“That’s what you can’t seem to wrap around your thick skull... this isn’t your business.”

“Whatever’s coming I’m more equipped to deal with it than you, lykan.”

“Enough with the prophet crap, it’s wearing on my nerves, vampyre.”

“You’re such a child.”

“I’m-”

Their argument drifted out of ear shot as she slammed out of the apartment and down the stairs out of the building. Half the time she didn’t think their inane arguing even had anything to do with her. Her headache throbbed harder.

A run.

A run would be good to work out everything that had happened this evening. Laila’s sorrowful tale, the bond that she had felt forging between them, the idea that Midnights might not all be bad (sheesh who saw that coming?), her official engagement to Ryder, and his inability to function normally in a room with Reuben.

Yeah, a run would be great.

Trying to throw off her irritation at Ryder and Reuben, Jae mused over Laila, feeling an impatience growing for Caia and Lucien to return so they could work this all out. With relief, she pulled into Lucien’s driveway and walked across the gravel and up on to the porch. She didn’t bother going through the house, knowing they would hear her strolling around to the back porch and would work out for themselves who was there. That impatience she felt bubbling in her skin changed into an impatience for the run. Jae jerked out of her clothes and she suddenly wished she could be like Caia. Ryder had described how she could change into a wolf instantly now, how she could run into the woods in human legs and soar into the change. It sounded wonderful. But as her muscles strained in the burn of the change, and as her bones cracked with eye-watering satisfaction, she knew she wouldn’t give up this feeling for anything. Distantly she wondered if Caia missed it. The cool night air rushing through her pelt was exactly what the doctor ordered. She crunched through pinecones, ran at full speed towards a tree and launched herself at it, only to bound off it and race in the opposite direction.

With the run, her mind cleared, replete and calm.

After a while she grew exhausted, and so made her way back to Lucien’s backyard, leisurely and purposely slowing the change back into human form. Jaeden smiled, stretching her muscles from top to bottom and yawning. With a final roll of her neck she began to shuffle back into her clothes.

On the last button of her shirt, her ears pricked up at a loud crack that came from the woods close by. She sniffed the air and an unfamiliar sweet scent she couldn’t quite identify swam up her nostrils. She hadn’t quite turned around to investigate when pain shot through her head and dark spots clouded her vision, swallowing her whole as they multiplied into a thick black tar.

“I can’t believe this. It’s all your fault!” Ryder railed at the vampyre as they followed Jaeden’s scent.

Reuben snorted. “You started it.”

“She’s probably furious at me. At you. I can’t believe she left without me evening knowing it. It’s your fault. You piss me off past rationality.”

“It’s always nice to be appreciated.”

“Don’t make me come over there, vampyre.”

“I’m shaking in my boots.”

Ryder bared his teeth and swung the truck viciously into Lucien’s driveway so that the vampyre slapped against the passenger door with an ‘oof’.

“Childish, immature-”

Ryder ignored him as his eyes narrowed on two figures he saw at the side of the house. Two figures that appeared to be struggling-

“Jaeden!” he bellowed, cutting the vampyre off. Slamming on the breaks and cutting the engine, he threw himself out of the truck running towards the dark figure that had Jaeden bundled over their shoulder. The figure stopped at the entrance of the woods, jerking towards them, their face hidden by a black hood. Unceremoniously, it dumped Jaeden’s unconscious body to the ground and like a shadow disappeared into the darkness of the trees.

Reuben was running past him. “You check Jaeden, I’ll go after them!” he ordered, his face set with determination. Ryder barely had a moment to register that he had never seen anyone look quite as dangerous as Reuben did in that moment as he blurred past him.

“Jaeden.” He fell beside her, turning her limp body over. He pressed two fingers to her pulse, relief rushing through him at the steady beat.

“Ryder, what happened?”

He looked up to see Ella and Magnus rushing out of the house, their faces etched with concern. “She’s been knocked out, her head’s bleeding.”

“Get her into the house,” Magnus ordered gruffly, his gaze searching the woods. “There’s someone out there.”

Ryder nodded, lifting Jaeden into his arms with ease. “I couldn’t see who it was. Reuben’s gone after them.”

Magnus frowned. “The vampyre. Sure he can handle it?”

The venomous look on Reuben’s face flashed before his eyes. “I’m sure. Let’s worry about Jae.”

