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"It's called aFamiliar Bond. It's like a blood pact, only more permanent. It's when a witch and a shifter swore an oath to join their souls together for life, and magic seals them together. I'm sure you've all heard of a witch's familiar before."
"I have, but never once heard it involving a shifter," I said. I never knew it could be done in the first place. In hindsight, it would've been an interesting idea having a wolf shifter for a witch's familiar. From the little bit I knew from TV and research, Familiars helped enhance a witch's magic. They were their partner, their protector. They worked together.
"How does it work?" Javier asked as we started walking again.
"I don't know the full details since any books pertaining to the Familiar Bond have been locked away somewhere. What I do know is that the witch and shifter are connected in body and soul. The shifter's essence helps fuel a witch's magic, just as a witch can increase the physical strength and agility of the shifter."
"So, he becomes like a super shifter," Kao commented.
"In a way, yes," Roxanne said. "But it's more than that. Their very lives are tethered together. When one dies, so does the other."
A chill ran through my body over the notion of both shifter and witch dying together if something happened to one of them. It was tragic, but there was also something beautiful and intimate about it. Both knowing their lives would be tied together forever, so they would leave the world together.
"That's heavy," Caleb breathed out.
"It is," Roxanne agreed. "It's not for the faint of heart, that's for sure."
"So then, what happened that made both sides hate each other?" Javier asked.
"The Familiar Bond is an eternal bond forged by choice. What do you think happens when a shifter who's already bonded to a witch meets their fated mate?"
"Oh no," I said as I began putting two and two together.
"Oh yes," Roxanne countered. "Conflict and jealousy brews, and suddenly you're in a hostile environment with fated mates and bonded witches in the same room."
"Shifters that are bonded to witches can't claim their fated mate?" Raph asked.
"They can't feel the fated mate bond at all."
I froze at that, suddenly getting a sense of deja vu. "Wait, they can't feel it at all?"
"Nope. Their fated mate can still feel it, but not the one that's bonded to a witch. In a way, I guess you can relate to that, right?"
I nodded because I could. I didn't think there was another way for shifters to not feel the mate bond. I thought I was the only one, and that was because of the Wolf Moon's gift.
"Ironic, isn't it?" Roxanne asked before sighing. "Your Wolf Moon's gift prevents you from feeling the fated mate bond, and yet a Familiar Bond, once again, one that's forged by choice, prevents the shifters bonded to witches from feeling the fated mate bond."
"Mother Moon seems to be big on giving Fate the middle finger," Caleb said dryly.
Roxanne eyed him inquisitively. "If given the choice, which would you prefer? Letting Fate decide your life path or deciding for yourself?"
His response was to shrug his shoulders. "I don't know. I don't even know which one I'm doing now. A part of me feels like everything I'm doing is my own choice, but how do I know if this is what Fate is wanting me to do or not?"
That was an interesting question, one that had the rest of us wondering the same thing. How do we know if what we're doing is by Fate’s design or by our own choices? I already knew I was going against Fate by rejecting Pierce and never wanting to claim him, but what about the rest of my actions? Were they tied to my rejecting Pierce and Fate, or was I under the influence of Fate in some weird, twisted way?
"Life is full of unknowns, isn't it?" Roxanne asked.
I scoffed. "I'll say."
"But yes, shifter-familiars are no longer connected to the fated mate bond, much to their fated mate's chagrin."
"I can imagine how ugly that turned out," Kao said.
"From what I heard, it got really bad. Fated mates attacking the witches, shifter-familiars having to kill them in order to protect the witches. Before you know it, we were having a full-blown war. That was when both sides decided that the practice of Familiar Bonds had to stop and were deemed forbidden. Shifters and witches had gone their separate ways and have hated each other since."
I couldn't help letting my mind wander back to the Wolf Moon legends, and the vision that Selene had shown me about her own war. Both were fighting for the right to choose their own bond over letting Fate dictate who they should be paired with. I imagine that in the witches' case, they lost a few lives in the process too. It made me stop to wonder if fighting for the right to choose is worth all the sacrifices that came with it. If it was just my life, that'd be one thing, but there were other lives to consider, even in my predicament. I knew my mates chose to stick with me to the end and that was their choice to make. They bound themselves to me for life, so we were in it to the end.
But what about Javier and his pack? What about Del's men who lost their lives in helping me and my mates escape? Neither of them were bound to me in the same way Joaquin, Kai, and Kao were. They could freely choose to stay out of it. How could I put their lives in jeopardy over something I've chosen to do?
