The Lost Werewolf King's Mate

Chapter 26: Audrey's POV

"Thank you for finally gracing us with your presence, Mother of Seers." Evangeline was using her most sarcastic voice and looked annoyed, as usual.

"My apologies, everyone. I had a pack-related matter to attend to." I rushed to get to the seers' cave, but once I got to the entrance, I took a deep breath and walked in with the grace and confidence befitting of my title, Mother of Seers.

It is a coveted position amongst seers and although it is a blessing from the Moon Godess, there are still seers who think they can steal the position. Some of those seers are amongst the sixteen of us who gather in this sacred cave to share our visions amongst one another and use our collective powers to see visions of the divine.

"This is why the luna of a werewolf pack should not lead our order. We all have things to do, Audrey. We can't be late just because you had to attend to your luna duties." Evangeline added an extra mocking tone when she said "luna duties".

Needless to say, Evangeline does not approve of my being the Mother of Seers. Like me, all her ancestors were also seers. She and I are the only two pure seers I know of and according to her, she should have been chosen by the Moon Godess to be the Mother of this order of seers since I was spoiling my pure lineage by mixing my blood with that of a werewolf instead of a seer.

The seers in my order were all happy when the new werewolf king declared that their lands fell under the territory of the werewolf kingdom. This meant that they would enjoy the protection they previously enjoyed when the werewolf king reigned over their lands. They would no longer need to live in fear, hoping to get a vision of the witches so that they could run before being attacked. That life was exhausting and it meant people never had a place to call home. Now, they could share their visions with the werewolves and count on them for protection.

Mathew's new reforms allowed seers to, once again, be on friendly terms with the werewolves and be able to count on them for help when needed. It is because of his reforms that we noticed that the numbers of seers had depleted significantly, something we could not do in the past because everyone was doing their own thing trying to run as far away as they could from the witches.

Now we knew that a lot more seers than we thought had died at the hands of the witches.

Orders of seers are much smaller than werewolf packs and sometimes even smaller than witch covens. The biggest order of seers would probably consist of 50 seers and the smallest could have 5 people. Because of this, we can easily integrate into different communities and live amongst other magical creatures or even humans with relative ease.

My order has seers who live in various werewolf packs, but there aren't enough of us to serve each pack individually. For this reason, I gather the strongest seers in my order in this sacred cave every month to strengthen our powers and see visions that may help us to prevent harm to everyone.

I took a deep breath and smiled at everyone. I suddenly felt grateful that Jonathan and I made love before I came here. It gave me the added strength I needed to deal with Evangeline. I laughed a little when I realised he probably did it on purpose because he knows how much she gets on my nerves. He truly is the best mate ever.

"Evangeline, please do not forget yourself. We are in a sacred place." My voice was calm and gentle as the still waters we had encircled in this dark ancient cave that glowed with green divine lights. "To disrespect me here is to disrespect the Moon Godess herself. Actually, any disrespect towards me counts as disrespect towards the Moon Godess since she is the one who made me the Mother of this order."

The other seers nodded their heads in agreement. Evangeline's black and purple eyes were staring daggers into me.

The seers around me had also tied their hair into ballet buns and, like me, they were wearing long, black silky gowns with black capes tied around their shoulders. Well everyone, except Alexander and Deon, who are wearing black shirts, long black pants and black capes around their shoulders. They are the only two male seers in my order.

Esther, the woman who taught me all there is to know about being a seer, stood next to me and I gently squeezed her hand when it was time for us all to hold hands around the still waters in the cave.

We all looked at the river in the middle of the cave. My eyes started glowing first, followed by Evangeline, then Alexander and then the rest of the order. The least strongest seer amongst us had her eyes glowing last.

We focused all our energies on the still waters.

An image appeared of the werewolf king. He looked happy, something I haven't seen in years. He started running into scorching hot flames, but nothing happened to him. In fact, the flames didn't burn him and the land where he stood in the fire remained green, as if there was no fire at all. However, everything around that fire was burning. Lands that the fire didn't even touch were turning to ash.

We all knew what this meant. We knew of Mathew and Elizabeth's tainted connection. This was another confirmation that whatever was poisoning their connection was still there.

It pained me to keep doing this to Mathew. Telling him to stay away from the woman he he so clearly loved was one of the worst things about being a seer. I am essentially a glorified messenger, but when I tell people of my visions they react like somehow I have control over their lives or futures.

Telling Elizabeth that the only way to keep Mathew safe was for her to stay away from still pains me till this day. She didn't deserve that. They never even had a chance to explore what their love actually meant and what it could blossom into.

Even though they are not fated mates, I want those two to have what Jonathan and I have. That's why I have scoured the werewolf kingdom, trying to find the strongest good witches to break whatever wretched spell was doing this. But they all told me the same thing- only death can break a spell that strong. For it to last this long was a testament to its strength, but I had hope.

We've seen many variations of this vision in the past few years. Sometimes Mathew and Elizabeth are hugging and then they both tumble to the ground while everything around them collapses. In another vision, rain is falling on a mighty oak tree, but instead of growing, the tree's leaves turn brown and fall away and the bark withers away until it's an empty husk that gets blown away by a light breeze. The ground under the oak tree turns grey and all the plants start dying.

