River Cast: Part Two in the Tale of Lunarmorte (5 page)

“
I heard this
really funny joke on the radio the other night. You want to hear
it?”

She shrugged.

“
I’ll assume
that’s angry teenage girl gesture for yes.” He smirked. “OK. So one
day, there’s this koala bear, up in his tree, smoking a joint, and
this little lizard walking past looks up and notices. “Hey,” the
little lizard calls, “What’s up?” “Nothing.” Shrugs the koala.
“just smoking a joint, getting stoned. Wanna join?” “Sure,” says
the little lizard, and he slithers up the tree and starts getting
stoned with the koala. A little while later, the little lizard says
his mouth is dry and he needs a drink, but on the way down the
tree, he leans over too far and falls into the river. A big
crocodile sees it happen and swims over. “What’s up?” He asks the
little lizard, “You OK?” “Sure.” The little lizard nods. “I’m just
too stoned from smoking some joints with the koala bear.” “Joints?”
The big crocodile’s eyes lit up. “I gotta check that out, man.” So
the big crocodile swims out of the river and takes a wander into
the trees until he reaches the one the koala bear’s in. “Hey!” He
shouts up, and the koala looks back down at him and shouts “Fuuuck
duuude! How much water did you drink?!” Ryder slapped the wheel of
the truck, laughing as he finished the joke. “Ah man, that’s
funny.” He shook his head, wiping at a tear in the corner of his
eyes. “It kills me.”

Jaeden hadn’t said
anything. She had managed to hide her answering grin to the joke by
looking out of the passenger window.

“
What?” Ryder
huffed. “Come on that was funny! That was comic gold right
there.”

She shrugged, enjoying
teasing him. “It was OK. Kind of elementary.”

“
Elementary?
It’s an effing joke.”

“
Whatever.”

His groan could probably
be heard for five miles. “Aw this is going to be a looong drive
home.”

Jaeden hid her grin with
her hand. Teasing and arguing with Ryder was the most normal she
had felt in a long time. She sneaked a glance at him again, and a
rush of old feelings hit her like a battering ram. She remembered
how just the thought of him had sent butterflies into chaos in the
pit of her stomach, back when she had been naively carefree; how
just daydreaming about him had gotten her through her boring
history class; how she had promised herself that when she turned
eighteen, she would finally let Ryder know that his mate had been
under his nose the whole time.

A golden peace whispered
through her briefly with the memories.

Goddess, she had made a
mistake leaving the pack. Instead of running from them, she should
have let them fix her. And maybe she would have felt infrequent
bursts of that golden peace she felt momentarily with Ryder, until
one day she didn’t feel so broken.

A hollow regret formed in
her chest. Running from the pack was probably the biggest mistake
of her life. She had been so afraid of her family not understanding
who she was now. But that wasn’t an excuse was it? Why had she done
it?

She held in the gasp of
pain her confusion and regret created, and kept her face turned
from Ryder. A single tear escaped, trickling slowly down her smooth
cheek, feeling like a heavy stone scoring her skin.

It was the first tear she
had shed since she had left the pack.

This time she did gasp.
She was cracking, the steel armour she had put up around herself
rusting off, and all because she was with one of her pack? Coins on
Ryder’s dash began to shudder and Jaeden flinched, willing her
telekinesis into control.

“
Are you
alright?” She heard Ryder ask, and there was a deep concern
there.

“
Yeah.” She
managed in a shuddering breath, and she turned to him wide-eyed.
“Yeah, I think I’m going to be.”

He smiled gently in
answer, seeming to understand.

4 - Wants and
Fears

The smell of coffee, eggs
and crackling bacon rushed up her nose to taunt her olfactory
senses and cause her stomach to roil in knots. She followed Lucien,
who followed a waitress, to a booth at the back of the roadside
diner.

