River Cast: Part Two in the Tale of Lunarmorte (10 page)

“
OK.”

“
You’re
sure?”

“
Pretty
much.”

“
OK. Now
tighten your hold on your energy and picture yourself in that spot;
move yourself into that spot with your mind.”

She did as he
asked.

“
OK. Now
what?”

She was met by
silence.

“
Guys?”

Wait. The floor had gotten
awful squishy beneath her feet. And was that lavender air
freshener?

Her eyes flew open, and
she stumbled back gasping. Holy moly, she was in her guest suite.
She had done it! She had done it!

“
Aaaahhh!”
She laughed, jumping up and down like a little kid. She had
freakin’ done it on her first go! She grinned out into the city of
Paris. “Take that, Daylight snobs!”

Her face was about to
crack under the pressure of that grin, her adrenaline shooting
through every part of her body, sending her into shaky excitement.
OK, she had to calm down... it was time for the finale.

Following Mordecai’s
instructions, she visualised her place back in the hall, and
suddenly a flurry of excitement hit her ears.

“
Caia!”

Her eyes opened and
Mordecai was gazing in stunned amazement. Marion rushed forward to
grip her arms, laughing. She looked around, and all the trainees
were babbling excitedly, their eyes peeled to her, their bodies
involuntarily moving closer.

“
You did it!
I knew you would do it!” Marion squealed like a little girl, her
usual cool completely abandoned.

“
I’ve
never...” Mordecai took off his glasses to rub a non-existent
smudge from them. “Wow.” His eyes flit between her and Marion
before a huge grin broke out on his face. “This is going to be fun.
I want to see what she can do with natural
materialisation.”

***

Lucien was having a
blast.

That morning he had woken
up early to a banging on his door, belonging to a lykan around his
age with an attitude and bad hair. Julian was a pain in the ass,
and Lucien had a feeling he had been given to him specifically
because he was a pain in the ass, and would irritate the life out
of him. He made deliberately malicious comments about the pack,
about Caia, anything to try and make Lucien lose his temper. If
only he knew that the transparency of his attempts merely irritated
rather than angered; he was like a puppy, nipping you in
frustration because you won’t play back.

However the Second Unit?
Now that was fun.

The Centre had set up a
simulator of a large woodland arena where the lykans could work out
strategies in human form but execute them as wolves. The arena was
amazing, the smells, the mud, the trees, the air, all of it as real
as can be. And he was getting to stretch his legs, battling sandbag
dummies and holograms of Midnights. The sweat was thick in his fur,
and his muscles were screaming, his jaws aching from ripping so
many faux Midnights apart. But Hades it was a buzz. What a frickin’
way to work out the frustration.

Suddenly a piercing buzzer
went off, signalling them to return to base point and change. He
laughed at his disappointment and set off with the others.
Unabashedly they changed, men and women alike, and pulled on their
clothing.

A hand slapped down on
Lucien’s shoulder. “Gaia, you’re quick!” Julian was grinning at him
now, all contempt wiped from his face.

“
Yeah, dude,”
one of the largest lykans in the unit said gruffly, his dark eyes
glittering in respect, “I’ve never seen someone your size move so
fluidly.”

“
What do you
say, Lucien?” Anders, the units Alpha grinned at him. “Sure we
can’t convince you to become a permanent fixture around
here?”

Lucien laughed, enjoying
the camaraderie, and truthfully, he snorted, the boost to his
ego.

“
I’m too old
to start now,” he joked.

“
No way.” one
of the female members of the units, Lyla, ran her tongue across the
bottom of her teeth, flirtatiously. “You look in shape to
me.”

“
Sorry, I
have a pack to run.”

Julian sneered again.
“Like being king of the mountain, huh?”

Lucien
slapped
him
on
the back. “Yeah, I do.”

Anders and the others
laughed. “Well, we’ve been pushing it hard today. We really should
get you a meal before your meeting tonight.”