Magnus reluctantly agreed and followed them into the house. Ella cleaned the blood from the wound and Magnus checked her over.

“When she comes around it’ll heal,” he assured Ryder, “No concussion.”

Ella wrung her hands. “Must have been some hit to take one of us down.”

Ryder growled in response.

At that, Jaeden stirred, her eyelids fluttering open. “Ow.”

Relief overwhelmed him as he took her hand in his. “Jae. You’re alright baby, you’re alright.”

After a few moments, her eyes seemed to focus and she groaned in irritation. “What the hell happened now?”

“I lost them!” Reuben suddenly strode into the sitting room, his hair wild from having run against the wind, his shirt torn from obstructing branches.

“Lost who?” Jae whispered, her look of confusion trying to mask the one of fear he knew was waiting in the wings. “What happened?”

Magnus shook his head in deep concern. “Someone tried to take you.”

Horror flit across her eyes before she could stop it. “Kidnap me?”

Ryder squeezed her hand tighter, rage unlike anything he had ever known desperate to explode and take everything with it. “We’ll find out why?” he promised tightly.

“I want to know who,” Ella snarled.

They fell silent, and Reuben moved towards the hallway, his head down, his shoulders hunched in thought. Ryder’s head jerked up as the vampyre muttered, “If it’s who I think it was, things are about to get very interesting.”

20 - The Politician

“I don’t think you understand how valuable you are.” Marita appeared to be fighting to remain calm, her words hissed between clenched teeth, “Forget even that you have trace powers leading us to every Midnight in this world, there is not a witch or warlock on this earth that has done what you did in Remnant Forest.”

She was allowing the Head of the Coven to pace and bluster and lecture, sitting on the sofa by Marita’s fireplace, waiting patiently for her chance to speak. So far the witch was not taking the news that she intended to return to the pack very well. Boo for her.

“You haven’t even touched some of the lessons in magik our advanced classes teach. We have no idea what you will be capable of when you have the knowledge and understanding of magik like that of my sister and my own. It would be idiotic to let you walk out of here and go home.”

Caia tensed at her tone, her eyes narrowing as Marita spun around to glare at her. “Last time I checked, madam, the Coven laws forbade coercion and kidnapping.”

Marita chuckled humorlessly. “So dramatic, Caia.”

“You knew when I got here that it was merely a visit. I’ve been helping you quite well from my home with the pack.”

“Your reports are useful. However, your soldiering is invaluable.”

As the silence thickened between them, Caia could see the witch’s eyes hardening with every tick of the clock.

She really had thought I would stay, Caia mused incredulously.

“What have you got to return to, Caia? Those people who don’t understand you? And if the rumor mill here is correct your Alpha, the one man who was keeping you bound to that pack, is now in a relationship with Rose Bronson.”

The calculating gleam in her eye, that smug smile, knocked Caia for six.

Son-of-a-Bitch, she hissed inwardly. “Rose... isn’t a friend of Phoebe MacLachlans, is she?”

Shrugging, Marita gave her a saccharine smile, folding herself elegantly into the armchair before her. “No, not really.”

She didn’t know whether to be disgusted or pay attention to this woman’s tactics. After all, if she was to convince the Council to ally with her and go up against Marita, then she had better learn to be just as ruthless when dealing with her.

“Why?”

“I need you here.”

In other words she had deliberately brought Rose here to separate Caia from Lucien, to make her feel isolated from him and the pack, to give her no other option but to call the Center home. There was absoluteness to Marita in that moment. From the tip of her hair to the tip of her toes she was determined Caia would remain with her, fight for her. Did she really think Caia would agree to aid her in her experiments with children?!

Time to change tactics.

Caia slumped, a small sigh escaping as she glanced up at the magik with a deliberate weariness shimmering in their depths. “I don’t know what I’m doing,” she whispered.

The magik tutted and slid a cold hand across to her, patting it condescendingly. “There, there, my dear. You’ve had an exhausting time of it. But there is nowhere better for you than here. It will be better for you emotionally and physically if you stay here. I thought you had made friends here, people who understand you. And there’s always Marion, who I know is extremely fond of you.”

She nodded, tucking her hair behind her ear, making her fingers tremble noticeably. “I just... don’t want to disappoint anyone.”