“
Here you go,
hon,” the young woman purred, handing a grease covered menu to
Lucien, the look in her eyes indicating that if he wanted he could
order her off the menu. Caia slid into the booth, ripped edges of
maroon leather catching on her jeans. Of course the waitress didn’t
even glance her way, let alone give her a menu. Good thing she
wasn’t hungry, huh.

“
What are you
having?” Lucien asked, as he managed to fold his huge frame into
the too-small-for-him booth.

“
I’m
OK.”

“
Caia, you
have to eat.”

“
I’m not
hungry.”

“
At least
have some coffee and a sandwich.”

“
I don’t
think I could keep it down.”

“
I’m ordering
you a sandwich.”

“
Fair enough.
Hope you can afford new upholstery in the truck.”

He grimaced. “Maybe just
the coffee then.”

As his eyes wandered over
the menu his expression changed, a big wolfy grin spreading across
his face. “I, on the other hand, am going to have a burger. A huge,
juicy, meaty burger with a hunk of melting cheese, maybe some thick
mayo and-”

Caia felt herself turn
green. “Stop, I beg of you.”

The portal to the Centre
was just over a five hours drive away. They had left at sunrise and
would be there in a few hours time. The thought of actually meeting
Marita and Vanne, of actually taking a real part in the war, was
causing not only the sickening butterflies in the pit of her
stomach, but trembling, cold shakes that ran through the top of her
skin, sending the hairs up on her arms, and her teeth into
chattering madness.

The drive so far with
Lucien had been fraught with tension. The cab in his truck seemed
smaller somehow. She could hear and feel every move he made, her
eyes wandering to his strong hands and sinewy forearms every time
he reached for something. Tingles shot through her each time she
caught a glimpse of his strong profile (or when he turned to smile
at her, his hard silver eyes softening to smoke the way they only
seemed to do around the people he really cared about), and
momentarily her nerves over the Centre were obliterated, and
replaced with new nerves, sad achy nerves over Lucien; over the
stupid mistakes she had made when she learned he had been keeping
things from her. In the end it had turned out that there were more
important things in life than petty grievances. And as it turned
out her grievances had been petty in comparison to what happened to
Jaeden and to Sebastian.

Hindsight
sucked.

In fact hindsight should
be assassinated.

Lucien was frowning over
having being stopped in his meat salivation. “You sure you’re
OK?”

She nodded
mutely.

His eyes narrowed
perceptively. “Last time I’m asking. I’m a guy after
all.”

Caia laughed. Olympus
forbade anyone considered him sensitive or considerate. “Some
coffee will be fine. I’m just a little nervous, that’s
all.”

The waitress returned and
Lucien gave her their order. When he was done she gave him a huge
come-get-me smile and then turned unexpectedly to Caia.

“
He your
boyfriend?” She asked loudly.

Her mouth fell open at the
woman’s brazenness, and she looked over at Lucien to see him
grinning smugly, enjoying the interlude, and waiting in amusement
for Caia’s answer. He quirked an eyebrow at her as if to say,
‘See... I’m hot.’

She glared at him and
turned back to the expectant waitress. She smiled sweetly at her,
checking her nametag. “Oh no. He’s all yours... Melissa, is
it?”

Melissa grinned. “You’re
not dating?”

“
No. Never.
Not gonna happen.” She turned that sweet smile back on Lucien,
whose smirk had been replaced with a glower. “I would have to be
paid-”

“
OK, she gets
the picture,” he snapped and turned to Melissa. “Can we just get
our order please?”

Melissa nodded
absentmindedly. “What are you doing later?”

“
Going to
France.”

She giggled. “Yeah, right.
Seriously, you want to like do something?”

“
I’ll be in
France.”

The waitress lost the
grin, straightened up from the table and sent him a dirty look. “If
you don’t want to go out with me just say so.”

As the girl flounced off,
Caia chuckled. “You’re so getting a loogie in your
coffee.”

