Kale's POV-

She was pacing once again. Her uneasiness and nervous energy had me working double time trying to keep the pack's harmony at bay. It was a very trying task when Lucy was obviously so perturbed.

"Lucy-love," I sighed and held my hand out to stop her nervous footsteps.

"There's something..." she groaned. "There is something there that needs to be known but I just can't see it!" She emphasized desperately as she ran her hands through her hair. "Th-there's some... There's someth-"

"LUCE!" I raised my voice at her as she began muttering and pacing again.

Her wide eyes found mine as my hard voice broke through her worried mind.

"Enough of this. When has this ever worked for you?" I asked as I caressed her face gently. "We have been training so hard for days... You've learned how to get the earth to meet a lot of your commands, you've learned how to guide and communicate with me in battle, and you've even learned how to fight when you're in Oracle mode. You've done good. Let yourself rest, Luce."

"There is no need to even go into this battle if there is something there waiting for us that will cause our ultimate demise," she snarled at me.

"You said that we win this battle though? In all your visions, you said that we win. We lose some pack members, but we win," I reminded her gently.

"Yes! B-but that was before!" She said frantically.

"Before what?"

"Before! I could see the outcomes then! B-but now... Now I see nothing! I... I can't see the outcome!" She sobbed. "It's like the Moon Goddess can't see. It's like she's blinded... so I am too."

I held my breath. This conversation sounded far too familiar, and I hated the implications. The last time she spoke of darkness, it ended up with Raven coming to our front steps. I'd be damned if I let anyone else come between us like that again.

"Raven..." I whispered.

"She's dead," Lucy spat out. "We even sent the head back to her pack. She is gone," her wolf had taken over by the end of her statement.

I knew that she had to be extremely worried if her wolf was shining through so easily. I knew that I looked like a fish out of water as my mouth gaped open. I had no idea what to say. Something was happening. Something was waiting for us. Something dark was trying to tear us down... again.

"Go to Grandmama's," I found myself saying. "She calms you down. Plus, she is wise and privy to these sorts of things. Go talk to her. Lucine... It will be okay. We'll wait to attack if need be. Don't worry yourself silly. It's not good for you or the pack."

"Grandmama's is an excellent idea," she said with a nod. "I'll try to calm down, love. I just- I can feel the darkness. I can feel it tainting the earth and causing unrest in the etheric realm. I can feel it trying to overcome."

----

"Witches?" I asked with wide eyes as I sat up in bed at the information that Lucy had just relayed to me.

"Witches," Lucy agreed. "They're our best shot."

"Explain to me how this decision was made again," I said as I rubbed the sleep from my eyes, feeling wide awake all of the sudden even though it was the middle of the night.

"It started with tasseography," she explained.

"Tasseography?" I asked.

"Tea leaf divination," she answered with a nod.

"Like that Harry Potter BS that Professor wackadoo says about the grim?" I asked with squinted eyes.

"Sybill Trelawney was not a wackadoo," she defended the fictional character right away when I brought up her new favorite pop culture series. "She was... special. She had a real gift that was lost in translation because she acted as most people say that divination witches should act. It is a great lesson that we can all learn from... Be real. Don't act like someone says you should act because of some stupid stereotype. Otherwise, you're likely to not be taken seriously." She shook her head and sighed when she realized that she was off track. "That's not the point! The point is, I drank loose leaf tea with Grandmama and Evanna. I looked at my cup when the tea was gone, and I had a vision. Well, part of a vision at least."

"That's great!" I said with a nod. "Of what?"

"A witch," she answered. "A very dark and powerful witch."

"I'm not completely following..." I admitted. "How does that turn into us recruiting more witches? We're certainly not eliciting the help of a dark witch with dark magic."

"Evanna then read my tea leaves for me... She said that it pointed to a dark and powerful entity coming for me," she explained, making my heart speed up. "And then I had another vision, but this one came in the form of an automatic drawing," she explained as she pulled out a folded-up piece of paper.

