Page 35 of Mated to the Enemy
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“Klaue?”
He glanced over to the couch where Jessica sat, staring straight ahead. She was in shock, and he was doing everything he could to minimize the effects of it, but now it was just a matter of time, of waiting for her to come out of it naturally. He didn’t want to push it.
“Yes?”
“That man today. The one who saved us?”
“The Magi, yes.”
“He’s the same one from the kitchen, right? The one who accused me in front of everyone.”
Klaue sighed and went over to sit down, putting a mug of hot chocolate into her hands and holding it there until he was sure she had a grip on it. “Sip,” he ordered.
She followed his order robotically, taking a sip of the steaming liquid.
“Yeah, that’s the same one,” he answered. “He’s a jerk. His name is Korred. He, or his apprentice if he ever took one, are the only shifters in the House allowed to practice magic, and he lords it over everyone. Thinks he’s superior because of it. Nobody likes him.”
“Oh. Why is nobody else allowed to practice it?”
Klaue hesitated, not sure how much he wanted to share with her about the origins of shifters. After all, shecouldbe a spy, and if he and his kind guarded the knowledge of their existence well, they were absolutelyruthlesswhen it came to hiding the true secrets of their origins.
“It’s complicated,” he said at last. “But for a long time, shifters and mages fought each other. Back and forth we went, trying to kill one another. The mages would strike with things like the Inquisition, which was actually a cover to get at us. We fought back too.”
Klaue thought back to his history lessons, explaining it all to Jess. The Black Death had been a shifter-engineered virus that struck only at magic users, even those who had so little power they didn’t know it. After the shifters were driven from Europe, they established themselves in Plymouth Falls in the new world and returned the favor of the Inquisition with the Witch Hunts, a clever ploy that outed mages all over the world.
“Why do you hate each other so much though?” she asked, looking at him.
He bit back his surprise. The vacant stare wasn’t quite as empty anymore. Jess was coming back to him. Klaue eagerly continued with the history lesson. Maybe it was giving her something to ground her recent experience in, he didn’t know, but if it was helping, he would tell his mate everything he was allowed to.
“For that, you have to go back to the beginning. To before shifters existed.”
“Before?”
He smiled. “Yes. It was the early 5thCentury. Rome was teetering on the edge. Although the history books will tell you that Rome was ruled by an Emperor at this time, and no longer the Senate, they are all lies.”
“I…my Roman history is pretty weak,” Jessica admitted. “But you’re telling me everything I was taught is wrong?”
“Only about who truly commanded. You see, the Roman Senate was composed entirely of vampires.”
Jessica’s jaw dropped open, the last of the glassy look vanishing completely. “I’m sorry, what now? Vampires? Like glittering-skin, day-walker Twilight, or old creepy dude in a coffin, sucking blood, that can be killed by a cross or holy water?”
Klaue howled with laughter at her description. “Neither. It doesn’t really matter, because they’re all dead now. Extinct.”
“They are?”
He nodded. “Yes. We killed them. Shifters burst onto the scene in the early 400s, 5thCentury, whatever you wish to call it. We were the barbarians that sacked Rome. We killed the vampires who had ruled the paranormal world through the might of the great Roman Empire for over a thousand years. We think they were in control of the Greek empire before them, but we just don’t know.”
“So how do the dead vampires factor into the shifter mage war?” Jessica was leaning forward, elbows on her knees as she curled up into the corner of the couch, fascinated by what he was telling her.
Klaue didn’t stop. It was a weird way to bring her out of shock, but it was working.
“Well, the paranormal world was in chaos. The shifters were the new kids, and for various reasons, we weren’t welcome. At all. The mages wanted power, and being the two strongest sides, it was only natural we fought each other for supremacy. That’s essentially what the Dark Ages was all about.”
“How did none of this make it into the history books? I find that hard to believe.”
He smiled. “Until the inventing of the printing press, it wasextremelyeasy to suppress data. Especially when both sides wanted to keep it quiet. How do you think legends were born though?”