He nodded and followed
them out of the simulator. Thoughts of their five o clock with
Marita and Vanne got him wondering how Caia’s day had gone so far.
It bugged him to be apart from her, especially not knowing how she
had been received by the others. Had they been cruel? Kind?
Indifferent. He cracked his neck, unfurling his fists from the
tight balls he had pulled them into. If she was harmed when he got
her back tonight, he was going to crack some heads, regardless of
being under the supervision of the Head of the Coven.

***

It looked like he had
nothing to worry about. Caia had greeted him outside his room with
Marion, who was brimming over with excitement. Apparently his
little Cy had awed everyone by picking up the communication spell
first try.

Great.

Not only could she now
slam a door in his face from a great distance, but she could
actually disappear from his very arms within seconds. That
certainly didn’t even things out in a fight.

Ah, he knew he was being
belligerent. And she looked so damn pleased with
herself.

“
Did you know
that some magiks use words?”

“
Ethan,” he
replied grimly.

He watched her blanch as
she remembered the fight with her uncle, and the spell Ethan cast
under his breath to get out from the shield Caia had put around
him, to stop him from hurting Lucien and Jaeden.

“
Right,” she
said hoarsely.

“
Caia-”

“
No, right, I
forgot.” She shook it off, pretending to be unaffected, and then
grinned a little hollowly. “Anyway, they use words to focus their
magik. I haven’t being doing it because I’ve been taught by Marion
and she doesn’t do it, but Mordecai has all these funny little
words he uses when he’s making something transform, or
materialising something out of his element. It’s very cool, very
‘Warlock Weekly’.”

Lucien pasted on a smile
to try and ease the unpleasant tension he had caused, and went on
to tell them what he had been up to, once they finally let him get
a word in.

“
So, they
have a simulator here?” Caia’s eyes were bright with anticipation,
as they stepped out of the presidential elevator that took them to
Marita and Vanne’s suite.

“
Yup. It’s
like the real thing.”

“
Do you think
they’d let me use it? You know to take a run in... my bones are
desperate to crack.”

Marion laughed. “Ask, and
I’m sure it’s yours.”

Yeah, Lucien mused, as
they walked down the corridor, Caia certainly was getting the royal
treatment here. He knew she was an important weapon for them, but
this seemed above and beyond what they had expected.

It made him
suspicious.

“
Glad you’re
punctual,” Marita’s cold tones blew past him as they sauntered
inside. He watched as her shrewd eyes nailed Caia to the wall.
“I’ve been hearing interesting reports from today.”

“
Yes.” Vanne
grinned, winking at Caia.

“
Yes,” Marita
continued, “Apparently, our guest is a natural at natural
materialisation. She produced a bird, an apple, and for her finale
a grand oak that nearly broke the windows. Oh and let’s not forget
that she completed a communication spell on her first
try.”

“
Impressive.”
Her husband nodded his head deferentially, and Lucien watched as
Caia blushed uncomfortably.

Marita
nodded, her eyes glittering strangely. “Of course, we all know that
it really
is
impressive, but already gossip has reached me. Some of our
occupants think Marion had already trained you on how to do a
communication spell.”

He felt a growl rumbling
from his chest.

“
It’s OK,”
Caia whispered beside him, and as usual her perfect understanding
of him settled that strange peace over him.

“
Well,
they’re idiots,” Marion snapped. “Mordecai was most impressed, and
the others tend to fall in line with him.”

Vanne smirked. “Yes, very
well done in choosing Mordecai. Powerful, influential and
apparently has a thing for petite blondes who can blow his socks
off.”

Lucien snapped his gaze to
Caia. Had this Mordecai been flirting with her? The guy sounded a
little awe-inspiring... should he be worried?

Marion smiled. “I’m not
stupid, Vanne. I knew this whole process was going to liken to a
political campaign. I rallied the best.”

