by Lisa Daniels
Then, she saw the blizzard sending whorls of snow over her parent's gravestones, the drab granite crumbling apart as darkness ate at it, tore away the foundations of what should have been untouchable.
She hated the Shadows, and the monsters that waited for them in the dust ridden corners, hated her brother who left her alone in that little house, expecting her to just sit there and be patient. Stupid, stupid Erlandur. He should have known better than to leave her behind.
She remembered the first time she picked up a sword, and how her brother had laughed at her, because it was too heavy and dragged along the ground.
She trained hard after that, with fight after fight, slash after slash. Even with her brother mocking her along the way. Even when she still didn't have the skill to follow him.
Hadn't trained her enough to cope with betrayal and cold weather, however.
The eyes. The monster in the forest.
She woke up. Soft sheets lay under her, warm and soothing to her skin. Nothing like the blanket of cold she had been subjected to.
A fire blazed on one wall of the room, hemmed in by stone tiling, with flickering wood embers in the container, and the smoke escaping through a chimney. Alyssa blinked herself more awake, dimly registering the sight in front. She was in a room, similar to the structure of the ones in Blood Moon Inn. Snow splatted the window outside the room, and Alyssa watched the flakes with a shiver of memory, from how close that snow came to burying her corpse in the drifts.
Come to think of it, how was she alive? Who had saved her?
Who had saved her from the beast with the yellow eyes?
Parts of her were still thawing out, not quite at the optimal stage of warmth, though there was no longer that bizarre inflamed sensation upon her skin. She remembered, in a rush of horror, how she had actually started taking off her clothes. In the cold.
Speaking of clothes... she checked her body, and saw she wore what looked like snug fur robes – but a completely different set from what she started out with, suggesting her friendly rescuer had also stripped her snow wet clothes off and draped her in new ones.
A knock on the bedroom door startled her. She eyed it as if it were a hostile snake, waiting for it to pounce.
“Come in,” she croaked, through a weak, rasping throat. The door creaked open, and a man stepped through, holding a tray of food and drink. The first thing Alyssa noticed about the man was his eyes.
She squinted at him suspiciously as he laid down the tray on the side table by her bed. In the candlelight, the shadows cast over his strong, masculine face gave an eerie vibe. Thick lips hid behind a black beard and mustache, and when he bared his teeth in a smile, she noticed how pointed the canines were.
“You?” She said. “You rescued me?”
The man with the yellow eyes stood over her bed, appraising her looks. His eyes traced over her blonde hair, which stood out in the north, where black hairstyles were the norm. He ran a tongue over his lips – a strangely alluring gesture that made her follow the movement with fascinated nervousness.
“It's not often we get human women foolish enough to come dying on our doorstep,” the man said, his voice a rumbling engine of amusement.
Alyssa recoiled when he reached down to her, his huge hand brushing her forehead. “Don't touch me, monster.”
The man frowned disapproval. “A simple 'thank you for saving my life' might suffice from you, human. I also take offense at being called a monster.”
“What's the point in being grateful if I'm going to die anyway?”
At this, the man looked baffled, giving Alyssa pause to her instant reaction to anger. “Why do you think you're going to die?”
“You're not going to eat me?”
“... Why would I? I rescued you. My sole interest is in making sure you recover.”
Alyssa squinted at him. Then, she saw another man walk past with the same yellow eyes, and he gave a curious glance into the room before vanishing out of sight.
“Human, you should focus on recovering first. Eat. Drink. Rest.” The man waved towards the offering brought to her. His handsome, if gaunt face, twitched in an expression of friendly care. “Then I will show you around to the rest of our abode. You are in wolf territory now. You will be safe here, from the wilds, and the demons.”
“Wolf?” Alyssa stared at the man for a while. She struggled to grasp what was happening. The conflict between the obvious fact she was being looked after, marred with the vision of the shaggy beast she had seen stalking her in the snow. “You are a werewolf?”
