Page 67 of The Worst Mate Ever

They had been with me for a while, but Aurora’s fussiness prompted Madie to take her to our room, where she could be fed and put down for a nap. I should be there with them, but I just can’t get this mystery out of my mind. Especially when Madie told me her suspicions that hybrids are intertwined with the prophecy.

There were so many of us now. Lib, me, both of our daughters, Nyte and Paige’s son, then a boy in the Moon Witch coven up in Montana. I had even heard a couple of witches and a she-wolf who were expecting hybrid children now. With so many, I had to find out these answers. I had to know so that I could protect them. So that maybe I could stop it all from happening.

I stood up with the book I had been going over, returning it to the shelf before turning to collect the next on my list of tomes to investigate. As I touched the book’s spine, the world began to melt away. My fingers slipped through the binding and the shelf, and my body floated in the air, suspended over nothingness.

I knew this feeling well. The Fates calling me from my body to hear their words. I haven’t been called upon by them for a prophecy since the day Madie had been kidnapped. It had driven me crazy, prayer after prayer sent to the three goddesses to give me an answer to the quest for knowledge. Even the smallest of hints. I couldn’t help but feel hopeful that they were finally pointing me in the right direction.

As the void around me brightened, I was momentarily blinded by the intense, bright lights. I shielded my eyes from the blinding light, feeling the warmth against my eyelids, before finally opening them to discover a tranquil field filled with sheep and lambs.

A refreshing breeze swept past me, gently tousling my hair and momentarily obstructing my vision before I brushed it aside. In that brief moment, three women appeared before me. I knew instinctively who they were as one plucked wool from a bag and began to spin the fiber into shining threads. The second woman smiled over at me as she took the threads and weaved them into a large macabre work of art. Knot after knot twisted together skillfully with her nimble fingers. The third woman scowled at me, a pair of scissors in her hand, snipping loose threads from the artwork her sister created.

“Welcome, Brady of Crete and Rigel, it’s nice to be able to face you in person,” the first woman said, her eyes never leaving her spindle as she pulled and spun the wool in her hand.

“I’m sure you are wondering why we brought you to our realm like this,” the second sister said, her voice like a soft bell.

I nodded, amazed to be in the presence of deities. I had never heard of any seer being given this opportunity to face those whose voices are spoken through them in times when knowledge is most needed. Anticipation filled me as I awaited the news, hopeful for what they were about to disclose.

“You need to stop digging into the shadows,” the final of the goddesses said, punctuating the statement with a snip of the scissors to a thread just as it peeled away from the others.

“What?” I asked, my voice filled with disbelief at their words. “But you sent me the prophecies. Why would you not want me to understand them had you spoken to them through me?”

“We only spoke one through you,” the third continued. “And it is done. You saved your mate and the wolf who wished you harm’s thread was cut. Your part in this is now over.”

“But the second prophecy,” I began, only for the third fate to cut me off with another snip of her scissors.

“Was not spoken through you. We allowed you to see it because it helped you with the prophecy you were meant to fulfill. But just as the seer who wrote the words in that book, it is not your job to solve the riddle. You are our voices, our forms in the mortal world, to pass on what is needed to lead others to their fates. That prophecy is not your fate.”

The second fate pointed to her work of knots and twists, her smile still warm and welcoming as she spoke. “Look here, this is your thread. It is nowhere near the thread of the shadow man.”

“Quiet, Lachesis,” the third sister snapped.

“Oh, Atropos, it doesn’t hurt him to see where the shadows lie on the web of life. He needs to see how far he is and where his true connections lie.”

She looked over at me and gestured for me to come closer as her older sister watched with disapproval, and her younger sister continued her work of spinning the threads of life, never stopping, just as life on earth never truly ends.

“Look, Brady,” Lachesis said softly. “Look at the ties and bonds formed in your life. The shadow is not tied to you or your mate and child. It will not touch you and so you don’t need to know it.”

I stared at the tangled web; my eyes locked on the knot of threads that she pointed out as mine then to the dark black thread that belonged to the shadow man. “Shadow man,” I whispered. “So, it is a man?”

“You see, Lachesis! You told him more than he needed to know!” Atropos shrieked.

Lachesis sighed and waved off her sister’s irritation. “Was there any doubt about the gender? I know you haven’t looked that closely at the ancient women. I had not told you anything, you hadn’t already known yourself. I merely confirmed, though the confirmation was not needed for your belief.” She turned my head again to the black knot. “But it does not matter. You have no tie to that thread. And if you don’t stop your obsession, you will miss out on all the wonderful events in your children’s lives.”

I frowned and looked over at the fate. “Children?”

She smiled as she pointed to a glowing thread, clearly new to the web and entwined with mine. “You are so consumed with finding answers that don’t belong to you; you haven’t noticed the change in your mate. Although, she also hasn’t yet noticed. It’s harder to tell for women this soon after having a baby, but she will know for certain soon enough.”

My eyes widened as I stared at the fresh thread, its weaving showing the line of its fate growing with each spin of the youngest fate’s spindle. I looked again at the dark thread, seeing it far from my children, my heart’s racing easing as I began to understand what it was The Fates were telling me. I followed the knot as the dark thread surrounded and followed it up until I found a knotted thread connected to my own.

“You said there is no connection between me and the shadow. Then what is that?” I asked, the fear creeping back into my heart.

“That is none of your concern,” Atropos growled.

Lachesis held her hand up in a gesture to her older sister and looked back at me again. “All life eventually connects, Brady. It’s been this way since the beginning of time. Even our own threads are knotted together with a path to your knot. Life would be nothing if not for the fact we are all tied together. However, you are and will never be directly connected to this thread. It is not in your fate. No matter how hard you try to reach it. You will never find the answer.”

“In other words,” the youngest finally spoke, her eyes still locked on her spindle as the wool pulled with the weight and spun. “Stop wasting the little time you have. Or you will have lost too much when Atropos comes to cut your thread from the others.”

I turned to the oldest of The Fates, her scissors once more snipping away a thread. A stranger’s life ended before my eyes.

---