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| Jackson, Thursday, Tertium 25th, 1332 (AG)—Aegisguard, Dor-Sanguis, Caederian Temple |

The dark, bloody lab faded from Jackson's view as he and the pack were pulled through a twisting, fizzing portal. Soldiers with wings and horns raced past, fighting the cadejo off while the dragon fought the phantom, but Jackson couldn't keep his eyes off Daimon for more than a few moments. His mate was breathing frantically, grunting in pain as the two men carried him by his arms and legs.

"What's happening to him?!" Remus insisted.

Jackson was desperate to know the answer; what he'd done had stopped Daimon from turning, but it was doing something else to him, something that made both the Alpha and Sebastien look mortified, something that made Sebastien speak as though Jackson had done something unforgivable.

"What's going on?!" Wesley demanded as the surrounding demons ushered them through a strange, crimson hellscape.

No one said a word, though; the Zenith, carrying Raphael, led them across the red, cracked ground and towards another portal, leaving the lab behind. Elias was carrying Amos, and some of the demons were assisting their injured comrades. The battle behind them got further and further away, and when Jackson looked back there again, he watched all the demons rush into the portal, and as the phantom roared from where it had fallen, missing an arm and a leg, the dragon creature pounced through, too, and the fizzing portal closed behind it.

Moments later, everyone emerged through the other portal into a massive dome-shaped hall, and they were all forced back into their human forms. The walls were black, the ebony doorways were bordered with gold, and a huge, intimidating statue of Lord Caedis stood tall in the centre. The statue was made of a strange rose-gold-looking metal, as was the chandelier hanging above it, and the dark marble floor glistened under the sunlight shining in through the glass roof.

Wherever they were, it was no longer the dead of night.

"Is 'e okay?" came Lord Caedis' voice.

Jackson looked behind him and watched as the dragon creature disappeared into a cloud of vermillion smoke, and from it emerged Lord Caedis. He rushed towards the Zenith, who was placing Raphael onto a gurney brought over by the doctors who'd been waiting by a pair of doors.

"He's fine," the Zenith replied. "Just unconscious."

Lord Caedis nodded and sighed deeply. He then looked around at everyone. "Take zhe injured to zhe medical ving."

Jackson's racing heart beat a little faster. He grabbed Daimon's arm before the men carrying him could place him on a gurney. "I'm going with him," he said firmly.

But Sebastien harshly pulled him away from his mate. "No, you're not. You're in deep fucking shit, kid."

"Get off me!" Jackson protested, trying to pull away. He wasn't going to let them take Daimon away from him. But the moment he yanked himself from Sebastien's grip, several demon soldiers surrounded him, baring their claws and fangs. He stared in horror, torn between fighting to get to his mate and backing down to avoid a fight that he really didn't want to make.

"Stand down," came the Zenith's voice.

As they were told, the demons backed off.

Jackson huffed and tried to get to Daimon, who the men had put onto the gurney, but two of the soldiers blocked his path. "Let me—"

"Take him to the conference hall with everyone else," the Zenith ordered.

"No, wait—Daimon!" Jackson shouted, trying to get past the two men, but they grabbed one of his arms each and began escorting him and the pack towards a door on the other side of the hall.

"Where are you taking him?!" Remus cried.

"He's our Alpha, we have a right to know!" Wesley yelled.

"No, you don't," Sebastien snarled, following behind the demons who escorted the pack and Ethan through the door.

"What did Jackson do?" Ethan then questioned.

"Hello?!" Julian exclaimed right after.

The demons remained silent. They took the pack into another large room with a rib-vaulted ceiling and huge, draping black curtains shrouding the windows. An oak table spread across the middle of the hall, and the dark walls were decorated with portraits of many different people—some with horns and wings, others with scales and feathers.

"Sit," Sebastien snarled at Jackson and forced him down into one of the chairs.

"You'll all wait here for further instructions," one of the guards called as everyone started sitting around the table.

"What about Alpha Daimon?" Leon insisted.

"Is he going to be okay?" Dustu asked in a panic.

Wordlessly, the demons and Sebastien left the hall, and the door locked loudly behind them.