“We are,” he corrected. “The Lunar Wastes belongs to our kind.”
“Monsters,” Alyssa said.
The werewolf bared his sharp canines in a disdainful smile. “Human, you should really stop with that tag. We are far from the monsters here.” Something twitched in his jaw. “I see you need more time to process. I will be back in a few hours.”
He got up and made to leave. Alyssa's heart throbbed painfully. She didn't mean – she didn't want – “Wait. What is your name?”
The man hesitated, yellow eyes betraying nothing of his thoughts or intent. “Kain. Just Kain.”
“I'm Alyssa Malgrave.”
Kain nodded. “Thank you.”
When he left, Alyssa felt strangely bereft. She had just snapped away the only person willing to talk to her. The person who had saved her. Monsters didn't save people. What an idiot. Probably still suffering from frostbite or something. Her mind had been addled from the cold, after all. How did cold do that, anyway? Why did it make you delirious, and burn? Alyssa remembered the incident in discomfort.
I was so woefully unprepared. What did I expect to achieve? She stared at her hands, before checking the room and catching no sign of her blade. I thought... I don't know. I thought I could turn up at the Lunar Wastes and he'd be there. I had no idea what was in front of me.
I'm a foolish little girl with a sword.
Nothing more.
A foolish little girl apparently surrounded by werewolves. Beyond the werewolves lay the wind-blasted Lunar Wastes. Beyond the Wastes towered the Fractured City.
The snow continued falling outside, never seeming to stop. Every flake reminded her of the death that awaited her outside.
Alyssa Malgrave had spent the last four years training, in preparation to find her brother.
Now she didn't know what to do.
She ate some of the food, then drifted back into slumber.
Chapter Three
“Shadows! Shadows!” Vrin barked the warning, stirring the members of the Lunar clan into action. Kain rushed down the snow-strewn street, echoing the alarm, ushering the human females inside their dwellings as the male werewolves galvanized into action.
It'd been a few days since Alyssa's recovery, and she gained more energy by the hour. The werewolves introduced her to steam baths, to clothes better suited for enduring the weather, though she had not yet explored the full layout of the town, where around seven thousand of them lived. Kain found it hard not to be attracted to the fair skinned, blonde woman, with her light and summery features, compared to the darker contrasts of the northern people.
Hard not to be attracted to any half decent women when the tribe desperately needed them, really – but there was a hint of steel in Alyssa Malgrave. Something that told him she would not bow down meekly and accept defeat. He liked that.
“Protect our women! Our children! Get the Snow Witch!”
The females retreated into their houses, and Kain made a beeline towards the cave on the top of the hill, where the Snow Witch resided. He morphed, the red glare of magic flickering around him as his true form emerged, and his paws padded onto the snow, gripping and jarring his bones with each leg stretch. Past the evergreen trees, the rocks and gravel and scraggly plants that feebly poked out of the snow, the cave loomed. His brain fit comfortably in the form, sometimes thinking wolfish thoughts, but mostly retaining the same intellect as before.
Kain lunged fo
rward in a burst of freedom and power, the wolf form granting strength and precision, and a supreme confidence in his purpose and destiny.
He briefly wondered if Alyssa Malgrave would watch his transformation one day, not with horror, but with admiration. He had stripped off her wet clothes when carrying her back, tried hard not to stare at that perfect human body, how it called to his senses and lust – because the human needed his help. He even lay there beside her in wolf form, helping to warm her body up, before fetching supplies from the foodhouse.
She is mine, and my responsibility.
He waited on all fours outside the cave, breath hissing in the air, tongue lolling, before an ancient voice creaked, “Come in. Come in.”
Padding inside the dank, filthy cave, with the bones and furskins strung up on every wall face, and the candles which added a flickering intensity. He sniffed at the old human female's hand, which was smeared in a kind of odd, pungent herb. Her ugly, near toothless mouth split open in a manic grin, and she muttered something to herself under her breath, which tumbled out like gibberish.
