Caia cursed, hearing the water in her bathroom rush on. “Let’s just work on controlling the freakish powers first, huh, Cy,” she muttered, and made to turn the water off.
“We have a slight problem.”
When did they not? Ethan thought in agitation as he zapped the mutt in its cage, its shriek of pain easing his headache. “Spit it out.”
“They’re training her,” his spy murmured, obviously not wanting him to hear correctly. He could feel his muscles tensing, a warm heat of angry power flushing across his skin from his feet up. A bolt of white heat flew out of him, and an even louder, agonized howl deafened him.
“Damn.” He sighed, and crouched down to peer into the cage. He hoped he hadn’t killed the thing; it was important leverage.
“My lord?”
“Shut up,” Ethan snapped, turning his ear to the cage. He sighed in relief when a whimper escaped the creature. “Oh thank, Gaia.”
“My lord?”
“Stop ‘my lording’ me. We’ll need to take her sooner than we thought, that’s all.”
His assistant hissed, “There’s more.”
Ethan wanted to reach down the end of the receiver and choke the living daylights out of her. Unfortunately, he needed her for the time being as she was one of only three people within the Coven who knew about Caia: himself, her and Lars. Of course, he’d have to kill them both when this was over.
“What else?” he asked between clenched teeth, half afraid of the answer.
“Well, it appears Lucien and Caia’s relationship has now been put asunder due to a female member of the pack’s jealousy.”
That was the last thing he wanted to hear. Another wave of heat flew from his body but he made sure it wasn’t directed at the mutt in the cage.
“My Lord?” she asked again, worriedly.
He waited a few seconds so that he didn’t accidently kill her down the phone line. When he was sure he was under control, he said in restrained breaths, “You will need to go in as quickly as you can and reunite our lovely couple.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“I don’t have to remind you that Caia’s relationship with her animal friends is pivotal to weakening the pack. Particularly her relationship with Lucien.”
“I’ll go in immediately. As soon as I’m allowed. They have her under lock and key at the moment.”
“Then break the damn lock.” Jeez, you just can’t get reliable help these days. “You can’t wait any longer than a few days or else her powers and control will develop. Get in there and get those two lovebirds together or… I will personally eviscerate you.”
Her breath caught in the back of her throat and he reveled in the power he held over her. She knew he was perfectly serious. “Of course, my lord.”
“And Xylena?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Once your mission is complete I want your first kill to be the bitch lykan female that put a kink in Caia’s relationship with the Pack Leader and a kink in our plans.”
“Gladly.”
19 - Lessons
“That’s it, Caia. Hold it... hold it... hooold iiiit.”
Caia sighed, her head aching with the exhaustion of trying to contain the water. Marion had set up a heavy duty hose out in the backyard and was attempting to train Caia in controlling it. Right now, instead of the water pouring out directly and falling with gravity, she had Caia separating the water flow into two halves, each spraying in the opposite direction. It was the strangest feeling, having to reach deep inside and tap into the energy that she now felt hovering above the energy she used to tap into her wolf side. The trace buzzing above the lykanthrope energy was sharp and airy - like steel vapor - her lykanthrope more a tingling heat. The first day of training had been excruciatingly frustrating as she kept tapping into her lykan trace, fur exploding across her body at the slightest attempt to harness her magik. But the amount of focus it took was keeping her heartache at bay and allowing her to function normally.
Well.
As normal as she could be.
Although she felt heartache at the truth of her family’s past, she also felt a weird sense of relief and freedom from finally knowing the truth. She doubted the new lease of life she felt was an entirely ‘human’ or normal reaction to the situation, but her embarrassing emotional breakdown when she first heard the news was human enough for her, thank you very much.
So there she was, on the third day of training, and she had finally managed to conquer her dueling energies when Marion began throwing her off her focus with her obnoxious cheerleading coach persona. She’d obviously had way too much caffeine.
“Marion,” she warned between clenched teeth, the pain in her forehead increasing.
Marion laughed, clapping her hands together. She was being wonderful, she really was, but she also had a perverse sense of humor. At Caia’s warning, Marion magiked a whistle out of thin air and started blowing on the damn thing, jumping from one foot to the other. “Go, Caia, Go, Caia. Go Go Go, Caia. Whhhiieettt!” She blew the whistle shrilly and was silenced abruptly by a spray of water in her face.
Caia laughed, letting the water return to its natural flow.
Instead of frowning, Marion smiled brightly. “Very good, Caia. You managed to direct a third stream of the water in another direction. We’ll just forget the fact that it was on my face...” she did frown now, glancing down at the whistle around her neck. “I think you literally wet my whistle, though.”
