"My mother was not a werewolf. She wasn’t even an Omega," Emira said slowly, turning her face away from him. "But she lived like one. She took every bit of pain and humiliation just to keep me safe. And all of it... every part of it... was because of a Seer."
She drew in a deep breath before continuing.
"You know the history. After the First War, the White witches sacrificed themselves to bind the Dark witches’ master. They did it so he wouldn’t rise again. And the Dark witches who were left died protecting him. When it ended, the White witches didn’t want another war, so they went to the Werewolves for help. Together, they hunted down the remaining Dark witches."
Her hands tightened on her knees.
"Only a few survived," she said quietly. "The ones who had some White witch blood mixed in. But even then, they weren’t accepted. They were kept outside everything. Not part of the covens. Not part of the White line. Just... tolerated because killing them all would have been worse."
She swallowed once, carefully.
"My mother was born to people like that. Half White witch, half Dark witch in equal parts. Too much of both. Not enough of either. She had nowhere to belong. No one who wanted her. And she still stayed quiet, stayed low, did everything she could to survive. And all of that happened because a Seer from the White witches decided that the Dark Magic bloodline was dangerous. Eventually, my mother decided to never practice dark magic, gave up a part of herself and chose white magic. She tried to erase every trace of darkness in herself, thinking that would finally give her some peace, some safety... but it never did."
Her voice lowered, slightly rougher now, as she continued. "But what happened? Another seer predicted something else to my mother’s own mate, and what did he do? Instead of protecting her and helping her, he went looking for her, then used her, killed her children, until she was forced to give up everything. He chose a Seer’s words over his own mate’s life. Over the lives she carried."
"She ran, injured and hunted, and still found the strength to protect the only child she had left. She sacrificed herself to save her child and ran away from her mate, did so much... But in the end, once again, she received nothing but betrayal. Because a Seer had sensed her arrival, known that she was powerful and robbed her of the power before selling her off to Moonville Pack... where she used the last vestiges of her magic to pretend to be an Omega until I was old enough for her to die... She died pretending to be someone she never was, just so I could live."
"Tell me, why should I not hate Seers? They were the ones who caused the death of the entire Dark witch clan, only on the basis of a Seer’s words. That resulted in so many things being cursed, including the Omegas who were not even involved. This was all because the White Witches wanted to prevent the Dark master from ruling the world. But look at the history... When did the Dark master harm anyone?"
"The only ’atrocities’ he committed were against those who harmed his people! That he would kill thousands of people was nothing but a prophecy by a Seer. Who made it the truth? The white witches! That my mother was a mixed witch who would give birth to the one who would help the Dark master? Who caused it? A seer. If a Seer had not predicted that, would Councilman Aldren have come searching for her? No! She would have been away in the ancient forest, practising her magic and living a quiet life! If a Seer had not predicted her arrival near the Moonville Pack, would my mother have lost all her power and been forced to die slowly? No!"
Her voice cracked, "It is all because of a Seer that all this happened! Every twist in my life, every loss, every scar—every single thing goes back to them. So tell me... why should I not hate Seers, Zen? Why?"
Emira’s breath hitched the moment the last words left her mouth, as if her chest couldn’t hold anything in anymore. She tried to steady herself, but her throat tightened, and her fingers curled hard into his chest, as if a dam had finally been broken and everything she had held back was spilling out at once, as the tears continued to fall.
Zen held her tightly, his arms closing around her without hesitation, but his own heart was a mess. She hated Seers. She hated people who could see the future. She hated visions, prophecies, predictions-everything that had ended up killing her mother.
Then what about him? Would she turn that hatred on him too? The thought dug into him more deeply than he expected. After all, he was a seer who had also changed things around based on what he had seen. Hadn’t he acted on his own vision without questioning anything else?
He felt her trembling against him and forced himself to breathe, to think. He wanted to say something—anything—to undo the weight of everything she had just confessed. He wanted to defend the things she had said, to tell her that a Seer’s prediction didn’t always bring doom to others, but in his heart, even he did not believe something like this. So, how was he supposed to tell her those lies?
He wanted to defend the Seers but the moment he opened his mouth, he closed it again. Because he knew. Defending any of this right now was impossible. Her hurt ran too deep, too raw, and too freshly exposed. Anything he said now would sound like an excuse, or worse- a justification for the very thing that had destroyed her mother.
As well as an excuse for himself.
So instead, he tightened his hold on her even as her entire body shook with every uneven breath she took.