Lucien cursed again, and started heading towards the kitchen.
“Can we fix it?” Caia asked nervously, still reeling from Lucien’s kiss.
Ella nodded. “Thankfully, Isaac and Draven are plumbers, but it’s put a little damper on the party.”
Caia nodded numbly and followed after them. She stopped in the doorway, watching as the others mopped up the small flood in the kitchen. This couldn’t be happening. Her gaze flitted back towards the end of the porch where she and Lucien had shared their explosive kiss. Could it have been explosive enough to have done this? She bit her lip, her heart thumping louder and louder. First, the pipes in the airport, then her bathroom... oh, and that morning with Ella when she’d cried over her father’s photograph. Was this her doing? She shook her head and pulled back from the doorway. Kicking off her shoes she turned and ran down the porch stairs, past the lawn chairs and into the woods, not stopping until she was at least five minutes from the house. Leaning against a tree to catch her breath, and trying to slow her panicking heart, Caia shook her head in disbelief. “It can’t be me,” she whispered. “How could it be?”
What was going on? Is this what the pack meant when they called her different? But pipes bursting? No, that was crazy. No one else would even connect the two.
“No,” her moan turned into a gasp. And suddenly she knew. She could feel something inside of her pulsing. It had always been there, throbbing like a barrier below the energy she tapped into when she changed. It was alien and strong.
“What’s happening to me?” she pleaded with Gaia, as she felt tears prick her eyes, the fear readying her heart for explosion. Growling a profanity she would never have dreamed of using before, Caia pulled off the satin dress in haste and ripped her hair out of the French twist. And then she began to run; faster and faster, her feet tearing on bracken, her toes sinking in moss and dirt, her muscles aching; and with one final spurt of fear she dove arms first as if she were diving into a pool, high into the air, pushing the change like she had never done before. As she landed, it was on her graceful pads, her wolf legs pushing her further into the forest, and away from her fears.
14 - The Change
The school was quiet. The bell for first period sounded at least ten minutes ago so everyone else was inside. Everyone except Caia. She felt limp, as if she were no longer a part of her body. That night she had ran as hard and as fast as she could from the house, pounding out her anxiety with the dirt beneath her paws until a resolution had fallen upon her. She hadn’t wanted to be alone in whatever was happening to her and, although she loved Jaeden, there really was only one person she had felt safe enough to turn to.
Lucien.
By then she had been away from the party for well over an hour, so she returned as quietly as she could, finding her torn dress, and then scaling the house to enter her bedroom. She had taken pause as she remembered Magnus was supposed to be checking the water pipes in her bathroom. But the room was dark and quiet, and there was no light filtering from under her bathroom. Sighing and aching, she had tried to squelch the butterflies in her stomach enough to focus on what exactly she was going to tell Lucien.
He was going to think she was crazy.
Caia had moaned and fallen back onto her bed. Lucien was so good, so caring and fair. He took time with his people, took their problems upon his shoulders as if they were his own. He would need someone just like him, not some troubled girl who was falling to pieces. And what if what was inside her was bad? He’d only try to help because that was who he was. And what if she hurt him? Hurt any of them?
No. She would just have to deal with this on her own like she had everything else.
Eventually Jaeden had been sent to find her, but Caia hadn’t opened the door to her or anyone, claiming she was tired and just needed to sleep.
She had kept herself shut in her room the next day. Jaeden had called, Ella had hovered, and Lucien had threatened to break down the door. At that, she had whispered through the wood that she was OK, she promised. She was just exhausted, but they shouldn’t worry. But they had. She could feel it radiating throughout the house. She hadn’t known how she could feel their emotions as strongly as she felt her own and her anxiety had only worsened.
Jaeden hadn’t accepted her feeble reassurances. She had dragged Caia over and into her car as soon as she had arrived at school on Monday.
Neither of them had said a word yet.
Jaeden sighed. Caia looked out of the passenger window at a cat that was dashing from belly to belly of the cars parked around them. Its simple happiness made Caia envy it.
“Caia.” Jaeden finally gave in, pulling her around to face her. “You have to tell me what’s wrong.”
She realized her friend wasn’t going to give up, and she wasn’t going to tell her the truth, so she decided to waylay her with the other something that was pressing on her. “Lucien kissed me on Saturday.”
Jaeden’s eyes widened, her jaw dropped, and she let out a startled whoop. “Oh. My. Goddess.”
Caia managed a wan smile. “Yeah.”
Jaeden grabbed her arm, shaking her. “Caia, are you crazy? Aren’t you happy? I thought this is what you wanted?”
“It’s just a crush, Jae.”
Her friend shook her head, refusing to accept that. “You can’t say that.”
“Yes I can, and it is.”
“Cy... a crush is what I have for Ryder. He’s gorgeous, and he has a cool, dangerous job.” she snorted. “But I don’t know him, not the way you know Lucien.”
Caia frowned, her head throbbing. “What are you getting at?”
“Well,” she shrugged, “Have you considered the possibility that what you feel is more than crush? That, you might be falling for him... and he for you?”