“
I don’t get
it, I was telling the truth.” He shrugged, looking confused and
irritated, clearly annoyed that she had got the better of him in a
situation he thought would annoy the crap out of her. The thing
was... Caia was pretty used to people ogling Lucien. She had since
learned to turn the whole jealousy thing off.

“
Well she’s
human. She doesn’t understand that there are portals to Europe in
gymnasiums. I didn’t realise there were portals to anywhere, let
alone Europe, in gymnasiums until last week and I’m a half-breed
half-breed.”

“
A half-breed
half-breed?”

“
Still
working on a name for what I am.”

“
How about a
Mykan?”

“
Or a
Lykik?”

Lucien screwed up his
face. “Stick with half-breed half-breed for now.”

She smiled, and for that
moment they were comfortable in each other’s company. She bit her
lip, remembering the first time they had taken a walk in the woods
behind their house together, and Lucien had told her about Pack
Errante’s origins. It had been comfortable then, too. If only it
could be like that always. Abruptly, the moment between them
changed as Lucien’s eyes fell to her mouth. It was the same look he
had given her when he’d kissed her for the first time, and when he
had initiated the night they slept together.

Oh boy.

Her cheeks suddenly felt
very flushed.

And then Lucien seemed to
come back to himself and he coughed shifting in his
seat.

“
Where is
that coffee?” He grumbled, his eyes not meeting hers.

Caia tried to hide her
smile. Maybe Lucien wasn’t quite as unaffected by her as she’d
thought he was. She felt like laughing. Maybe there was hope after
all. Maybe-

What is
that?

An icy
tingling shot through her, and she stiffened in response. She was
fully in control of her trace magik now. She tapped into it
whenever
she
wanted to; but if a Midnight magik was close by, the trace
alerted her to it. Glancing around, Caia tried not to show her
panic. It didn’t mean the Midnight was here in the diner. The magik
could be a few miles away. Allowing herself to relax, she let the
magik’s essence pour through her. A man. A young man. He was happy
about something. It felt like love. He felt like he was in love.
She stiffened again.

“
Caia, what’s
wrong?” Lucien reached across for her hand.

“
Nothing,”
she whispered.

And that was the problem.
The young Midnight’s essence was untainted. There was no malice or
hate in his soul. No bloodlust for war. And he wasn’t the first
Midnight’s trace that she had felt this from. Why were there
Midnights who didn’t seem to care about the war? There was no
evidence of that black syrupy pool of hate Ethan had revelled in;
that Pierre du Bois and his followers swam in. She wasn’t stupid.
Caia knew that there was no black and white in war, or in most
situations for that matter, but the centuries of beliefs and
warfare had taken on its own soul, its own being. Daylights were
supposed to want equality and peace. Midnights the extinction of
‘lesser’ supernatural beings they considered a threat to mankind.
So why the Hades were there Midnights who cared more about the kind
of puppy their fiancée might like, than whether their Head of Coven
had gone missing?

“
Caia?”
Lucien reiterated.

She shook the trace out of
her at the sound of Lucien’s panic.

“
I’m OK,” she
reassured him, “I’m OK.”

Should she tell Lucien
what she suspected?

“
You look
upset.”

Her eyes drank in his
concern, her whole body warming over his distress for her. Lucien
was a big believer in ‘Midnights bad, Daylights good’. He would
think she was crazy, or reading the trace incorrectly. No. For now
she’d keep quiet, and Lucien would keep smiling at her.

“
Just nerves
again.”

He snorted and shook his
head. “I don’t know what you’re nervous for. You’re like a god to
these people. I, on the other hand, am the Alpha whose pack you
chose over the Centre.”

Caia laughed.
“Yeah, I forgot about that. Hey, maybe
you
should be nervous.”

“
Nice.
Thanks.”

“
Ooh look,
you’re loogie coffee is coming.”

“
You’re cute
you know that. I think if you continue to be this cute I’m going to
leave you here to go out on a date with Melissa, the waitress,
yourself tonight. I’ll send a postcard from the Centre.”