“Shadow attacks getting more nowadays. Can't make enough enchantments to keep holding things back. Don't have enough magic in my soul. You need to train another woman, you need more than just me and a few dead bodies...” She continued muttering, before retreating to her table, where an odd array of carved bones covered it. “I'll start now, I'll start...”
Vrin galloped in behind them, disregarding usual protocol. He morphed from his black wolf form into human, breathing hoarsely. “Garcia. There's a lot of them this time. We may need the queen's skull.”
Garcia slammed her hand upon the table, making Kain jump. “No! It is not the time! You will be fine. Your magic and what my tired body can muster will overcome.” She stared with red-rimmed eyes at Kain. “There is a new female, yes? Initiate her. Get her tested. We need to see if she has any magic.” Garcia absently waved her palm. “After the threat is abolished, of course. Of course.”
Garcia began chanting. Wisps of blue magic stirred around her fingers.
The female is meant to be mine, though, Kain thought, with a twinge of despair and trepidation. Garcia's words didn't hang well with him. He had rescued the female, who had lain half naked and completely out of her mind in madness, from the onslaught of the cold that sought her death. He had scooped her up in his palms after shifting back, he had tried not to stare at her, or notice how soft she was, as he carried her back into Lunehill. She was his. His human. If Garcia made him take her before she adapted and understood, the human would hate him.
He didn't want that to happen. He wanted to slowly introduce her to his world, to give her the time to fall in love.
Garcia chanted, eyes rolling to the back of her head as the magic enveloped her. Vrin snapped a warning – a foul, misshapen creature had slithered into the den, followed by two others, and with a ferocious bark, Kain launched himself upon them. The corrosive quality of their touch did not hurt him the same way it did a human.
The creatures screamed and gibbered as they clawed at him, their murky talons seeking to shred his flesh, to take down the warriors that resisted them. Vrin morphed and joined him, the huge black form smashing into the distorted creature beside him.
More and more of the creatures could be seen in the snows nowadays. As if they were getting bolder, or as if someone was feeding them, bolstering their wretched numbers as they sought to find a way across the Lunar Wastes. Thirty years ago, they could barely make it one mile into the Fractured Spine, before the winter consumed their twisted, decrepit bodies. Now they could be seen as far south as Lunehill.
Did it mean their ancient magic was failing? The safeguards placed in the Wastes – the whole blasted point of the Wastes put to nothing?
What in the moon was happening at the Fractured City?
One of the creatures gouged a wisping black line down Kain's side. They didn't make you bleed, these foul minions of darkness. They attacked the soul inside you, and the flesh attached to it – every blow made was one shred against the immortal soul. Kain snarled, his teeth ripping into the viscous flesh, feeling it crunch and break apart in his strong jaws. He vanquished his foe, but not without a shiver of revulsion. Always like humans, these forms. Something about the hands, the eyes that sometimes stared, and the jerky, spasming movements they made.
Fear and hatred welled in his heart. The moon mother bred them to fight, always to fight, but it got so tiring, sometimes. Always a little chunk of his soul gone with each encounter. His life always held the strong stench of terror that he would not live long enough to gain a mate, to watch his children grow up.
Vrin tore the last of the den invaders into black, shriveling lumps, and both werewolves watched, panting, as the pieces dissolved into blackened bone.
His people, and generations before them, had given up their lives and their lands to stop the Shadows. For every one that made it through the Lunar Wastes, a thousand more had been stopped.
A lonely vigil, to be sure. Kain stood guard at the entrance, muzzle bared at the swarm of Shadows in his home, more than he'd ever seen before. His kind fought them in spitting balls of fury, tearing at their rancid flesh, fighting to defend their homes from the darkness.
So many of them this time. More than I've ever seen before. Something must be wrong in the city. Terribly, hopelessly wrong.
