The Moon Witch

by Linda Winstead Jones

  Juliet lay on the bearskin rug, her eyes studying the crisp clear blue of the sky above while Ryn tasted her throat. She was always surprised by the intensity of the sensations he aroused with that simple touch. Heaven above, she felt the heat of his mouth all through her body. That warmth made her anxious and tranquil at the same time. She wanted it to go on forever, she needed it to stop.

  Ryn still didn’t wear any clothes, and she tried not to look. She really did try. But he had such an interesting and fine and large body, she couldn’t help but look. Since the moment she’d discovered the truth about the workings of a man’s body to his wife’s, she’d been frightened. Of the invasion, of the pain, of the possibilities.

  Touch me.

  I’m afraid.

  You must never be afraid of me, wife.

  The truth came to her in a flash, like lightning across the night sky. I’m not afraid of you. I’m afraid of myself.

  Ryn rolled atop her and continued to taste her throat. His long blond hair fell across her face, and he situated himself very nicely between her legs. He was heavy, but she liked that heaviness on her body. It was nice. It was right.

  It shouldn’t be possible, since he was so large and she was not large at all, but they fit together well. His size did not frighten her, and she did not feel overpowered or unprotected. Her strength matched his, and this lying together was not at all awkward, but deeply right. A shift of his body and hers, a realignment of her clothing, a push, and then they would truly fit. She arched toward him, aching and hungry.

  Ryn lifted his heavy body and rose up slightly, offering his throat to her.

  Taste me, wife.

  That throat was so fine, so warm and tempting. She knew how it would taste, as if she had been here before. She craved the saltiness of his sweat, the warm smoothness of his skin, the beat of his pulse on her tongue. Juliet tilted her face back and lifted her mouth. Her mouth watered, her body throbbed. But when she was so close she could feel the heat of Ryn’s skin on her lips, she hesitated.

  I’m afraid.

  Taste me.

  I’m afraid.

  And then he disappeared. Cold wind whipped across her face and her damp throat and whipped her skirts about. Clouds moved across the once clear sky.

  With Ryn gone, she was more afraid than ever. And the pain remained. It bubbled inside her, a living thing she could not control. The pain changed with a sudden fierceness as claws ripped into her flesh. She saw no wolf; she saw no Ryn. She saw nothing but the claws that had haunted her for years.

  They were coming for her.

  Juliet came awake with a start, gulping in a breath of cold air and jumping up off the rock. Her entire body trembled. Ryn had caused the dream somehow; of that she had no doubt. He had invaded her mind and forced the dream upon her.

  Stop it! she ordered. There was no response, no feeling of connection at all.

  The dream had been so intense, so real. Familiar, and yet different. She tried to chase the memory away, but instead she suddenly recalled that this was a part of the dream she’d been having on those restless nights before Bors had kidnapped her and Isadora and burned the cabin. This was the dream that had shaken her to the core.

  That fact did not mean that Ryn was right about their destined lifelong bond. It was always possible that the dream had changed to include Ryn only after she’d met him, and that she’d inserted him into the old dream somehow. The memory of a disturbing nightmare could not send her back up this cursed mountain in search of answers. Where claws were concerned, she needed no answers. She was perfectly content to live in the dark.

  Juliet chewed on a tasteless root and started moving. The small fire she’d built before going to sleep had died out hours ago, and it was too cold to sit for long. Besides, she had no time to waste. She’d been walking for a day and a half, she’d spent two nights sleeping on the hard, cold ground, and still the mountain stretched before her as if it would go on forever.

  She walked quickly, only vaguely wondering exactly what it was she was running from. Ryn, of course, but it wasn’t as if he’d ever hurt her. He just had a few mistaken ideas about her. About them. Maybe she was trying to run from the dream, which had come to her in some form during both nights she’d slept alone. She’d tried to convince herself that she was not running from Ryn but toward her sisters, but now that she could sense all was well with them, that argument didn’t hold together.