"What the fuck, man?" Brando exclaimed. "What the hell is this place? What the hell did you do to Alpha Daimon?" he questioned, staring across the table at Jackson. "Did you save him? Why did they take him?"

"I-I don't know, okay?" Jackson snapped, his heart still racing. "I don't know where we are, I don't know why they took Daimon, and I don't know if what I did saved him!" He was starting to feel frustrated; the worry was overwhelming him, and he didn't know what to do or think. Was Daimon okay?

"What the hell happened back there?" Lance questioned, looking around at everyone. "Th-that thing—Tokala? I...I just—"

"Yeah, we're all a little fucking confused," Ezhno muttered. "Fucker was right under our noses this whole time."

"And he...he bit my dad," Remus cried. "He bit him!"

"Hey, it's okay," Dustu insisted, moving his arm around Remus. "He's gotta be okay, right?" He glanced at the pack. "If he was turning, they would've killed him, right? But they took him to the medical wing."

He had a point, but that didn't lift Jackson's worry.

"I thought you couldn't save people from the virus," Wesley then said to Jackson—it sounded like an accusation, actually.

Jackson frowned at him. "I...I can't. I just...I—"

"So what was that, then?" the Gamma demanded. "Alpha Daimon stopped turning."

"I don't think Jackson cured him or whatever," Ethan said, tapping his fingers on the table. "You didn't see the fangs?"

The pack adorned confused expressions.

Ethan looked at Jackson. "You turned him into a Forsaken, didn't you?"

Jackson frowned. "A what?"

"Wait, what?" Wesley breathed.

"What's a Forsaken?" Lalo questioned.

"A Forsaken is an illegal creation," came a man's voice.

Everyone looked to the end of the table where a dark-skinned man with short black hair was standing, arms crossed. His orange eyes shifted from each of them, almost as if he was reading them like pages in a book. He looked familiar...he was one of the men who'd been sitting at the table in the hall with the Zenith and Lord Caedis when everyone convened to discuss Kane, the cadejo, and the mission to get to the lab.

"Illegal?" Remus sobbed. "Like...like a hybrid?"

"No," the man answered, glancing at the boy. "A Forsaken is a damned creature, something caught between whatever Caeleste it was before and the demon it was supposed to have become. A failed hybrid, if you like."

"Failed...hybrid?" Wesley questioned.

Jackson's heart dropped into his stomach. "What...what's going to happen to—"

"That's for the Zenith to decide," the man interjected. "Forsaken are too dangerous to be allowed to live, so it's likely that he'll be put out of his misery."

Jackson felt like someone plunged a dagger through his chest. "W-what?" he breathed as the pack called their own desperate, confused responses.

"You can't kill him!" Remus cried.

"He's our Alpha!" Wesley shouted, standing up.

"Sit your ass back in that chair," the orange-eyed man snapped, pointing at Wesley.

With a scowl, the Gamma slumped back down and huffed angrily.

"You can't kill him," Jackson panicked, shaking his head. "He didn't do anything wrong!"

"You should've thought about that before you did this to him," the man replied.

"W-what?" Jackson stammered, starting to tremble. "I...I didn't mean—"

"This is your fault?!" Ezhno exclaimed.

"You condemned him to death!" Wesley shouted.

Jackson frantically shook his head. "N-no! I didn't know that—"

"You killed him!" Remus wailed.

"I didn't know what I was doing!" Jackson shouted over the flurry of accusations. "I-I just...did what my instincts told me to do, okay?! I didn't want to lose him!"

"Well you just went and made that happen anyway!" Ezhno growled.

The orange-eyed man then slammed his hands on the table. "Stop!" he bellowed. "Not one of you will speak from this moment forward unless told so." He shifted his scowling gaze to Jackson. "You. Stand."

Jackson did as he was told, rising to his feet. That was when he noticed the people standing on the balconies above the door the man must have come in through. He didn't recognize any of them, but one did look a lot like the Zenith, only he had lighter hair.

"You'll refer to me as Justiciar Tyrus," the man said firmly. "And while inside the Caederian Temple, you won't be able to lie; if you try to, it will cause you great pain."

Jackson slowly nodded in response.

"Jackson Carter, did you or did you not feed one Daimon Greyblood your blood and inject your venom into his bloodstream?" Justiciar Tyrus questioned.

