Untamable Resolve: The Witheridge Witches

Prologue

The woman sitting and reading in front of the flickering fire had lived a remarkable eight hundred and thirty-three years. And although there were witches who made it to be millennia or two she had approximately twelve hours left to live. Margareth could feel it in her bones like most witches did when their time came. A witch's last breath is what they had come to call it as their power compounded on itself during this time before it was absorbed by another. So when the pressure in the room changed, and a twinge of rosemary hit her nostrils, she wasn't surprised. Magic. An aberration of her own.

"Mom?"

"Yes, Charlotte." she answered lackadaisically, fiddling with her garnet ring without looking up from her book. She was in the middle of the story, and it dawned on her she would not get to know how it ended. Unfortunate.

"I've come here to ask you for a favor."

Her daughter's normally sharp voice was anything but. It was almost gentle, which she found unsettling.

"Léon died four months ago, Meré."

Margareth slowly put her book down and closed her eyes, taking in the information. Léon had been Charlotte's husband for all of a year, or she supposed eight months. The last time she had been updated, they had both been on the front in Michigan while she had stayed behind enemy lines in her husband's father's farm in Virginia. Turning her head to Charlotte she found herself staring at her heavily pregnant daughter. She was probably at least six months.

"I never expected to make it this far." she said as her hand went to hold her swollen belly. Had she been doing missions while pregnant? Of course, she had. She would haunt Ana, the head of their coven, for not pulling her off duty sooner. She got up and hugged her for the first time in a century and held her daughter as Charlotte cried.

"Did Ana know?"she asked as she rubbed her back.

Charlotte shook her head no. "I was finishing my undercover assignment in New York City for the last three months. I thought it would be better to keep busy."

Margareth would haunt Ana anyways. She hadn't consulted her about sending her daughter to New York City, where the werewolves had made their hub after they decimated North America three years ago. It was fucking dangerous and a suicide mission to be posted there, especially after the death of Léon, and Ana had to have to known that.

"How long have you been hiding it?"

"Until I got my new orders yesterday."

And now she understood that was the favor, being the replacement for her daughter on a mission. It would be her last act alive as a mother.

"Brief me." she ordered.