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Her face crumbled.
Zev reached her first, pulling her away from the circle, then holding her close to his chest. Both of their emotions were chaotic, like they couldn’t settle on one. Aeon and I walked over to them, throwing our arms around both of them.
“Is that what your vision was about?” Zev asked.
“I saw a few things I didn’t understand. There was a group deciding what to do with Vivienne. They wanted to kill her, but someone said not to, and then someone told her you killed Thane. All of you killed him.”
“What?” Zev leaned back to look at her face. “What do you mean we killed him? Is that why…”
Zev was vibrating with anger that made me worried for Katarina. Grabbing her from his lap, I brought her to sit on my own. His gratitude slithered through the bond as he got up and walked away.
“Zev.” Katarina pushed away from me.
“Kitten, give him a moment,” Aeon said, scooting closer to us.
Her face fell when she looked at Zev, biting her lip to keep from either crying or making a noise. Zev paced back and forth in front of us, his emotions making me choke up.
“Is that why she cursed us? Because she thought we killed Thane?” His anger made his voice sound menacing.
“Yes, his family told her that he had been killed and they accused her of coercing you guys to kill him.” Katarina said, looking up at Zev. She opened her mouth like she was going to say more but nothing came out.
“He didn’t die,” Zev growled, walking away from us.
His anger was stifling, so stifling that it made me want to lash out at something until it lessened. Aeon, Katarina and I sat there for a moment wondering if he was going to come back. Footsteps sounded before an angry Zev emerged. He sat down flipping open a book until he came to the page he was looking for, then handed it to Katarina.
Thane Faucher married to Lorna Moore 1829.
“Wait, are we sure it’s the right Thane?” Aeon asked, grabbing the book out of her hands.
“Look at the page behind,” Zev said while Aeon flipped the page.
“Fuck, that’s why he sounded familiar, his family was in the war of witches,” Aeon breathed out.
“Explain?” Katarina snapped.
“Sorry, Kitten.” Aeon looked at a family tree. “They were on the losing side of a huge war. Their ideology was that witches were superior and all other supernaturals needed to bend the knee. When they lost, the family sought refuge with the Belladonnas so they wouldn’t be tried as war criminals, but they were denied. They fled and rumor has it they changed their name, but this just proves they did.”
He handed us the book.
“Their family name used to be Cadieux, read the notes at the bottom.”
Katarina and I saw that a small note had been left.
They fooled no one, the Belladonnas might be careless to who they allowed into their ranks, but Thorne Cadieux was a man left with only one leg and his wife was burned on the side of her face. They had three boys and they had been seen with the Belladonna coven. It was more imperative now that we established this truce with the Belladonnas for our sake, and the sake of everyone around us. They were dangerous witches, who would stop at nothing by painting their ideology onto the rest of the world.
“Wait, I’m confused, are you saying Thane was a part of a crazy puritan witch community?” Katarina looked confused.
“Yes, the Cadieux and the Bartons were some of the most brutal witches. They believed in purity of races. A witch shifter was not pure, so it would make sense that they would manipulate Vivienne because to them we were impure,” Aeon said, rubbing his chin like he was trying to remember something.
“So, they manipulated her so she would trap you here, but what would they gain from that?” I asked, realizing Vivienne was innocent in all of this.
“Can you imagine if we did mate with Vivienne? We would further pollute the races and not to mention we didn’t know how powerful our children would have been,” Zev said, looking angry. “This was their plan all along. Make her fall in love with Thane so he could train her in blood magic. They would give her the spell she needed and make her hate us so she would punish us.”
Anger like never before thrummed through me.
“So, it wasn’t the Belladonnas who fucked us over,” I snarled.
“It doesn’t seem like it, but what I can’t comprehend is how they knew the spell was cast and they did nothing.” Aeon looked thoughtful.