  Winded and agitated, she stopped on the side of a rock ledge to reach outward. This time she did not even have to touch the ground. The river was with her, in her. And in this place it was stronger than she had imagined was possible. Ryn was right; there was magic in this mountain, a power no one would ever be able to harness, but which many would be able to share. She drank from the mountain; she tapped into the magic that enhanced her own.

  When she concentrated, she saw well beyond the mountain. Her sisters did not need her. Not now. Their destinies stretched before them, set in some ways, still to be decided in others. But no matter what happened in the coming days and weeks and months, they did not need her. Not yet. She could not change what was to come for them, good or bad. Right or wrong. She would see Isadora and Sophie again when the time was right, but that reunion would not come soon, no matter how she wished otherwise.

  For a while Juliet stubbornly continued downward, and as she found her feet upon a more stable path, memories of last night’s dream returned to her. She knew deep down that she wasn’t running away from Ryn, but from herself. She tried to dismiss that realization as ridiculous, a fantasy brought about by hunger and fear and loneliness. She knew who she was, and there was nothing unknown within her to be afraid of.

  The path she’d been taking seemed to wind down safely, but all of a sudden she found herself standing on a ledge. The mountain dropped straight down for such a distance that there was no way for her to safely traverse it. If she tried to shimmy down, she’d surely fall to her death. There was not even a question. She was going to have to turn back, at least for a ways.

  “Why?” she asked, her voice echoing. “I can see some things that no woman should be able to know, I can touch Ryn’s mind, I can reach out and know that my sisters are safe. But I cannot know the right path down the mountain? How is that fair?” She lifted her head and looked up. If God had gone to all the trouble to give her this gift, why did He make it so unreliable?

  She saw little of her own future; she knew little of what was to come to her and her loved ones. But standing on the ledge, slowing her heartbeat to join in the web that connected her to the earth, she knew to the depths of her soul that she was not meant to leave this mountain. Not yet.

  “He scares me,” she whispered. “In a way no man or beast ever has, the man who calls me wife scares me.” When she allowed herself to listen to the part of her mind that had always spoken to her in times of darkness, she knew that Ryn had been right all along. She did belong here. With him. For now.

  So she turned back, climbing with difficulty and—for the first time in her life—cursing. Out loud, at the top of her lungs, in the two languages in which she was fluent, she cursed. She hadn’t even realized she knew such words, but they poured out of her. And as she climbed and cursed, her skin grew warm, her heart pounded too fast, her breath came shallow and quick.

  She reached a flat portion of rock and stopped to rest. Her chest heaved, and for the first time she realized that her hair had come completely loose from the braid. Red curls fell past her face, untamed and as tangled as Ryn’s blond tresses. Her cloak was torn, her boots were all but ruined, and her frock had been ripped in so many places she could not count the tears in the once-fine fabric.

  Since the moment she’d been captured, she’d thought of and planned for escape. If her abilities were at all reliable, she could now be sure that there was no escape. She would return to Ryn, as he had said she would, or she would die trying to get away from him.

  She would go to Ryn, but there would be no marri
age of any kind. Perhaps they were meant to be together for a while, but that didn’t mean she had no say in the manner in which they behaved. They could be friends, perhaps. Friends only. Eventually he would take her home, whether he liked the idea or not. She would know when the time was right. When that time came, he would carry her down the cursed mountain and forget his foolish ideas about destiny and primitive mating and a wife’s soft comfort. She was her own woman, not to be kidnapped and forced into marriage, but that did not mean she wanted to risk her life in order to get home.

  Her heart beat too fast, and a pool of something hot welled up inside her. That heat was anger, an emotion all but unknown to her. In truth it was more than anger, but she did not stop to reflect on what it might be. She had one thought on her mind as she climbed. Ryn would take her home, one day.

  As she climbed upward, an unwanted vision filled her mind. Ryn’s throat. The manly shape of it, the intense heat, the salty scent of her dream. Ryn said she would know the truth when she tasted his throat. She had never had the urge to so much as touch a man, much less taste him, but the higher she climbed, the more desperately she wanted to lay her lips on his flesh.

  Claws or no claws.

