Page 74 of Scarred Resolve

“I’ve heard of a far more powerful witch using this spell to much better effect and was able to investigate it later,” Subira answered, standing up quickly. “She lost control of the werecat she had tried to steal from his home, but she could manage the magic. Killing her, though, caused a backlash on the werecat instead, who only survived, thanks to his own expertise of surviving magical attacks and how to Change quickly to heal.”

I knew the story, and that surprised me. I also knew I couldn’t say anything, not in front of the werewolves. Thousandsof years ago, Subira was pregnant with the twins. Hasan was abducted by a witch who wanted to use a werecat as a personal slave and protector. He killed her. On his way home to the family, the son of said witch tried to avenge his mother, not knowing the entire situation. He hated his mother, but she was still his mother. Hasan killed him, too. He didn’t stay dead. He was part of the family now.

I guess Kushim won in the end. He’s probably the only person I think came out of that with a positive. He has a child with Zuri, and he’s a true Immortal.

There was one new bit to the story that I felt was the only way anyone would identify the werecat as Hasan. Only one werecat was probably routinely attacked by magic. I had seen Subira lose her patience with him and her temper flare when he tried to do anything at that moment. He had seemed so unfazed but considering they had been together for five thousand years… it made sense he was so adjusted to it.

“Is this the same spell?” Hasan asked, frowning deeply as he had been since she started telling his story to the room.

“I’m certain of it.” Subira waved him away. “Go upstairs. Jacky and I will continue an investigation down here and report everything once we’re upstairs and you can catch us up on what you’ve discovered.”

“We’ll get out of the way.” Hasan bowed his head to his mate, then began back up the stairs, Corissa and Callahan behind him.

32

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Once the door closed upstairs, Subira waved a hand.

“No one will hear us,” she said quickly. “Jacky, this happened to Hasan. That means the modern world is uncovering secrets from the ancient one and they are stumbling on things that we should be concerned about. If they fixed certain mistakes with the original spell, and I bet they have, then we have a lot of problems. Hasan and I will speak about it later, along with the entire family. I’m telling you first.”

“What’s the mistake with the original spell?”

She reached into her pocket and pulled out her cellphone.

“You can use this better than me. The code is 5124. It’s exactly how old I am.”

Considering that most of my siblings didn’t know their exact ages, it truly surprised me that Subira did, but I knew that was a conversation for another time. I typed in the passcode.

“You’ll be taking pictures. Spells can leave marks. This spell needs something to identify the pairs. The mistake of the original witch was not making the mark used permanent. She had to redo it, and she was a bit too late. However, newer witchesare smarter. Back then, it wasn’t really known that we had a silver weakness, so it was practically impossible to scar us.”

She started tearing off the clothes of the body closest to her, the one she had initially looked at when we got downstairs. It didn’t take long to find it—a scar on the witch that reminded me of other magical symbols.

“There it is,” she said. “Take pictures. We don’t need to discover which of these humans was controlling which werewolf or anything. I need to study what sort of symbols they’re using.”

“Are they… a language?” I asked, studying the mark scarred into the woman’s chest, right between her breasts.

“Yes and no. They aren’t discovered or invented anymore, depending on your perspective. These aren’t authentic, but they are similar to the real ones,” she said, moving to the next body. “See, much of the world we once lived in relied on belief. We believed those symbols had power; therefore, we accidentally gave them that power, fed by the world. But perhaps they always had power since those of us who initially used them could see them in the world’s magic. The way I perceive the world is different from others. The same for any of the truly ancient witches. Zuri and Jabari could have tapped into it if I had allowed them to go deeper into magic at a much younger age, but since I stunted their growth, they have an immense amount of power, but the limitations of belief like modern witches.”

“Hence why the origins are so confusing.”

“Exactly. It’s difficult to explain my views on magic and what I definitively know about it to anyone else, so I tend to be very coy about it, knowing I could never give anyone a proper explanation that would serve them in the world. Witches today are so… limited. They don’t understand that humanity advanced therefore their magic diminished.” She revealed another mark in the same place on the next witch, and I moved to take pictures.

“So, technology destroyed magic?” I asked as I waited for the third witch, whose mark wasn’t on her chest. The werecat’s witch had done it somewhere else.

“No!” Subira earnestly shook her head. “It wasn’t the technology; it was theknowledge.” She flipped over the witch and revealed a scar that covered the witch’s entire upper back. She ran her fingers over it. “They needed something bigger for this witch and the werecat, but why?” Her question was soft, not really directed at me, but I considered it anyway, deciding to throw out a guess.

“Would it strengthen the spell?” I asked, kneeling beside her as I started taking pictures. Once I was done taking them, I lowered the phone and looked at her. She hadn’t moved, still staring at the massive and intricate scarring on the back of the witch.

“Possibly,” she said, nodding slowly. “That might explain why it’s only for the werecat. Probably from the differences between us and the werewolves. When it comes to magic that can control, werewolves are one of the few supernaturals that have it inherent to them.”

“So, we would be harder to control because we’re fiercely independent while werewolves, ignoring an Alpha, have their will bent regularly due to the magic,” I said, nodding as I listened. “Something else is that the witches controlling werewolves all have really similar designs.”

“They do. Minor variations that might not change anything except to add an identifying factor. The werecat’s is also wholly unique in that way as well.” Subira moved on, and I kept taking pictures.

“You mentioned knowledge was the reason magic wasn’t as great as it once was. What did you mean?” I couldn’t resist. I had Subira alone, talking about magic. I wanted more than anything to understand and to hear it from her since she was magic. Notjust as a witch, but her entire life and persona. As she herself had said, she saw the world differently.

Subira paused on the last witch and straightened up, staring at me with that unreadable expression. I accepted the weight of it because I was her named daughter now, and if there was a woman I would die for, it would be her. She was full of secrets and knowledge, but she loved me, just as much as she loved Zuri or Jabari or any of the family. She accepted Dirk and Landon with open arms. She fought for us against a man she had loved for five thousand years. Whatever the weight was in her gaze, I would carry it without complaint.

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