Caia chuckled and then collapsed onto the grass. “My head aches.”
“It will at first.” Marion gracefully settled down beside her.
“What next then?”
“Well, I think we should soon begin on creating water from air.”
She rolled her eyes. “And I do that how?”
“You think about it, and it will happen.”
Caia grunted. She made it sound like a piece of cake. It wasn’t.
She had asked from the very beginning of her training why she had the power to harness water. If she was going to be this weird hybrid of lykan and witch shouldn’t she have really cool powers? Not some weak ability to quench her thirst whenever she wanted. Marion hadn’t been amused by her blasé opinion on being a water witch. Apparently it was one of the most powerful kinds.
“You see, Caia,” she had relayed patiently, as if to a child, “There are four kinds of magik. Water, Fire, Air and Earth.”
“Wasn’t that a band?”
Marion had rolled her eyes. “I’m sure you’re thinking of Earth, Wind & Fire. Please, Caia, can you take this seriously? It is pivotal to everyone that you take this seriously.”
She had sobered at the reminder of her great destiny, whatever that meant. “So the elements, huh?”
“Yes,” Marion had said primly. “I’m a fire witch. I can harness fire.” She’d stroked the air with her fingers and a flame appeared in front of her.
Caia had jumped back in surprise with a childish ‘whoa’.
“I can control it.” The flame had started to dance across the room, while Marion sat, just looking at it, not moving. “I can manipulate it.” The flame had suddenly roared, nearly scoring the ceiling.
“Holy Artemis!” Caia had cried. “You could warn a person before you do that.”
The witch had merely smiled and turned back to her, the flame disappearing as if it had never existed. “A fire magik is one of the most powerful,” she’d explained without arrogance. “However, a water magik is more powerful because of the obvious.”
“In a fight we can douse you.” Caia had nodded in understanding.
“Exactly. We can use fire to destroy, but so can you with water. I actually fought a water magik from the Midnight Coven a few years ago. He almost killed me,” her had voice lowered at the memory. “He was able to fill my lungs with water so that I was asphyxiated. If it hadn’t been for the opportune arrival of my brother-in-law, Vanne, who is a powerful water warlock himself, I most certainly would have died.”
“What did Vanne do?” Caia had asked in awe. This woman had seen and done things she couldn’t even begin to imagine.
“He wrapped the enemy warlock in a cocoon of water and he drowned. In doing so his power over me was broken, and the water disappeared out of my lungs.”
The thought had terrified Caia. That she had the ability to do something so horrendous to a person. That she would most definitely have to do something like that to Ethan in order to protect the pack.
A more terrifying question had pierced her mind.
“Do you know what kind of warlock Ethan is?” She’d asked quietly.
“Fire.” Marion had smiled triumphantly.
Caia could see Marion thought she was more than capable of taking Ethan on because she was a water witch. Caia wasn’t so sure. She had only just discovered she was a water witch. And now here she was, three days later, exhausted and in pain from the smallest of tasks.
“Do you need to take a break, Caia?” Marion asked gently and then she stroked the air with her fingers, a glass of lemonade appearing in her hand. She handed it to Caia, who took it, blinking incredulously.
“If you’re just a fire witch how can you conjure things from nothing, and if I’m just a water witch how could I blast Alexa off her feet and make furniture move?”
Marion smiled smugly. “The element is just the basis of our power. Gaia would never be so selfish as to bestow only measly gifts on her children. We can have, and do, whatever we want, but we have rules to protect ourselves and the human society.”
“I guess you should tell me about them.”
Marion groaned at the monotony of it. “I’ll get around to it.”
“But what if I break a rule in the meantime?”
She sighed, rolling her eyes again. “Are you going to utilize your magik to kill a human?”
“No.”
“Are you going to utilize your magik to force a human or Daylight supernatural from their own free will?”
“No.”
Marion grinned. “Then I think we’re OK for now.”
Caia smiled back at her. “It’s kind of like you’re Robin Williams and I’m Aladdin.”
“Excuse me?”
“You know... ‘Genie I want you to make me a prince!’”
The witch shook her head in confusion, and apparently worry. “Are you OK? Maybe you’re getting too much sun.”
Caia sighed in frustration. “Aladdin? Disney? Can’t kill anybody, can’t make people fall in love, can’t bring anybody back from the dead...‘It’s not a pretty picture, I don’t like doing it!’”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“You’re killing me here,” Caia sighed. That had been her best Genie impression.
“Maybe we should just proceed to manipulating water.”
Caia nodded, feeling more of an alien freak than ever in the company of her pop culture free companion. “I was kind of hoping you could help me control the whole telekinetic thing first. I’m getting tired of being my own personal poltergeist.”