44. Anna

44

Anna

Jax held my hand as I joined him outside of Irene's little cottage which had, suspiciously, grown twice as big as the last time I saw it. "Been doing a little construction?" I asked lightly.

"We've had so many witches stay recently that Irene became annoyed at the size of her house. Jenson had it expanded."

"Seamlessly."

Jax smiled. "He's good at construction. How do you think The Fanged Smile was put back together so quickly?"

"And he'd do anything for Irene?"

"Why are there so many wolves in my pack who will not acknowledge their mates?" he said in exasperation before he squeezed my hand. "Are you certain you're up for this tonight?"

It wasn't the first time he'd asked as we drove over here, and I nodded. We needed information, and quick. It didn't matter that my jolt of energy upon waking up was already rapidly waning. Maeve was decades ahead of us. We needed to get there faster, and the Crone was the only one I knew who had information. Who could help us.

Magic pulsed in the house and vibrated the windows. Jax and I both tensed. "Do that again, you old hag, and I'll bury you so deep under this territory that Jax's grandchildren will be shitting on top of you," Irene shouted.

"Things must be going well," I said lightly. Jax just scowled. Closing his eyes, he let his own power pulse, and the house went silent. "Oh good. They know you're here."

"I'll be annoyed if I get hit by wayward magic," he explained as he walked up to the door and knocked. A few seconds later, Lunessa opened it. Her skin was a little too pale, and her eyes a little too bright. "How are things going?"

"You took too long," she grumbled and stepped back. She and Irene were standing in chalk circles, and on the ceiling, in what looked like a giant spider web, the Crone was suspended.

So, she was as welcome here as she was in my bathroom. I almost smiled before I remembered the enormous pulse of power a few seconds ago. The Crone was pissed, and I needed them to release her.

"We need to talk to her," I said carefully.

Irene scowled but waved her hand. The webs around the Crone's face disappeared. "Careful. She can do a lot of damage with that mouth."

"I tried to tell them that I came here in peace," the Crone snarled. "They did not listen."

"You've kept too many secrets for too long. It's hard to know which side you're on, and at the moment, that's a dangerous place to be."

"I told you of the darkness. I made your mate keep you. I knew our only chance is if the two of you stood together, and I did not kill you, despite knowing that it would be much simpler if you were dead," The Crone snapped. "How dare you question my loyalty!"

"Secrets make it hard to trust. If Irene and Lunessa release you, the slate is wiped clean. You won't punish Lunessa for leaving you. We won't punish you for keeping secrets."

"Very well. I think we can all agree that there are more important issues," she conceded.

I nodded, and Lunessa and Irene, after some hesitation, murmured under their breaths. The Crone fell heavily toward the floor only to hover the last foot before gracefully descending. I looked around. "Where is Janelle?"

"She left the moment the Crone appeared," Irene explained. "She was worried that she was the target."

"Can you call her back? I want all the magic possible at our disposal. Everyone needs to be on the same page. Maeve no doubt as an immense amount of magic at her disposal."

"And then some," the Crone muttered.

When she looked at me in annoyance, I shot the look right back. "You've known Maeve was the target all along."

"Incorrect. I knew it was someone in Maeve's pack, but that was decades ago. They could have moved on. I'd heavily suspected they were absorbed into Emerson's pack and working for him. Maeve 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 Maeve."

Janelle's eyes widened, and Jax moved to block her. "I've made her swear not to use her magic again to control wolves."

"Then you are a fool. Maeve 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 Jax 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 know what you saw in your memories, Anna, 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."

Jax 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 Maeve several months prior for two weeks. Maeve 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 Maeve 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 Maeve had lost her sanity. I couldn't help but feel my heart go out to her, and Jax 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 Maeve. 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 Dirk and conceived you while we were on Maeve'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."

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?" Jax asked. "Even if we knew where they were, we couldn't go visit. They'll try to kill Anna, 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 Maeve 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 Maeve 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?"