Chapter 134-2
Claim
“Incorrect. I knew it was someone in Claudine’s pack, but that was decades ago. They could have moved on. I’d heavily suspected they were absorbed into Morven’s pack and working for him. Claudine has covered her tracks well for a long time.” She swept the rest of the web off her black dress and straightened. “You want names? Your mother did not provide them.”
Disappointment flooded me. “She had to have told you something.”
The door opened, and Janelle quietly walked in. “I was summoned,” she said in a small voice.
“If you’d waited around long enough, I would have reminded you that your crimes are not mine to punish,” the Crone told her. “You will no doubt prove to be a necessity in killing Claudine.”
Janelle’s eyes widened, and Troy moved to block her. “I’ve made her swear not to use her magic
again to control wolves.”
“Then you are a fool. Claudine Frost is guilty of some truly despicable acts to get to where she is now. Do not be so naive to think that you will not have to play dirty to bring her to heel. Now, perhaps some tea, and then we can all sit and discuss what will happen next.”
“Tea, and we can discuss what happened then,” I reminded her. “We’ve been playing in the dark for
too long.”
She sighed. “Very well.”
Ten minutes later, we were all seated around a roaring fire in the fireplace. Irene brought out a tray of tea, and everyone except Troy drank. It all looked so warm and cozy that it was easy to forget that we were about to unveil decades of bloodshed and plotting.
“First, you should know that Katherine wasn’t just my Maiden, I’d raised her since she was ten years old. Her mother arrived at my wards, bleeding from a wolf attacked. She’d been hunted and she feared for her daughter’s life. Before she would answer any of my questions, she made me swear a binding oath to protect her daughter and her daughter’s descendants. She died seconds after the earth accepted the binding.”
Well, shit. “So, you lied when you said that you could have stabbed my eyeballs while I was unconscious in your dayroom.”
The Crone just smiled, but I wasn’t amused. “So where were you when my father killed my mother?
Just like that, her cocky smile faded away, replaced by a haunted look that made her look that much older. “There are some things that even I could not foresee nor protect against. I do not
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Chapter 134-2
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know what you saw in your memories, Kiana, but I loved your mother. She made mistakes, but if I had the choice, she would be by my side.”
“Even knowing what she did to me? How she locked a part of me away?”
“Yes.” She never broke eye contact. “She did what she thought she had to do to save you.”
Troy cleared his throat. “Did what happen to Katherine’s mother have any bearing on what is happening today?”
“I never suspected it until Katherine alerted me that she was pregnant. We had visited Claudine
several months prior for two weeks. Claudine was pregnant with her second child, and she wanted
it blessed. It was something we did more routinely then.”
“What?” I interrupted. “I’m sorry, did you say second child? Finn has a younger sibling?”
The Crone looked annoyed at having been interrupted and sighed. “Yes. There was a second child born, but it did not survive the week. So that I am not interrupted again, I will tell you that Claudine had a total of six pups. To my knowledge, the boy she exiled was the only one who survived.”
“What do you mean to your knowledge? They all died? Was Finn the oldest?”
“I do not know the chronology, but the boy was the only survivor.”
Five female wolves had died. No wonder Claudine had lost her sanity. I couldn’t help but feel my heart go out to her, and Troy squeezed my hand. “That’s so unusual. Did she see a healer? Did you discover what was wrong?”
“I do not know, but I don’t see how it’s important.”
“A mother loses five of her children, and you don’t see how that’s important?” I glared at her.” Maybe you’ve lived too long, or maybe you’ve isolated yourself for too long, but these things
matter.”
I did the math. Finn was only five years older than me, so most of those children might have been born when Katherine was part of the pack. “Did Katherine try to help her?”
“Yes. She called me one day out of frustration. It was the third child she’d blessed for Claudine. They had all been incredibly healthy until they died. She feared the magic she was wielding had gone wrong. I had assured her that it was not her magic. Now then, back to my story.
Katherine had met Ragor and conceived you while we were on Claudine’s territory. She had enough magic to cloak herself and you until she began to show. When she told me about you, I had my first vision. I knew that you would be born a null, and I suspected that whoever hunted Katherine’s mother knew of the lineage and were attempting to keep you from being born.”
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Someone else who didn’t want me to live. That didn’t surprise me. “Did you learn who that was?”
“No, but there is a cult of wolves and witches who have amassed an enormous amount of information about nulls. In fear of a ternary being born, they’ve attempted to cull your family line. I believe they are responsible for Katherine’s death, and I also believe they have a library of records and prophecies.”
“How does that help us?” Troy asked. “Even if we knew where they were, we couldn’t go visit. They’ll try to kill Kiana, and I’d have to kill all of them, and we’d be nowhere.”
“It’ll help,” the Crone said coldly, “because I have heard nothing more than myths and whispers of the power of ternary, yet Claudine Frost knew enough to send Katherine racing back to me in order to protect her daughter. How do you think she got the information?”
Hope rose just as quickly as it fell. “So, to figure out what Claudine knows, we have to locate a mysterious group of people who will stop at nothing to kill me.”
The old woman cocked her head. “That won’t be a problem, will it?”
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