Page 52 of Branches of the Willow

“This is Gabriel.” Avery spoke calmly. “We had to set quite the trap to snare him.” Avery glanced beside him at Serena.

“You may stop manhandling Gabriel now. He will be no trouble.” Serena stated simply, talking to Nicholai and Andy. Mikael took a step forward so that he was a solid barrier between me and the hulking giant of a man.

“I would never harm her,” Gabriel spoke softly, as if trying to seem smaller and less imposing with his voice.

“Someone needs to explain what’s going on here, right now!” Mikael managed through clenched teeth. He had gone into full protect mode.

Gabriel moved forward, and Mikael shadowed those movements, always at the ready, keeping me out of sight of the man. Then Gabriel simply took a seat in one of the free chairs and laced the fingers on his two hands together before sitting them in his lap. He looked up, directly at Mikael. “I will not harm your mate. On that, you have my word. She and her line are ever in my charge.”

“He speaks the truth,” Serena added. “I would not bring him anywhere near her otherwise.” She moved forward and put a hand on Mikael’s shoulders. “She is my blood, the last of my line.” Mikael glanced, out of the corner of his eye at Serena and then allowed himself to relax a fraction of an inch. He moved, slightly, giving enough space between where he stood and where Gabriel sat that I could see the man.

“I am an Elder Hunter. We, the elders, are the trainers of the new ranks when the old fall. We dispatched our people to the area almost a year ago, because of an influx of dark ones.”

“Wait. How did you know there was an influx of dark ones? We still have yet to see evidence of any.”

“You are not trained to look for the patterns, we are.” His gaze never left mine as he spoke, as if I was the only person in the room he needed to address. It was a bit unnerving. “There have been disappearances in surrounding human towns. The couple that turned back up as bodies, had the trademark signs of vampiric feedings. They had the right size fang marks or were simply torn to pieces in a frenzy feed. They were all exsanguinated, with no evidence of blood near the bodies. And there were other hallmarks. I can train your people to notice the signs, but the important thing to know is that the dark ones were called here by wolves.” He glanced between Serena and me. “We were unsure which clan brought them until we felt the presence of a witch, and her essence in this place and the other.” He nodded his head toward Avery with his last word.

“So, you knew it wasn’t my father’s pack or Avery’s pack because you sensed a witch?”

“Correct. We also sensed a witch near a third pack. We have reassessed how we do things since. That witch has been dispatched from this world.” He looked to Serena again.

“Sophia?” I asked.

“Yes. She knew where Malachi was, and apparently orchestrated everything that transpired. From what we gathered; my dear sister wanted to be worshipped for the goddess she thought she was. The only ones who would have done so, other than our protectors, would be the humans. Taking you, and the white wolf line, out of the equation was only part of her plan.” Serena sighed heavily.

“We came to dispatch the dark ones, but when we realized they were working with wolves, we sent our people in to start infiltrating the packs we had already cleared.”

“That’s why we kept finding interlopers on our lands.” Avery added.

“Indeed. Your two packs were near impossible to get imbedded with. The third, didn’t even realize they had a non-wolf living among them.” I thought about the Hunter we had taken to the Locks, and I felt sick. Had he just been doing his job? “You think of the one you locked away?” My head tipped up to look at Gabriel then and I nodded. “It was good that you did. He abandoned our brotherhood and was working with the dark ones and that pack. He was young, and easily swayed to the delusions of grandeur they fed him when they realized what he was. They had the self-professed King of the Werewolves on their side.” Gabriel looked pained. “He still should have known better.”

I turned toward Serena then, with a question that had been on my mind for a while. “The dark ones, Sophia only mentioned them briefly. Were they a creation of the witches too?” I needed that clarification, to make sure I’d remembered correctly.

A pained smile creased her flawless face. “In a manner of speaking.” She looked at me and took stock of those in the room. “Sophia was not my oldest sibling. Jonah was.” There were a few gasps around the room.

“The dark one who can walk in the light?” My father asked.

“The same.” Serena said. “Witches have a feminine magic of the Earth. We almost always have daughters. There are exceptions, as with everything. My brother was one of those exceptions. He was the only male born to my family line. When a male is born, they are endowed with what we think of as a tainted magic. They have their own type of powers, in some ways making them stronger than the females, but everything has a balance, and it was quickly realized that the males of our kind were creatures of darkness. While the females are creatures of light.”

“My mother had another sister once, Astrid. She wouldn’t hear of a mother turning her son away, and so she stepped in thinking that no soul could be bad from birth. She nurtured the boy, feeding him fresh animal blood, and on occasion, allowing him to feed from sick humans who would die anyway.”

“My mother was not thrilled with the way her sister took on her son and made him seem so normal when others berated her for the attempt. She thought to teach her sister a lesson and locked her in a witch trap with the boy. As he grew weaker and hungrier, it left only one food source for him. The stories say that my aunt offered him her blood willingly at first, but a witch’s blood is like a drug to the dark ones. It is full of the magic they are not able to access. If she had not been his kin, she would have survived, albeit in a weakened state for many years to come. Since they bore a blood link, eventually Jonah drained my aunt of her magic and her life.”

“Only a witch can kill another witch.” I mumbled, remembering my past conversation with Serena and Sophia.

“Yes, my dear. Blood kin dark ones are the only exception, and one that I don’t think Sophia believed. She believed my mother eventually went back and ended Astrid’s life out of pity.” Serena shook her head. “That wasn’t the case. When a dark one drains a witch dry, killing her, and taking all her magical essence, he becomes Fiul Sange, a blood son, a dark one who can walk in the day.”

Looking around the room, I realized, I was not the only person hearing this history for the first time. Never, in a million years, would I have imagined that the dark ones, vampires, were actually the discarded offspring of witches. My mind was racing in a million different directions at once. “Why Avery’s lands?”

I glanced up to see Gabriel smile at my question. “You are a wise one, child. That is the question of the hour.”

“So, it’s no coincidence that they’re here in this area?” Mikael offered.

“Not at all. They were called here.” Gabriel stated, and then began to elaborate. “Looking around your little pack lands, both those of the Daniels Clan and the St. Marks Pack have small human towns on their outskirts, but no major development. This doesn’t seem like the most fruitful place to stage a coming out party for the supernatural beings of the world. There must be something else drawing them here. At first, we thought it was you.” Gabriel’s multi-toned eyes landed on me. “Then we realized they were holding their concentrated efforts closer to the Daniels Clan lands. Now, we just need to figure out what the hell that means.”

“It also means we will have to work together to figure it out,” Serena suggested. “I will be going back to stay with the Daniels Clan for the time being, as will Gabriel.” Gabriel nodded his head in agreement. “I have also called one of my sisters to meet with us. We all have different gifts, hers may be useful, as she can commune with the dead.”

“Do you think the white wolves would have knowledge of what’s happening?”

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