I looked at the image on the paper and I felt even more confused. The drawing was of six women in cloaks gathered in a circle with an extra lady in the middle standing directly under the moon in some sort of ritual with shadows all around them. It was common for witches to do things like this since they follow and honor the moon too.

"This is common," I shrugged. "Witches do full moon rituals all the time."

"That's what I thought too!" She exclaimed. "But Evanna pointed out the discrepancies to me," she told me. "This is not a circle, for one. Evanna said that it's a purposeful hexagonal pyramid, it is designed to strengthen the center point while draining the object in question."

"What's the object in question for them? The moon? Yeah, right," I dismissed.

"Exactly so," she deadpanned.

I just stared at her for a moment before I could speak. "Wait a second... You're telling me that a coven of dark witches is doing spells to drain the moon? That sounds crazy! How could they do that? The Moon Goddess would never allow it. Plus, witches worship the moon!"

"There are different types of witches, love," she told me patiently. "And they're not draining the moon per se... They are simply harnessing the power of her and then using it to do a cloaking spell designed directly to keep me from seeing their path. Plus, the Moon Goddess is not allowing it... Her power is being used to cloak her from seeing what they are up to."

"And there are ways to mess with the ethereal realm- with or without the permission of an ethereal being. Also, there are other ethereal beings besides our mother moon. The dark witches could have a powerful being on their side for all we know. They certainly have powerful dark shadows on their side, you can see them all around that picture," she explained.

"So, we're dealing with dark entities, dark witches, and a blinded mother moon... This is just fucking great!" I said sarcastically.

"Which is why Evanna is going to invite her coven of five other light witches into our conflict," Lucy said breezily.

"For someone who supposedly has a dark entity after her, you're rather blasé about this whole thing," I commented.

"I have many good entities looking after me and protecting me as well," she said with a smile. "That is how I got my visions about all of this. It's how my spirit guides decided to contact me to warn me. Evanna said that's how a lot of witches get their information. We have love, goodness, and light on our side, Kale. We're going to win," she announced with a grin.

"So, we're still going to do this? We're still going to attack? Even with all this other shit going on?" I asked with widened eyes.

"When Evanna's coven gets here tomorrow, we're going to form a divination circle to see our next move. For now, the attack that was supposed to be for tomorrow night, is off."

"What do you mean we? You are not a witch, Luce," I said in a shaky voice. Witches were insanely private, and I couldn't imagine them just letting her join in on their spell work.

"AH! That's something I forgot to show you!" She said with a grin and stood up, lifting her hair away from her neck.

There, just above the beautiful tree limbs that disappeared into her shirt, right at the beginning of her neck, was the symbol of the witches. I took a sharp breath in.

"What does this mean?" I asked her slowly. "Are you a witch now?"

"No," she whispered. "Not a true one, at least."

"But..." I said for her as she paused and traced her newest symbol on the back of her neck.

"I have their Gods' and Goddess' support," she answered with light eyes.

"Which one? As you said... There are different types of witches," I questioned.

She smirked at me and then slipped her shirt off of her body. There, from one shoulder blade to the other, filling in gaps around the tree limbs on her back, were different Gods and Goddesses marks. There had to be almost a dozen of them running across the back of her shoulder.

"Holy shit!"

"This is why I am not afraid," she said in a strong voice. "They chose me. They all chose me to bring balance back to the realms. I am going to do that... For all of us. We are going to set things right again. The light will come back to us," she explained in a voice full of determination.

"The light will come. You will be the light. Do you know why I believe that you are the one that is meant for this?" I asked her slowly.

"Why?" She whispered.

"Because you have seen the dark. You lived in it. You breathed it in. You endured it for so long... But yet, you never let it overtake you."

"It almost did," she sighed. "I-if the Moon Goddess wouldn't have appeared to me... I'd be dead because I almost let it overtake me."

"But you didn't," I told her and lifted her chin to look at me. "You're still here, and you're our shimmering light. You are the light, Luce. You made it through the darkness, and you show us all what it is to love. You, my love, embody that giving and generous spirit that light thrives in. You are my beautiful light, and you will lead us into victory through your giving and unadulterated love."