Page 17 of Fated Exile

Kerry grabs hold of the control panel attached to the bed and rises it up into a half-seated position, turning towards me solemnly. Then she folds her hands over her middle, her fingers dancing across her skin. I catch a small spark of something, and my nose twitches as the scent of magic rises in the air.

"What was that?" I ask, curiosity piquing inside me. "Some kind of spell?"

"A memory charm, and a storyteller's wish." There's a smooth quality to her voice suddenly, reminding me of a radio show host. "Little spells that help with telling a tale like this one. Don't frown at me, girl—I know how to keep from taxing myself."

"You were just attacked and nearly killed," I point out. "I don't want to lose you."

"I don't want to lose myself either. It would be a terrible bother to find me," she quips. "Don't worry about me. The surgeon stitched me right up, and I can feel my body healing already. We need to focus on the threat at hand—and you're right, me telling you the story may help. If nothing else, it gets my mind off all I've lost."

The witches in the cavern. It strikes me suddenly that Kerry has lost her entire coven all in one fatal blow. That would be like me losing all the Glass Pack at once—something too terrifying to contemplate. Even while I was exiled, there was a chance of returning home. If they'd been killed instead... I'm not sure I would've survived the heartache.

While I'm searching for the words to soothe her grief, I realize it's an impossible task, and Kerry clears her throat to begin the story.

"The wolf-witch hybrid Delphine was born a little over two centuries ago. She was the daughter of a werewolf of the Glass Pack and a witch of the Weaver Coven—groups that had lived in this area for nearly a century, and peacefully at that. Raised among the wolves, Delphine studied with the witches during her summers, and grew up with magic at her fingertips.

"When she turned fourteen, she discovered her four intendeds, and when she turned eighteen, she mated with each of them. They were strong young werewolves, and her hybrid nature gave her a connection to the land's power that strengthened their shared bond. Together, they hunted, defended the territory, and as far as we know, lived peacefully among the pack for a few years.

"All of that started to change at some point in Delphine's early twenties, though it's not clear why. My coven has passed down oral knowledge of her turning, including written journals and our own...experienceswith Delphine firsthand. As far as we can tell, Delphine turned for one of two reasons. Either the US army's aggression against the pack's borders disturbed her somehow, especially when one of her mates was injured badly enough to lose an arm, or a miscarriage she suffered wounded her emotionally. One day, she wasn't the same."

"How did anyone know?" Leaning forward, I lick my lips. "I know the pack turned against her, but what did shedo?What caused them to turn on her so... viciously?"

"The first thing she began to do was drain energy from her mates." I suck in a startled breath, and Kerry grimaces at my expression. "Yes, it was as bad as it sounds. I can't say that I fully understand the werewolf mate bond, but everything I know has told me that it's sacred. Delphine took the sacred energy that bound her to her four mates, and she used it to give herself more power."

"Why?"

"Because she was afraid. Of dying, of not having power, of... something." She shrugs. "It doesn't really matter to me. One of the witches in my coven theorized once that perhaps Delphine was corrupted because one of the five boys she had a bond with when she was young died in a hunting accident.

"In the end she only mated with four men, and some said there was something off about the ceremony. I'm not sure exactly what; werewolves don't typically write down the secrets of their mating habits. Regardless, Delphine had four instead of five. Maybe she felt like she was missing something, and she made up for it by draining the remaining mates' power. All we know is that she used their life forces to extend her own—and she might have gotten away with it, if she hadn't gotten so greedy."

Kerry clears her throat, then reaches up to tap her fingers against her chin. Warmth flows from them and settles on her neck, dissipating into her skin. When she speaks again, the tired rasp is gone from her voice. It's clear she's just cast some kind of spell yet again, despite the energy cost. I hold my tongue; she seems determined to get through this story, and I get the sense that no one will make her rest against her will.

"The pack didn't notice what Delphine was doing at first. Her mates were young and strong, so the energy she drained from them barely made a dent. And the skirmishes with the federal army drew their attention. Bit by bit, strange occurrences began to draw their notice. Experienced pack hunters became confused or turned around. Mate bonds grew thin, and even the most fated of mates snapped at each other or turned away.

