River Cast: Part Two in the Tale of Lunarmorte (7 page)

Marita frowned. “That’s a
lot of arsenal.”

“
I’d say
overkill.” Caia nodded.

“
It also
means that Pierre has the beginnings of quite a rebellion,” Lucien
added, his voice husky from concealed anger.

Marita nodded in
agreement, and then snapped her fingers so abruptly Caia flinched.
A magik appeared almost instantly beside the Head, a tall hulking
figure of a man whose face held no expression,
whatsoever.

“
Noble, I
assume Miss Ribeiro and Mr Líder’s rooms are in order.”

“
Yes,
madam.”

She turned back to them.
“Noble will show you to your rooms. Get some sleep. Tomorrow, after
Mordecai and Marion have shown Caia around some of the Centre’s
facilities, I want the two of you to reconvene here at 5oclock to
discuss our plan of action. Lucien, I thought you might be
interested in our Second Unit.”

His brows creased in
confusion, as did Caia’s. What an earth was their Second
Unit?

“
Lykans.”
Vanne grinned.

“
Yes, quite.
Our Second Unit are our infantry of lykans. I’ll have a
representative sent around to your room tomorrow
morning.”

Lucien nodded
politely.

“
One more
thing before you retire for the evening, Caia.”

It was said pleasantly,
yet an unexpected chill shot through her.

“
Yes?”

Marita’s frozen smile
melted into a grimace. “You should be aware that despite my
sister’s championing of you, and her utmost belief in your
sincerity and trustworthiness, not all of Daylight is inclined to
believe her.”

“
What does
that mean?” Lucien growled.

She cast him a withering
look. “It means, Mr Líder, that some of my people are uneasy around
someone of Midnight blood.”

“
Daylight
blood as well,” he reminded her through clenched teeth.

Caia felt those nervous
butterflies returning as Marita shrugged. “Well, perhaps if she had
come to the Centre as a permanent resident, everyone would have
been able to look past the fact that her mother was a treacherous
Midnight whore who killed many Daylights, including your father and
her own.”

“
Marita...”
Marion stood from her chair, her expression pained.

Her sister merely raised
her hand, the polite mask falling back into place upon her marble
face. “I don’t mean to be cruel.” Her eyes turned to Caia, whose
own were bleak with uncertainty. She felt Lucien’s tension beside
her, and was reminded once again of all the differences that stood
between them, of how much he had been there for her despite
that.

“
If I can get
past it so can they,” Lucien’s voice rumbled around the room. He
moved closer to her, his arm brushing against hers. The butterflies
began to abate, and she turned to look at him
gratefully.

“
One can only
hope they will,” Marita drew her gaze back to her. “However, I
would encourage you, Caia, to think about staying longer than this
business with the MacLachlans. It would go a long way in securing
you the right allies.”

“
Well.” She
plastered an equally painfully polite smile on as her hostess. “I
thank you for the advice, Marita, but I hope my very
temporary
visit at the
Centre will be enough to show the people here whose side I’m on.
I’d have hoped killing my own uncle would have incurred some kind
of faith, but ultimately rescuing a pack of strangers will just
have to do the trick.”

Lucien didn’t even
disguise his amusement and in fact neither did Vanne. Marion was
the only one who tried to hold on to a straight face as Marita
narrowed her eyes at first her husband, and then Caia.

“
You might do
well here after all.”

Caia raised an eyebrow in
surprise at the grudging respect she found in the magik’s
eyes.

“
We’ll see,
though.”

“
These people
that might take issue to me being here, does that include the
Council?” Caia asked quietly, watching warily for a
reaction.

Marita smiled smugly. “The
Council does not reside here on a permanent basis, they only
convene on their schedule, or for emergencies.”

It wasn’t exactly an
answer. Marion had taught her a lot over the last few months,
including some pretty in-depth history lessons. Like the Midnights,
the Daylights had an appointed council, which included members of
the more influential families within the Coven. Their existence was
a precaution; an acting body of control that disavowed the idea of
an autocracy, even though Marita had complete autonomy as long as
her methods were morally correct, as well as providing the Coven
with adequate protection and defence. Caia had learned from Marion
that three hundred years ago, Marion and Marita’s great-grandmother
had taken a stand against the Head; a tyrannical warlock, whom she
discovered was plotting to overthrow the Council and take complete
power for himself. She went to the Council with this information, a
difficult task to have done, considering she had had to hide her
intentions from him in her trace, and asked to be put forward as a
candidate for Head of the Coven. Usually, this would have led to a
political campaign where the Daylights would be allowed to vote for
whomever they wanted to lead. The loser was killed so that they
could ask Gaia to imbue the winner with trace power. In Marion’s
great-grandmother’s case, the Council had been so horrified by her
discoveries they’d had the Head killed immediately, and placed her
in power. Their family had been ruling ever since.

So far, the Council was
very happy with Marita.

“
But do they
take issue with Caia?” Lucien persisted.

Reluctantly, Marita shook
her head. “They are merely impressed by your service to the Coven,
and interested to see what you are capable of in the
future.”

Satisfaction washed
through Caia, and she shared a relieved smile with
Lucien.

Marita ‘harrumphed’ again,
and with that, they were ushered out of the room behind an
impassive Noble.

They followed Noble back
to the elevator, which then led them down to floor five, where they
were deposited on another elevator that took them back up to floor
twenty-three.

It was like something out
of a sci-fi movie. Everything was white. White tiled floors, white
walls, white doors, and florescent lighting that made all the white
blinding.