  The mountain range Juliet had been carried into was huge, long and high and austere. Unless Isadora found a way to perfect the location spell she’d been working on for the past two days, she’d never find her sister. They could both get lost in those mountains forever and never even come close to one another. Still, what choice did she have but to try?

  Maybe she should not have run south when the chance for escape had come, but it had been the only way she’d known to draw some of the soldiers away from her sister. It had worked...but now they were so very far apart.

  Isadora had not completely forgiven her sister for rendering her unconscious just before the soldiers had set fire to their home, but at least she was now able to accept the why of it. Juliet had saved her life. If she’d had to stand there and watch her home burn, she would have killed soldiers until they killed her.

  The forest they’d passed before Juliet had been taken was thick, but there was a path of sorts that led toward the mountain. Isadora pulled her stolen brown cloak close and headed north, staying away from the road. Juliet knew which roots and leaves were safe to eat, but Isadora was not as knowledgeable about plants. She recognized a few edible plants along the way, and gathered what she could.

  The bread was gone, and she’d have to steal more food soon in order to survive the trip. Her stomach roiled at the thought. The death of the soldier in the woods had been an accident, but she had been the one to drive the knife into his chest. She didn’t want to kill anyone else, not ever again. The souls of the two men she’d killed seemed to follow her wherever she went, and the seat of her magic was still dimmed by the destruction that had come at her hand. They were horrible men, soldiers who would have gladly murdered her given the chance, but that did not mean their deaths didn’t weigh on her.

  Did foolish women somewhere mourn the soldiers who had threatened her life? Did they cry for their lost loved ones the way she had cried for Will?

  If one of the soldiers had killed her, she would have gone to the land of the dead to be with Will, which was where she wanted to be. But as long as her sisters needed her, she couldn’t acquiesce. She couldn’t simply offer herself up for an easy death. Sophie and Juliet needed her, and besides...Will would not allow it. She had thought of death often in the days after his passing, and he had always known. It was then that his spirit had come to her and comforted her, telling her that she must be strong.

  She didn’t want to be strong anymore. She was so damned tired of being strong.

  A rustle of leaves behind Isadora alerted her to the fact that she was no longer alone, and for a brief, shining moment she believed that Will had come to her again. He had come to comfort her, maybe even to take her with him. She stopped and turned to face the sound, and saw three things.

  A grinning Bors; a frightened young soldier in green; and a hefty stick swinging toward her head.

  Chapter Eight

  Isadora wakened with a splitting headache. All was dark and she could barely move. Her feet were bound together, her wrists were tied behind her back, and a hood had been tied over her head. The way she bounced lightly, together with the sound of creaking wheels and horse’s hooves, told her she was being transported in the back of a wagon. The wagon was surrounded on all sides by horses—horses and soldiers, no doubt, guarding her closely even though she was bound so securely she could barely move.

  Bors was taking no chances this time.

  “She’s moving,” an uncertain male voice whispered. “I think she’s awake.”

  “Is she, now?” Bors asked, a jovial lilt in his voice. “I had begun to think perhaps the blow had killed her.” Isadora muttered a word not fit for her sisters’ ears, but Bors just laughed.

  “Enjoy the ride, witch. As soon as the emperor gets whatever it is he wants from you, I’ll see you hang for killing two of his soldiers.”

  Her heart hitched and her stomach tightened. When she’d escaped from Bors’ party, after Juliet’s kidnapping, she hadn’t killed the soldier who’d tried to stop her. She’d incapacitated him; she’d made him drop away from her. But when she’d run, he’d been alive and healthy. Which meant Bors knew about the other soldier...

  “I detected your handiwork when I ran across the murdered man in the forest. That was you, wasn’t it?”

  Isadora didn’t respond. What good would it do to tell Bors that the soldier’s death had been an accident? He would never believe her.

  “A poor man with his trousers undone and his williker hanging out was stabbed in the heart and nothing but a loaf of bread and his weapons were stolen. Sounded like the work of a desperate woman to me, so you came to mind long before we found those same weapons on your person. What did you do to the poor man? Promise him a taste of something sweet and then stab him while his mind was elsewhere?”

