Ascended
War of the Covens
S. Young
ASCENDED
War of the Covens
Book Three
By S. Young
Copyright © 2021 Samantha Young
Previously titled ‘Blood Solstice (Tale of Lunarmorte #3)’
Copyright © 2011 Samantha Young
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without prior written permission of the above author of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
This work is registered with and protected by Copyright House.
Edited by Jennifer Sommersby Young
Cover Design by Samantha Young
Cover Stock Image by Inara Prusakova
Contents
Other titles
Preface
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Epilogue
About the Author
Other titles
Other titles by S. Young
Hunted (War of the Covens #1)
Destined (War of the Covens #2)
War of Hearts (A True Immortality Novel)
Kiss of Vengeance (A True Immortality Novel)
Kiss of Eternity (A True Immortality Short Story)
Bound by Forever ( A True Immortality Novel)
Fear of Fire and Shadow
Other Adult Contemporary Novels by Samantha Young
Play On
As Dust Dances
Black Tangled Heart
Hold On: A Play On Novella
Into the Deep
Out of the Shallows
Hero
Villain: A Hero Novella
One Day: A Valentine Novella
Fight or Flight
Much Ado About You
Outmatched (co-write with Kristen Callihan)
On Dublin Street Series:
On Dublin Street
Down London Road
Before Jamaica Lane
Fall From India Place
Echoes of Scotland Street
Moonlight on Nightingale Way
Until Fountain Bridge (a novella)
Castle Hill (a novella)
Valentine (a novella)
One King’s Way (a novella)
On Hart’s Boardwalk (a novella)
On Dublin Street: The Bonus Material (a novella)
Hart’s Boardwalk Series:
The One Real Thing
Every Little Thing
Things We Never Said
The Truest Thing
The Adair Family Series:
Here With Me
Young Adult contemporary titles by Samantha Young
The Impossible Vastness of Us
The Fragile Ordinary
Young Adult Urban Fantasy titles written under Samantha Young
Warriors of Ankh Trilogy:
Blood Will Tell
Blood Past
Shades of Blood
Fire Spirits Series:
Smokeless Fire
Scorched Skies
Borrowed Ember
Darkness, Kindled
Drip Drop Teardrop (a novella)
To all the dream catchers
The secret of happiness is freedom,
and the secret of freedom, courage.
Thucydides
Preface
The Why and the Wherefores
Existing in the shadows of our world are supernatural races, children blessed by the ancient Greek gods with unimaginable gifts. At present, they are fighting a two-thousand-year-old war with one another. The Midnight Coven, an alliance of dark magiks, faeries, and daemons born of black magik, believe that vampyres and lykans are lesser supernaturals and a threat to mankind. They are at war with the Daylight Coven, a confederate of light magiks, faeries, vampyres, and lykans who believe in equality of the races.
Into this war nineteen-year-old Caia Ribeiro is born … a lykan with a heritage unlike any other. A consequence of the manipulation of the gods and fate, Caia is unique—half lykan, half water magik. And to make it even more complicated, her mother was the daughter of the Head of the Midnight Coven—Caia is half Daylight, half Midnight.
Since her visit to the Center, the Daylight’s headquarters and training institution, Caia’s world has been flipped upside down. Not only is she convinced that many Midnights are good people looking for a way out of the war, but she acted on that conviction by orchestrating the escape of a young Midnight girl, Laila, from Daylight prison. To make matters worse, Caia discovered that Marita, the Head of the Daylight Coven, was abusing her power by experimenting on lykan children to breed a stronger army, and the one person she wants to complete that experimentation is Caia’s best friend, Jaeden, a lykan with telekinetic abilities.
Caia’s fear over telling Lucien, her mate, all she’d discovered was unfounded, and Caia has at last a group of loyal supporters, despite Pack Errante’s misgivings over her revelations. However, with Marita growing steadily more unstable, imprisoning the Council, evolving the coven into an autocracy, it seems likely that they will need Caia’s guidance.
But slithering in the shadows of their conflict is a being with a far bigger part to play than he’d let on. Who is Jaeden’s friend, the vampyre Reuben? Why does he seem so chummy with Nikolai, the Regent of the Midnight Coven, when they’re supposed to be blood enemies?
And why has their friendly neighborhood vampyre kidnapped Caia?
Caia, the one person they need to rescue the Council and bring the coven back from the brink of disaster.