Marita strode
forward, gesturing to a dining table at the far end of the room
that had been set up as battle plan central. “Yes, well, you
are
my
sister.
Take a seat people.”

“
We also
heard that Lucien performed well today,” Vanne murmured as they
congregated around. “Anders was very impressed.”

His wife sniffed, eyeing
Lucien narrowly. “Anders forgets that Lucien has taken down a few
rogues in his time, as well as Adriana Vang, the heir to the
Midnight Coven. If we are to go by how very shocked he was by your
performance today, I would say he wasn’t listening when I told him
not to underestimate you.”

“
I don’t know
whether I’ve been complimented or insulted.”

Marita gave a huff of
amusement. “Oh it was a compliment... but you are so very
suspicious aren’t you, Lucien?”

She knew he wasn’t sure of
her, which meant he was giving far too much away when they met. He
had to reign in his natural compulsion to observe stonily, and try
harder to shield his feelings through her trace magik. He didn’t
want to seem calculating to her; if she really was up to something
– and he was sure she was – then she would be too on edge to let
the smallest thing slip.

“
Vang?” Caia
mumbled.

Marion placed a comforting
hand on her shoulder. “Your family name.”

He watched worriedly as an
emotion he couldn’t identify flittered across her face. And then
she was shaking herself, tensing under Marion’s hand. “My family
name is Ribeiro.”

He ached for her then. She
never allowed herself a moment to feel her mother’s betrayal.
Lucien smiled kindly. “And don’t you forget it.”

She turned and smiled
warmly up at him. “Did you know it means river - Ribeiro I
mean?”

“
Yeah.”

“
It’s kind of
ironic, don’t you think?”

He chuckled. “I guess it
is.”

“
Excuse me,”
Marita said imperiously. “Can we return to the matter at hand? We
have a strategy to sort out.”

“
Let’s get
started then.”

“
First, I’d
like to introduce you to the operatives who will be helping us
coordinate.” She turned and gestured to Noble at the door, who in
turn pulled it open with a flourish. “First, Anders Rosencrantz,
Alpha of our Second Unit, whom Lucien is already acquainted
with.”

He nodded in
acknowledgment to the older lykan, who strode purposefully into the
room, taking time to shake hands with Caia.

“
And Mordecai
Cherstvennikov, head of the First Unit, and the water magik who has
been instructing Caia.”

Lucien pulled in a breath,
and then quickly let it go as the stocky young man, who looked to
be about the same age as him, walked stiffly into the room towards
them. He shoved at the black glasses that slid down his nose and
smiled tensely at Lucien, quickly shaking his hand, and then
grinned broadly at Caia and Marion.

Well... that guy certainly
didn’t look how he sounded. But he and Caia looked awful chummy
awful fast. Lucien resisted the urge to growl
possessively.

“
And Michael
Brown, head of our Third Unit of vampyres.” A tall, slender man who
looked to be in his forties - but was probably closer to a hundred
years old - glided into the room and over to them. His sharp face
remained stony as he shook every one of their hands.

Marita looked over them
all. “I decided not to take any precautions in the defence of the
MacLachlans, which is why I am enlisting the aid of every unit. The
added bonus is that Lucien and Caia will have an understanding of
how all of you work individually, and as a team. However, we have
two more operatives I would like to involve. I feel it is only
right that the MacLachlans have a representative, and so I have
asked Phoebe MacLachlan to join us.”

They all turned and
watched the gorgeous female sashay into the room. Lucien had heard
reports of Phoebe from Ryder who said the Rogue Hunter looked like
an angel, fought dirty like Hades, and had a heart of stone. It
looked like he was right. She was tall and curvy with heaps of
golden hair cascading over her shoulders, but her ice blue eyes
were hard and calculating as they drank in the team, her mouth
twisted in what looked like scorn. She shook hands with no one,
just braced herself against the nearest wall, her gaze straight
ahead at Marita.