"Delphine wasn't suspected right away. Werewolf packs have always trusted their own and distrusted outsiders, so they didn't look to within their borders to discover the source of their new weakness and confusion. Instead, they looked to outsiders—most notably, the witch coven. Tensions grew when the werewolves accused the witches, my ancestors and yours, of tampering with their bonds and their minds.

"It wasn't until one of Delphine's mates came forward that the pack realized it had been her all along." Kerry grimaces. "By that point, trust had frayed between the pack and coven so thoroughly that some of the pack blamed the witches who raised Delphine for her actions. Others distrusted her mate's words, believing he had to be mistaken, or that someone had put the idea into his mind with trickery. The Glass Pack severed its alliance with the Weaver Coven and threw them out of the pack territory entirely, turning their backs on the witches who'd fought alongside them for decades."

I inhale sharply. "I didn't even know we ever had strong enough of an alliance with witches to welcome them on our land. There have always been magic practitioners around, and I know witches sometimes do small spells and charms for money, but to have that close of an alliance... it's not something I can imagine."

Kerry sighs deeply. "That doesn't surprise me. The alliances between werewolves and witches have always been fraught, and tensions rise each time our kind come to blows, or betray each other. When the pack discovered it truly was Delphine who was weakening them, and realized just how much she'd been controlling their minds, it was too late. She'd already done so much damage that fighting back against her was nearly impossible—though they tried.

"They didn't even believe the accusations against her until she committed an ultimate act of evil. Because her draining her mates' energy was no longer working as well as she wanted, and she was still vulnerable to injury and illness, she took things even further. Somehow she found an ancient, terrifying ceremony that let her takeallthe energy from their spirits, all at once, and fold it into herself—if she killed them."

"No." I shake my head, horror and nausea rolling around in my stomach. "She... she took their lives?"

"Yes. All four of them, violently and without remorse." Grimacing, Kerry shakes her head, her expression full of distaste and disgust. "She used her hybrid abilities and the mate bond to make them docile as she butchered them. They weren't even able to fight for their lives—something we know because Delphine had a witness to her butchery. Her own mother, a ceremonial witch, had to watch as it happened, because Delphine used her as a pawn in her spell.

"After the blood was spilled, her mother escaped and was able to warn the pack what was coming. The strongest warriors prepared themselves for battle, but there wasn't much hope for victory. They knew already that Delphine could control their minds, and after she'd killed her four mates, her power was unimaginable. So Delphine's mother called on the coven. Though they'd been betrayed by the pack and forced from their homes, the witches returned to do what they could.

"It was a gruesome battle. Delphine wouldn't go down lightly. She was cast out of the land, and ultimately, the witches were able to sever her connection to the pack so that she couldn't draw on the power of the land or control their minds. Though the pack tried to kill her, they weren't able to. She was too strong, too invincible.

"So they exiled her, broke her bonds—the bonds she hadn't already broken herself through murder—and cast her out completely. In the process, they performed a ceremony that took her wolf form from her, and they believed it took her magic abilities as well, but they were wrong.

"Though Delphine lost much of her strength and her ability to transform, she kept some small, remaining part of herself, a dark energy that let her cast a terrible curse. She wrapped the curse in the power of the number seven repeated, and connected it to the sin she'd committed, the sin of severing her own mate bonds. She vengefully took from others what she herself had lost: the wolf. Every female pack member would die for having what she no longer had.

"When the pack discovered what she'd done, they tracked her down and brought her to what remained of the coven. Though the witches tried to undo the curse, they simply weren't able to. Delphine had bound it in blood and ceremony. All they were able to do was weaken it, leaving a hole in the curse, one that let a strong female pack member live and break it every cycle.

"Then the coven brought Delphine to the mountains." She sighs, sounding tired, and I eye the clock. Soon enough, she'llhaveto rest, and I'll figure out a way to make her. "The witches bound her, brought her to the source of much of their power, and spent years trying to find a way to end her life. As gruesome as it sounds, they found no easy answers. Delphine was truly immortal—and the more they tried to kill her, the stronger her madness and desire for revenge grew."

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