telekinesis against lykans in wolf
form.”

Relief
washed through her and she gave her friend a grateful smile. “Thank
you.”

Caia
suddenly looked shy as she turned to walk back towards the door.
“Don’t. I’d do anything for you, you know that.”

That was
the second person in the last ten minutes to say something that
sweet to her. A warm revelation settled over her. The pain caused
by her father’s death would never go away, but the loneliness was
slowly melting out of existence.

And all
because she was lucky enough to have soul mates.

***

Her legs shook beneath her as Caia got down on her knees in
the middle of the court. Like last time, all of the Daylights sat
upon the rows and rows of benches; the Council seated in the row
before her. Unlike last time, her pack was in the crowd and the
Council wasn’t out to get her.
Well, for
the most part
, she thought, ignoring
Benedict De Jong’s displeased expression. The time for the ceremony
had come, and she had been warned, as had the pack and everyone
else, that once she inherited the title of the Head of the Coven
the impact of the trace would hurt. Trace magik, when inherited as
it had been for Caia before her eighteenth birthday, was easier to
manage; it was a gradual addition to her magik as she approached
her eighteenth year. For most, however, the trace was inherited by
ceremony and it could be painful. Thus the Centre had been warned
not to overreact if Caia displayed signs of discomfort. Her hand
twitched. Just how much discomfort were they talking about here?
And would the pain last long? The rite asking the gods to take back
the trace was not being performed until the Hunter’s Moon, or Blood
Moon as it was often called (Caia felt Blood Moon was more fitting
considering she had to offer up some of her own during the rite).
Anyway, the Blood Moon was another four days away. Four days of
excruciating pain didn’t sound like fun to her.

“
Caia Ribeiro.” Alfred Doukas stood up. Like the rest of the
Council he wore pale blue ceremonial robes with the Fasces on their
left breast. The Fasces was a bundle of rods tied together
containing an axe in the middle with its blade projecting. In
ancient Rome it had been carried in front of the magistrates and
symbolised authority. The Council couldn’t have been clearer about
how they saw themselves within the Coven. “You kneel before us
today in supplication to the gods, asking them to bequeath favour
upon you and grant you the gifts only bestowed upon that of this
Coven’s leader.” At that the Council all stood as one and began
making their way around the bench to the platform. One by one, they
lowered themselves to their knees, Alfred Doukas only marginally
closer to her than the others. “We, the Council, kneel with you,
and ask the gods to grant this favour.” As one they pulled small
daggers from their robes and slit a shallow cut across their palms
before holding it up to the heavens. Caia took that as her cue and
gripped tight to the dagger Marion had given her, biting her lip as
she scored it across her left palm, squeezing back the sting of
tears as her flesh opened and the blood ran out. She held it up to
the heavens and cleared her throat.