“
Have we been
abducted by the third kind?” Lucien cracked. Caia chuckled and then
choked on her laughter at Noble’s severe glare.

“
These are
the candidate floors. We prefer to keep everything clean, simple,
and equal amongst the candidates.”

Caia frowned in confusion.
“I’m sorry, what are the candidates?”

Noble sighed heavily as if
he were speaking to a dumbass and growing rapidly impatient with
it. “The candidates are those Daylights in training.”

Lucien twisted his mouth
sarcastically. “Recruits.”

“
No.” Noble
looked as if he had eaten something rotten. “We prefer the term
candidate. Recruit just sounds so aggressive.”

Caia smirked at Lucien.
“Let me guess, that was Marita’s idea?”

“
Yes.
Hmmph.”

They grinned at each other
behind the pompous factotum’s back as he led them past door after
door. Finally, he stopped at one with the number 48 on it and
handed a swipe card to Lucien.

“
Your room,
sir. Marita has taken the liberty of securing a spell within the
key cards of non-magiks, so that their fellow magik students can’t
invade their privacy with a spell of their own.”

Lucien took the tiny piece
of card in his hand, puzzling over it. “Gee, thanks.”

“
Am I next
door?” Caia wondered, curious as to what the rooms looked like on
the other side.

“
No. We will
be taking
that
elevator.” He pointed to a white elevator a few metres down
the hallway.

“
Another
elevator?”

“
Why?” Lucien
was frowning again, his body automatically tensing, and he
straightened to his optimum height.

“
I’ve been
instructed to put the young lady in one of the guest
suites.”

“
But Lucien’s
a guest.”

“
Caia,
don’t-”

“
No! You’re
not a candidate...” She turned to glare at Noble. “Which, by the
way sounds like he’s entering into an asylum for the
disturbed.”

Noble sneered. “I’ll be
sure to pass along your compliments to Madam.”

No. Caia’s heart thumped
angrily. They were not going to treat Lucien like some C-list
recruit, whilst they pandered to her, just because they wanted
something from her. And she needed Lucien close by. This was all so
weird, so fast; she needed his strength beside her.

“
Yeah, well,
while you’re at it, ask
Madam
to arrange a guest suite for Lucien in close
location to mine.”

He frowned. “Together you
mean?”

Caia flushed. “No, not
together. Next to one another.”

Lucien was beginning to
look seriously, uncomfortably, pissed off. “Caia you
don’t-”

“
It’s not for
you, it’s for me, so swallow it or choke on it.”

His eyes twinkled back at
her as he gave a stoic nod in obeisance.

“
One moment.”
Noble turned from them, pressing something behind his ear lobe.
“Get me Marita,” he grumbled at someone, and it was then she
realised he had a small flesh-coloured ear piece inside his ear. He
was wearing a security headset of some ultra mod-tech
kind.

Expensive.

Her eyes flashed to Lucien
and he seemed to understand, his own eyebrows rose in speculation.
It was certainly some operation they had running here.

“
Madam, our
honoured guest requests a redress of the accommodation situation
for her Alpha.”

He was nodding to whatever
reply he was receiving. “Hmm, yes, well she would like him situated
in a guest suite near her own.”

Silence.

“
Yes madam.
Of course.”

Noble pressed behind his
lobe again and turned to them with a false smile. “The key card
sir?”

Lucien handed it back, and
Caia smiled smugly. “To our rooms, Jeeves.”

***

Her guest room was
unbelievable. It was decked out in the plush Louis XIV decor that
Marita seemed to favour. Huge canopied bed in the centre of the
room; large roaring fire at the opposite end; a massive
marble-tiled en-suite, and insane walk-in closet. And to top it
off, the east facing side of the room was part of the curved glass
window that looked out over the river and Paris.

Its beauty was enough to
make this trip worthwhile.

And right next door was
Lucien. The object of her almost constant thoughts. She had been
excited when Marion had explained about the classes she could
inspect whilst here. But Marita’s warning that not everyone would
welcome her had really brought home for her how much Lucien had
done for her.

And of the one thing she
hadn’t done for him.

“
Hey.” He
looked surprised to see her on the other side of his door. “You
OK?”

“
I need to
talk to you.”

Lucien nodded, and stepped
aside to let her into a room that was much more masculine in
design. It looked like Vanne had gotten his way here with the
style.

“
Well, if
it’s about the room... thanks,” he said, shutting the door behind
her and following her in, watching as she took a seat at the
fireplace. “I have no doubt that this is far more comfortable than
a candidate’s room.”

Caia laughed at the
mocking look he gave her. “Do you think it was a test to see if I
understood my position here?”

“
What...
you’re pulling power?” He smirked, sitting down across from her,
relaxing his big body into the leather sofa. “I have no
doubt
Madam
has
been testing your intelligence and metal since you got
here.”

Caia sighed,
looking down nervously at her hands. Coming to the Centre was a
mistake. Marion may have some kind of mother-figure faith in her,
but Marita was going to expose her for the fraud she was afraid she
was. Feeling traces of
good
Midnights? Was she crazy?

“
Hey, you’re
gonna blow her away,” he reassured her gently, his voice sending a
soothing hand down her back. “You’re more than a match for
her.”

She smiled softly at him,
hoping her feelings weren’t so obviously clear in her eyes. “Thank
you. But believe it or not I didn’t interrupt your rest for a
confidence boost. I’m not quite that selfish... yet.” She chuckled
nervously, sucking in some dust and then spluttering, and
coughing...

Oh Goddess, she was the
queen of un-cool.