Blue magic crackled out of Garcia at last, streaming through her mouth, ripping out of her aura. It forked out of the cave and down the slope, surging through the streets to any monster it found within a mile radius. Kain growled satisfaction as the corruption fried out, dropping in their dozens and crumbling into dust. The Snow Witch groaned as the magic left her, and hunched over the table, still for a moment. For a moment, Kain feared her dead, and all her formidable magic lost. Without a witch, they had one less defense against the Shadows. After a moment, she stirred.
“Only enough in these old bones for one more of those, I think. Then I am expired. The witch skull,” she panted, staring at them through mad eyes, and a sunken, haggard face, “must be used for a Supreme. Not for raids. Never a raid. It must destroy the leaders of these mindless... creatures.” Garcia sighed, running a liver-spotted hand through her wispy white hair. “I need someone to train. I need someones. All the other tribes have at least three witches.”
Vrin morphed into human form, his yellow eyes tight in concern. “Well, considering our last witch went with that human and never came back, we've been doing well enough by ourselves.”
“Don't care. Should have had a replacement by now.”
Vrin gave a helpless shrug. “I'm sorry, but none of the females have proven worthy enough.”
“There's a new one. I smell her on you, I sense her aura. She must be tested.”
Now it was Kain's turn to morph, and he did so with a reluctant growl. “How soon do you want her tested?”
Slight desperation infected his question. He desired the female, with her blonde hair, her dark green eyes, that subtle curve to her lips and face. She smelled like the summer she had left behind, of strength and determination. However, what the old woman suggested... that might ruin his chance for a strong and stalwart relationship forever.
“As soon as possible,” Garcia said. “You know as well as I do that the attacks are increasing. Yes, yes. We must test to see if she has magical blood.”
Kain wrung his hands, mind flashing to the female. She would hate him. Curse him. Spit out his name in disgust, unless somehow, he persuaded, he showed her that it was necessary. “I assume if I refuse, you will find someone else.”
“Obviously,” Garcia said, spittle flying out of her jaws. “And I doubt they will be as sweet nor kind as you. You must initiate the new female. And if not her, if she is not of the blood, then we must find another. I am on borrowed time.”
Kain groaned. Already, the dreams he held of his loneliness being fulfilled at last had crumbled, even though the blessed appearance of the southerner falling in
the Dread Woods should have been perfect. By law, by find, she belonged to him. “I had hoped... to wait. To introduce. To soften her to our ways. It has been so long since we last had one. Since...”
Vrin's mouth twisted, understanding his friend's dilemma. The last thing any decent werewolf wanted was a human who hated them enough to disrupt or kill within their tribal dynamics. It didn't make for comfortable relations. Not when they had so few women as it was.
Garcia raised one finger, her ugly face softening slightly. “ You have two days to fill her with your seed. We must see if she has magic in her to unlock. We cannot risk waiting longer. You must understand this.”
Against his will, Kain felt a stirring of arousal at the words. Two days. Any time proved better than no time. Two days to persuade this human that her normal life was over, and a new one begun.
He recalled the fire in Alyssa's eyes. That woman had one thought on her mind, something that drove her to the Lunar Wastes. He doubted that original purpose would redistribute itself. No. He needed to play this carefully, to make the human desire him, perhaps play upon whatever burned in her heart.
In two days.
I must do this. Because come two days, if she is not willing, she will be raped. And if she runs, she will be killed.
Vrin's eyes gleamed, as he looked between Kain and Garcia. “Is there anything I can do to help?” The counsellor’s concern for his friend touched Kain, though he didn't see how even the elite members of the council of werewolves could find another woman in two days. Not unless she turned up on their doorstep like Alyssa.
“We will see, friend.”
“Your people's future – the world's future – lies in the protection of the Lunar Wastes.” Garcia sucked at her finger thoughtfully. The human witch stared at the lessening snowflakes outside the cave. “We'll need to contact the other clans. Organize raids into human villages. We need the women.”
Kain sighed.
One way or another, they'd find a way out of this.