Callain chuckled at Caleb’s tone. “I see you have the same reluctance in allowing the Guardian to perform his duties as I did. It’s hard conceding the protection of our mate to another. And yes, your perception is exemplary. She was saving her brother as much as she was the child.”
“Then she knew what was about to happen,” Caleb whispered, his mind whirling at the implication. “She knew everything, didn’t she, Callain? Annie, she gets feelings sometimes, a sort of knowing without realising why she knows. We jokingly call her a Seer, but Anakatrine was the true Seer.”
“Yes, she was.” Callain’s mental voice held a wealth of pride and sadness. “Ana not only lived in the present, but also the future. That Annie only has brief feelings about things tells me that my Queen is most likely dampening that part of her abilities to protect her. While our souls are here with you and Annie, you ARE separate people, Caleb, with your own personalities. Your Annie is a beautiful soul with much kindness and compassion. My Ana could deal with seeing the future but that doesn’t necessarily mean your Annie could.”
He was half listening, half trying to put the pieces together. If Anakatrine had known what the future held… just how far into the future could she see?
“Her vision was limitless.” Callain chuckled again at Caleb’s surprise at his response. “You don’t have to think something directly at me when you allow me into your head. Our thoughts become joined.”
“Then she knew when she set up the first Council they would turn against her. She knew vampires and Weres could mate and have children. She knew our people were corrupting themselves and setting themselves up for eventual extinction unless they could be saved.”
“Yes, Caleb! And she knew that we had to fall so far down, that we had to be at such a point where civil war threatened to destroy us completely, before we would ever be ready to rise up again and save ourselves.”
Caleb gasped out aloud, realisation dawning. “The threat from Europe.”
Callain echoed his words. “Yes, the threat from Europe. Now is the time Anakatrine has worked towards: you and Annie, the wolves, the Varcolac… everything has been set in place to save our people, Caleb, but that can only be achieved if we are united.”
The magnitude of Callain’s revelation was staggering. Caleb rushed from the bedroom, flying downstairs at supernatural speed as he tried to run from what he was learning. More images were replaying in his mind: Anakatrine kissing Gard farewell, and then performing the same ritual with Callain before the attack. Had he heard something else as he’d relived those moments? His mind tried to listen again, tried to see what he’d been shown but had barely noticed.
Dear God, she’d planned it all! Knowing her time was short and she couldn’t impact anything in the past, she’d found a way to be in the future! His mind revisiting the dream again, he could see Anakatrine’s lips moving imperceptively as she kissed her brother and then her mate…
“Now you see, Caleb. Now you see her greatness as well as her dedication to saving our people. She knew she had only moments left, that if she died, all hope for our people would die with her. She looked to the future and she found the tools needed to save everything she loved. She found you, a throwback to a time when we once were great, when we knew love and compassion. You love our people, Caleb, as much as she loved them. Ana saw your greatness and gave you what you needed to remember who you were, so you could rise to your full potential and be what you needed to be.”
“And just what was that?” There was a hint of bitterness in Caleb’s tone that he couldn’t mask. There was just too much new information being thrown at him and some of it he didn’t like.
“You were Sired by Gard, the only one she could trust to mentor you through the change, to teach you the right path. Have you never wondered at why he chose you? I can assure you he has often wondered many times himself, as you are the only human he has ever Sired to this life. Gard did so because he was compelled to; just as you were compelled to seek him out when the time was right so he could unlock your memories of me.”
Caleb felt fury begin to build inside as a small tendril of dread gripped him. Was Gard the only variable the vampire Queen had manipulated in his life? He tried to fight his growing rage as another thought came to him and it escalated even higher. “Annie? Was anything left to chance, Callain? Do I love Annie because that’s what Anakatrine wants me to feel? Are we all just puppets dancing to her tune?”
A blast of fury rocked through him from Callain and then a long, weary sigh sounded in his mind. “And you were doing so well for a moment. Of course, your feelings for Annie are real. No one can interfere with the mating instinct, not even Anakatrine. You were always destined to meet Annie; Ana saw that when she looked to the future. That’s how she knew this was the time and place we needed to be. All she did was ensure that you would both have what you needed to see through this moment in time. Stop searching for ways to blame Ana for your poor decisions of late and start looking at the bigger picture. This is the pinnacle moment, Caleb. This is when we either succeed or fail.”
“You said Anakatrine’s vision was limitless,” Caleb snarled, striding into the living room and throwing himself down onto a leather sofa. It was the same room he had taken his Annie to the first night they’d met and his eyes immediately went to the rug before the fire, his heart clenching tightly that she wasn’t with him right now.
“We’re talking thousands of years here, Caleb. To us back then, seeing to this point in time was limitless. Ana couldn’t see anything past her moment of rebirth. She is nothing but spirit now and it’s possible that is what limited her reach. I wouldn’t know… I haven’t been able to ask her these past twenty-five years because you’ve kept her from me all this time.”