But I had hope this time because this vision was slightly different. This time, even though everything around them was turning to ashes, the two of them seemed okay. Mathew's skin wasn't burning in the flame and the flame was getting stronger. It could mean that whatever was doing this to them was slowly losing its strength.

This was good news, but probably not good enough to report to a man who was clearly suffering in silence and being told he had to endure his suffering each time he tried to end it by finding the woman he loved.

Those who met Mathew after he lost Elizabeth think the man is a strong and emotionless king who rules without mercy. Of course he has never acted without mercy, but his dark demeanour has led to ridiculous rumours being spread about him. Only those of us who knew him before his loss know that the man is doing all he can to hide unimaginable pain. We may have doubted their connection while they were at my pack, but now it is undeniable. Mathew loves Elizabeth and he is in pain without her, so we we're all trying to find a way to safely reunite them.

Getting this vision means that Mathew is going to try and find her again and like with all his other attempts, it was my duty to tell him not to go to the woman he loved and do all I can to stop him from finding her.

The image in the water changed. We saw a beautiful crystal blue jewel. The jewel got close to a man and then suddenly the man turned into a werewolf and died. It was a confusing vision, but clearly whatever this jewel is, it is dangerous and we needed to find it before it lands in the wrong hands.

This is what makes visions tricky. Sometimes they were symbolic, putting it on the seer to figure out what it meant and sometimes it could be literal.

Another image appeared in the water. We have all seen this face before. Some of us even had nightmares because of it even though none of us have ever seen him in person. It was Raphael. His blue orbs were the first thing we saw and then his menacing smile, but then the image disappeared.

"Focus everyone. We need to get that vision back." I felt the seers next to me squeezing my hands to try and focus harder.

We kept seeing the same thing over and over again. Raphael's eyes and then his menacing smile. We could tell that there was more to this vision, but for some reason we couldn't see the rest of it. This was an important vision. Any visions concerning Raphael or his witches are important.

"Audrey!", I heard Evangeline's annoying shrill voice and looked up. All the other seers were bleeding from their noses. Evangeline and I seemed to be the only ones who were okay.

I went back to focusing my energy on the waters infront of me. We just needed to hold on for a little longer then surely the rest of the vision would appear. I could feel it. We were close.

I felt Esther fall to her knees next to me, but she still held my hand which meant she could keep going. A moment later, I felt the other seer next to me also fall to her knees, but she also held onto my hand.

"This is enough, Audrey!", I heard Evangeline's shrill voice.

The vision stopped. Someone had broken the circle and I didn't need to look up to know who it was.

"What kind of Mother risks the lives of her seers like this? They could have died! They're not pure seers. Your children will be as weak as them one day and I'm sure you'll want them to be shown the same mercy I showed tonight." Evangeline had a smirk on her face and a menacing glint in her dark purple eyes. Her bun was no longer showcasing her long neck and various strands of her silver hair had come loose.

I looked around at my fellow seers. They were indeed all on their knees and bleeding from their noses, but it was nothing that rest and a doctor's visit couldn't fix. The task before us is too great to be stopped by discomfort. So many people have already died and so many more risk losing their lives. We have the power to see the past, present and future. We can help. We can prevent all the pain and suffering so many of us here already knew.

"Esther, how do you feel?" I helped Esther to stand up, choosing to ignore Evangeline's comments for now.

"I'm okay. I could have kept going. It was painful, but it was bearable."

"Did any of you feel like you were on the brink of death? Like you were too weak to carry out your duties?" I was looking straight at Evangeline.

"No, like Esther says, it was painful but still bearable", another fellow seer said.

I wanted to tell Evangeline to leave right this instant, but I knew I couldn't do that. We needed her strength and if helping my friends and my people meant putting up with her then I would just have to suck it up. But I needed to find a way to put her in her place. She was undermining me at every turn and now she had even gotten brazen enough to disrupt us mid-vision.

"Evangeline", I said as I started walking to her. I put my hand on her shoulder. "Apologise to everyone for underestimating their abilities merely because of their lineage."

She looked at me defiantly and huffed at me, causing more silver strands of her hair to fall down her head.

"Now!" I said with a growl.

She gritted her teeth. "I apologise fellow seers."

"You interrupted a sacred ritual, Evangeline. That is not how we end each vision quest. We had to give our thanks to the Moon Godess for blessing us with these visions. You know that, but you still chose to end our link abruptly. Why? Because she didn't make you the Mother of Seers?" My voice was calm and almost soothing. I may be angry, but I wasn't going to taint this place just because of Evangeline's ill manners.

She didn't answer me.

"It seems to me that it is your weakness that threatens our work, Evangeline." I heard gasps amongst the seers after I said this. I could feel Evangeline's eyes on me. I had just called someone who regards herself as the strongest seer, weak.

I walked back to my place in the circle. I held out both hands and held the hands of the seers next to me. Everyone else followed and we were all holding hands again.

"Let us ask the Moon Godess to forgive us", I said to everyone. We all knew we couldn't restore the connection, but I still wanted to give my apologies and thanks to the godess.