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"They do it to keep the packs weak, and to keep them reliant on the Sun Witches." She shook her head with a scowl. "If the Zodiac Wolves believe they need the Sun Witches to protect them from this curse, they won't rebel. They'll gladly return every six months to the Convergence to allow the Sun Witches to cast spells on their children."
"That's why the Ophiuchus children can turn into wolves, isn't it?" I asked. "The Sun Witches never cast the spell on their babies."
"Exactly. That's the way it should be for all of you wolves. A natural shift with no spells needed for any of it. The same is true of finding a mate."
“Yes, I know all too well how the Sun Witches can control the mate bonds," I muttered. "I wonder how many other mate bonds are fake too."
Celeste gave me a sad look as she poured the tea. "Oh, Ayla... All of them are fake."
"All of them?" I asked as shock ran through me. Celeste dropped a tea bag in a mug and offered it to me, but I was too stunned to do anything but stare at it.
She set it down in front of me instead. "The Sun Witches use the same blessing spell on babies to lock away your mates too so that you won't feel the natural mate bond, and then they pair up shifters to further their own ends. They move wolves between packs like pawns on a chessboard.”
“What?” Every single one is fake? "But what about mates who truly felt like they've met their true love? How could they all be fake?"
“It's possible a few here and there would have paired up naturally,” Celeste admitted. "But the Sun Witches are very good at manipulating emotions too. The spell they use makes it very hard to resist the mate bond."
I shivered and rubbed my arms. "Yes, I know. They mated me to someone I hated in the Leo pack. Later I learned he was actually my half-brother."
Celeste looked horrified, her face even more pale than usual. "Your half-brother? Did you...?"
"No. He rejected me, and then when he did want me, I was able to resist." I shuddered a little at the thought of that night when we'd almost completed the mate bond.
"It's a testament to your will that you were able to resist for so long. Most people are unable to fight the spell."
“But why would the Sun Witches do this?" I asked. "I understand wanting to control us, but why choose who we mate with?"
"As far as I can tell, the Sun Witches want the shifters to be their slaves again." Celeste sighed and took a small sip of her tea. “Centuries ago, the Sun Witches and Moon Witches were one coven. Light and dark, sun and moon, day and night, masculine and feminine, in perfect harmony. Everything changed when vampires started killing the witches off and drinking their blood to steal their magic. The vampires became incredibly powerful when they did this, and the witches knew they had to stop them before they threatened to destroy the entire world.” She paused and grimaced. “Our ancestors enslaved the wolf shifters to help them in this battle and tied their powers to the stars, giving each pack extra abilities to use against the vampires. The Moon Witches also inflicted the Moon Curse upon the wolves then, which made them turn feral at the full moon. It was the only way they could enslave them, by having the packs rely on them for the antidote spell. With the wolf shifters' help, the witches were able to defeat the vampire threat. The Sun Witches cast the Sun Curse on the remaining vampires, making it so they couldn't go out in the daylight, and the war ended."
I'd heard similar things from Kaden, but I'd never been sure how much of it was true. After all, when I was growing up in the Zodiac Wolves the Sun Witches were considered allies and saviors, while the Moon Witches were the villains. Since the Convergence, I'd seen many times who the real villains were, and it was nice to hear about our history from a real Moon Witch now. "I didn't know there was a Sun Curse too, but I guess that explains the lore about vampires not being able to go in the sun. What happened after that?"
"After the war ended, the shifters grew tired of being slaves, rightfully so. The Moon Witches removed the curse on the shifters and were sympathetic to their plight, but the Sun Witches didn't want to give up control. This led to a division between the Sun and Moon Witches, and eventually, they split completely. At first, the Moon Witches were allied with some of the packs, including Cancer and Ophiuchus, but many shifters still didn't trust us because of the Moon Curse. Over the years, the Sun Witches got into their heads and turned each pack against us, one by one. They claimed we were the ones who wanted to keep control over the wolves and that the Moon Curse was still active. Only the Ophiuchus never wavered in their alliance, and eventually, they were cast out of the Zodiac Wolves because of it."
"That's a very different story than the ones the Zodiac Wolves and Sun Witches tell," I said.
"I'm not surprised. The Zodiac Wolves have been manipulated by the Sun Witches for years, while we were painted as the villains and hunted down. Meanwhile, the Sun Witches have bred shifters like dogs to get the traits they wanted."
My spine stiffened. "What do you mean?"
She poured us more tea as she explained. "Each pack shares some of the same qualities and personality traits as their Zodiac sign, as I'm sure you already know. Over the years the Sun Witches have purposefully arranged mates to create offspring with the traits they want, which are usually the more negative aspects of each sign. They've bred the Zodiac Wolves to be the darkest versions of themselves, focusing on all the negative aspects. As an example, Leos became aggressive and arrogant rather than courageous and generous, while Cancers became vindictive and suspicious instead of caring and loyal." She shook her head. “And it's all to control them.”
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