  “No,” Isadora croaked, so low no one would hear.

  “From the camp you were easy to track,” Bors continued. “You left a trail a mile wide, witch. I thought about following from a distance for a while, in case you might lead us to your sister, but since she is in all likelihood dead, I decided to save myself the trouble.”

  It had all been for nothing. Running, killing, stealing...and here she was, once again being taken to the emperor. At least Bors didn’t have Juliet. It was worth anything, everything, if his pursuit of her gave Juliet more time to get away.

  “That last murder of yours was a costly crime,” Bors said indifferently. “Before I arrived to set them straight, the soldiers in that camp assumed someone from the village nearby had murdered their comrade. Have you ever seen a soldier set on vengeance, Miss Fyne? It isn’t a pretty sight, if you’re on the wrong side of that madness.”

  Isadora was glad the hood covered her face. She didn’t want to look at Bors, and she certainly didn’t want him to see the tears that stung her eyes. What had the soldiers done? She didn’t want to know. She did not want to know...

  “First they hung a couple of local boys who had never taken kindly to the soldiers camping so close by, thinking that they might’ve done the deed. But one of the brighter men suggested that, considering the poor dead fellow’s exposed and vulnerable state, it was likely a woman had killed him. So they visited the homes of a few likely suspects, entertained themselves with the women who protested their innocence until the end, and killed anyone who tried to get in their way or fought back too hard.”

  Isadora choked back a sob.

  “All in all, I’d say your loaf of bread cost three innocent lives, and the weapons cost five. And then there’s the one girl who might not live much longer. They left her in mighty terrible shape. She was still screaming—”

  “Stop it,” Isadora ordered.

  “What’s this? Do I hear tears in the witch’s voice? Surely not. I thought you’d be right proud
of yourself, killing the poor soldier and slipping away into the woods as you did to let someone else pay for your crime. Then again,” Bors said more softly. “Maybe not. I did run across that lovely spot by the stream, where you retched up your bread. Wasn’t it tasty enough for you, sweetness?”

  Her stomach roiled and threatened to revolt, as it had on that afternoon. It had never occurred to her that the soldiers might make others pay for their comrade’s death. She should’ve known...she should’ve found a way...

  She heard Bors yawn. “You behave yourself, witch,” he said when his expression of complete and utter boredom was done. “And maybe no one else will have to die. Except you, of course.”

  Ryn stood near the fire and watched the path. She was coming. Soon.

  Juliet had been gone four days, but he had never doubted that she would return. He could’ve gone after her and carried her back, using one of the tanni leaves he carried in his pouch to render her unconscious if she protested overmuch. But he didn’t want to do that, not if there was another way. He didn’t want her to fight him at every turn. It was time for his wife to accept what was meant to be.

  As he had known she would, Juliet was returning to him on her own. Her scent teased him, and had for the past two days. He did not possess his wife’s gift for reaching through the web of life and touching many others, but he did have the ability to reach through that web for her. It was not easy to touch Juliet in that way, but as he concentrated on his wife, she was there inside his head, mingled with his very spirit.

  All Anwyn shared a special bond with their mates, but thanks to Juliet’s abilities, their link was special. It was deeper than most. It was extraordinary. When she became his wife in every way, when they were linked in body as well as in spirit, they would know the full power of the bond.

  As Juliet returned to him, she experienced a flood of anger, and that fury was a new experience for her. She was also afraid, but she hid the fear behind the anger. She did not understand what roused her fears. He knew. She wanted him the way a wife wants her husband, but had not yet come to accept that wanting. She would. Soon. She dreamed of him, and perhaps those dreams were like his. He’d been dreaming of his wife for the past five winters. In the beginning they had come no more than twice in each cycle of the moon, and the face of the woman beneath him had been indistinct. But in the past few months the dream came more often, and gradually the face of the woman who shared those dreams had come into focus. Were they torture for Juliet as they were for him? Did she wake from those dreams with her body shaking and her mind reeling?