Was he on trial? Jackson frowned and glanced around unsurely at his packmates. "I...I did, but—"

"And were you or were you not aware of what this would result in?"

"I...no, I didn't know, but—"

"Were you or were you not aware that it is illegal to attempt to create hybrids?" Justiciar Tyrus asked loudly.

"I did, but I—"

"And were you—"

"Can you just let him speak?" Ethan interrupted.

Justiciar Tyrus scowled at Ethan.

"I didn't know what I was doing," Jackson insisted. "I wanted to save him from the cadejo bite, and I just...followed my instincts. I didn't know that it would turn him into some Forsaken thing!"

The crowds on the balconies murmured to one another.

"Nobody taught him anything," Ethan continued, gesturing to Jackson. "He had a perception filter on since he was a kid; he's still coming to terms with the Caeleste world."

Once again, the crowds murmured.

Justiciar Tyrus then glanced around at the pack. "Is this true?"

"Yeah," Julian blurted. "I mean...Sebastien knows; he was supposed to be teaching Jackson about demon stuff."

Justiciar Tyrus looked up at the balconies.

The man who looked a lot like the Zenith stepped forward. "We'll adjourn until we've been updated." Then, he turned around and disappeared behind the maroon curtains, and everyone else up there followed.

"You'll all wait here," Justiciar Tyrus said. "Do not attempt to leave." The man then turned around and headed for the door.

"Wait, what the hell is going on here?" Brando called. "We did what we were supposed to do, so why are we being treated like prisoners?"

Justiciar Tyrus didn't answer. He left through the door and locked it behind him.

"Okay, what the fuck?" Leon exclaimed.

"What's the Caederian Temple?" Julian asked.

"I'd imagine it's where Caedis works or something," Lalo muttered. "Or maybe it's a prison. Who knows, right?" He glanced around. "If I had to guess, I'd guess prison."

Jackson sunk down into his seat. His heart was still racing, and his worry for Daimon was overwhelming. He didn't understand—maybe he didn't want to understand. What had he done to Daimon? What was going to happen to his mate? And what was going to happen to him? He had no idea what he'd done—he didn't mean to do something illegal, but he clearly had, and the fact that he'd just faced who appeared to be his judge made him feel sick. Was he going to be sent to Daevor? Or would he be executed? Would Daimon be executed?

He scowled in despair. No. They wouldn't kill Daimon, would they? There had to be something that they could do—something that Lord Caedis or the Zenith could do! Maybe he could use his reward for getting to the lab to save Daimon; maybe Lord Caedis could undo whatever Jackson had mistakenly done to him while trying to save him from the cadejo bite.

But he was locked in the hall. He huffed and stood up; he stormed over to the door, but when he tried pulling it open, it rattled and remained shut...even when he applied more strength. He wasn't getting through it, was he?

"What are you doing?" Wesley called irritably.

"I can use my reward for the mission to save Daimon," Jackson said determinedly as he rushed over to the other door. "Lord Caedis can undo whatever I did."

"R-really?" Remus asked desperately.

Jackson pulled on the door handle, but just like the other, it didn't budge. He sighed deeply and turned to face the pack. "Yeah," he said to Remus. "He must be able to. He's a Numen, right? A god or whatever."

"I'm not so sure," Julian said with a pout. "If the Numen could undo stuff like that, then why haven't they undone the cadejo virus?"

They had a point. "I don't know," Jackson replied frustratedly and pulled on the door again. "I need to get out of here and find Lord Caedis!"

"I don't think there's any way out of here," Wesley muttered. "We're going to have to just sit here and wait. Meanwhile, our Alpha's life is being debated."

"Hey, it's not Jackson's fault," Lance then said. "He was doing what any of us would do if we'd survived a bite."

Wesley still looked furious, but he didn't snap back.

Jackson tried pulling the door open one last time, but when he failed, he defeatedly dragged himself back to his seat. Was waiting the only thing he could do? He wanted to see Daimon, he wanted to know that he was okay. He wished he knew how to connect with him through their imprints, but he had no idea. So all he could do was sit there, wasn't it? Sit there...wait...and hope.

But after Tokala's betrayal, Jackson didn't have very much hope left.

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