1
THE CAGE
He hunkered onto his haunches so they were face-to-face and he winced. “I’m sorry I hit you so hard. I wasn’t sure how much strength I’d need to knock you out. However … you’re pretty fragile for a lykan.”
A growl rumbled from the pit of Caia’s chest and erupted into snarling snaps. She had never wanted to tear at someone the way she wanted to at Reuben.
He studied her with a look akin to sadness. “We don’t want you in this cage, Caia. You’re only there until we’re sure you aren’t going to attack Nikolai. We don’t want to hurt you.”
She guffawed. “Hurt me? I’d worry about myself if I were you.”
“Caia, please don’t try anything foolish. You’ve been out for twenty-four hours. You’re very weak.”
Twenty-four hours? How was that possible?
“Again, apologies for my friend’s overzealousness.” Nikolai glared at Reuben.
She searched the two desperately for any clue as to why they had her here. She’d been go
ne a day. Lucien would be going crazy, not to mention Jaeden and Ryder and everybody …
“Jaeden,” she snapped at Reuben. “She trusted you.”
His face remained expressionless. “I needed her. So I fudged with the truth. She can still trust me.”
“Oh yeah, ’cause kidnapping her Alpha’s mate is such a trustworthy thing to do.”
He nodded, silently telling her he understood her anger. She didn’t want his damn understanding.
“Perhaps you will allow me to explain myself?” he queried, regret lacing his words. She broke eye contact and stared pointedly around the cage. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Reuben stood. “Nikolai, a chair, perhaps?” Instantly a comfortable armchair appeared behind him and he sank into it while Nikolai stood vigilant at his back. “We need you, Caia … to end the war.”
Caia chuckled. Of course he did. And what did he think? That she would blithely follow his orders when she was doing everything in her power to remove herself from Marita’s rule? “I have no intention of fighting for the Midnights. Nor the Daylights. That’s not my plan.”
“It would seem we agree on that much, but your actual plan is crumbling around you as we speak.”
She frowned. What the Hades did he know about her plan? “What do you mean?”
“Marita has dissolved the Council and imprisoned them.”
How did he know that? Her expression must have asked as much because he shrugged elegantly, crossing one leg over the other and relaxing into his chair. “I have important assets inside the Center.”
Her mouth fell open and a riot of butterflies erupted in her belly. She had no idea who she was dealing with, but the fact that he had assets inside the Center … “What do you want from me?”
“I want what you want. I don’t want to kill Daylights or Midnights. I just want this war to end … and I’ve been working on bringing it to a conclusion long before you were born.”
“And I’m supposed to believe that?” she sneered, the dull throbbing in her head worsening.
“Of course not. That’s why I’m going to go back to the beginning. I’m going to tell you my story, Caia. I’m going to tell you why this war really began.”
2
The Iliadic Truth
Athens, Greece, 461 BC
His heart thudded rapidly behind its thick-boned prison, the pulse in his neck throbbing. He almost smiled at that. If he weren’t a vampyre, his parents, Phaedrus and Xanthippe, would consider him an impossibly delicious meal with that vein pulsing them into temptation. Instead they looked up at him in bewilderment, their mouths and chins smeared with the blood and skin of the unconscious man in their arms.
They sat crowded together on one of the pillowed klines in the andrōn where his father held symposia in their home. The man’s feet dragged to the floor, the light chiton he wore coming undone from the obvious struggle he’d undergone at the hands of Kirios’s parents. Blood stained the fabric and ran in rivulets from the victim’s masticated neck to puddle on the mosaic floor. Kirios watched as it spread into the expensive tiling, wondering how they would explain the stain. He frowned. Perhaps his father would say wine had been spilled during one of the vigorous symposia he held to blend in with the men he served with on the Heliaia, the jury of the supreme court of Athens.
“We thought you might like to finish him off?” Xanthippe smiled, a horrifying, gory gargle of the man’s lifeblood distorting her voice.
Kirios shook his head in a mixture of anger and despair. His parents were never going to understand. They were so old, two of the first souls to be sent by Hades back from the Underworld to wreak revenge. They had once been so savage, it was a miracle they’d ever fallen in love with one another. But two thousand years of immortal nomadic life seemed to have grown dull for them, and they’d fallen into a companionship of killing, making love, and looting tholos tombs, before growing rich on the growing Mycenaean trade.
Their strange life in Athens began after Hades had stolen Persephone into the Underworld and made her his queen. Outraged, her mother, the goddess Demeter, “blessed” his vampyres with fertility. And living actively (rather than their usual avoidance) through the Greco-Persian Wars with souls easier burdened than before had changed everything for Xanthippe and Phaedrus. There was nothing on earth that could put one more in touch with humanity than war, and Kirios’s mother was no longer the flagitious animal she’d once been … well … to an extent.
Despite her appetite and nature, she had grown to love her husband and wanted a child. So they went to Athens and insinuated themselves into the middle-class region of the polis to raise their son. But Kirios hadn’t been what they were expecting. He had powers of mesmerism and an appetite for blood, but he did not have the soul of a killer.
Looking away from the dark image before him, he remembered his thirteenth year. They had always brought him his blood as a child; now they wanted him to learn to fend for himself … to execute his first kill. The memory pierced him like a spear. How disgusted he’d been by what they wanted of him. He had no taste for killing humans, and although he loved his parents, it was becoming clear they were never going to understand that vital fact.
And the truth was … looking upon the painful sight of the man dying in his parents’ arms, Kirios did not think he could stand by and watch them murder innocents any longer. He was in his eighteenth year now. It was time to—
His jaw dropped as he recognized the dying figure in their arms. “Are you insane?” he hissed. “That’s Ephialtes!”
“Be silent,” Phaedrus ordered quietly, steel warning in his tone. “Anyone may hear you.”
Kirios felt himself paling, as if it were even possible for him to be any paler. “Father, you’ve killed a statesman of the democratic party. He’s Pericles’s bloody mentor, for Gaia’s sake! Have you gone mad?” Pericles was one of the most influential, popular, wealthiest members of the demos.
Xanthippe shrugged. “We’re leaving Athens … and Ephialtes has always irritated me. I thought it a fitting going-away present to myself.”
Kirios shook his head in disbelief. “How are you going to fix this mess before you leave?”
Phaedrus seemed annoyed by his son’s question. “The usual … we’ll leave him somewhere and mesmerize someone else to take the blame. Perhaps Pericles.”
“You will not,” Kirios snapped, inwardly surprised he was standing up to his father.
Phaedrus looked just as shocked. “I beg your pardon?”
“Father, please promise me you will not put the blame on Pericles. You are leaving Athens … please do not leave it in a complete upheaval by killing one member of the democratic party and turning another into a murderer.”
“How dull of you, son.”
“I happen to be fond of my city. That is all.”
Xanthippe sighed. “Oh, very well. We promise.”
“Thank you.” He exhaled in relief, running his hands through his hair in frustration before turning from them. He couldn’t bear to look any longer at the mess they’d made of Ephialtes.
“We leave at dusk,” Phaedrus informed him.
Gods, he hoped they wouldn’t overreact. “I’m not coming with you. I’m leaving too … but not with you.”
At their continued silence, he finally got up the nerve to look at them. Their faces were mirror images of their usual blankness. “I’m not like you,” he tried to explain.
Finally, Xanthippe replied, “We know. We … are trying to understand.”
Kirios smiled. It was more than anyone could ask of them. “But you never will. So … I must leave you both.”
Phaedrus growled, “You are more human than vampyre … I curse Demeter for this.”
Even Xanthippe gasped. Kirios frowned. “Father, please don’t. I don’t wish anything untoward to happen to you.”
“You are my son. You should be with me, exhilarating in the kill.”
He felt so helpless in the face of his father’s despair.
So much the disappointment. “I am truly sorry, Father.”
“I don’t blame you.”
There was more emotion in that statement than he’d ever heard from either of his parents since his thirteenth year. A little of the dark heaviness eased from his chest.
“I will leave you both now.”
They nodded at him. “Fare thee well, son.”
“And you both.”
Tyras, Miletus, 441 BC
The tall magik stared at him with an expression of sympathy and understanding.
“I cannot let you have Eneas. I cannot let you commit any act of violence within my home.”
Frustration and the need for revenge bubbled beneath Kirios’s skin like hot springs in a winter landscape.
Eneas.
He wanted the hunter dead.
“Your parents were murderers, Kirios. Eneas was merely doing the job that was asked of him.”
“Under whose authority?”
A look of dead calm and the superiority of one with his power settled over the magik’s face. “My own.”