Huntress Moon (Bones and Bounties Book 2)

by Bilinda Sheehan

  Her words stole the air from my lungs. I’d remembered Lunn being one of my jailers, but the other’s face had always eluded me. I remembered it in my nightmares, but it faded from my mind each time I woke. And the more I tried to focus on my tormentor’s features, the hazier they became. Faerie had stolen so much from me, leaving me to wander in the darkness, always wary and untrusting of every other fae who crossed my path. Always fearing I would never see the one who had marked me coming for my head.

  My momentary shock was all the invitation Auriella needed, and she lunged toward me, taking us both to the ground. She pinned me beneath her, her strong, clawed hands wrapping around my neck as her face began to change, losing its human shape and taking on that of the beast that dwelled within her.

  Lucy started to scream somewhere to my left, snapping me out of the shock that threatened to overwhelm my senses. I thrust the blade into Auriella’s side, twisting and forcing it in all the way to the hilt, but that didn’t stop what was happening above me.

  Auriella’s face had become elongated, her nose stretched grotesquely outwards to form a muzzle, and her human teeth rained down around me as they were replaced by a mouth full of razor-sharp canines made for the ripping and tearing of flesh.

  Her claws dug into me as her body grew heavier, and I ripped the blade free only to plunge it back into her side again. But where just moments before there had been skin, the blade now met with only thick, russet fur.

  “No one will mourn for you, harbinger,” she said, the words garbled as they spilled from her animalistic face.

  She clamped her jaws over my shoulder as I thrust my last iron blade under her ribcage. The force I used was enough to send both the blade and my fist up through her flesh, but the knife grated against bone and came to a jarring halt. I screamed, excruciating pain racing through my shoulder and neck as she attempted to shake me across the ground like a rag doll.

  It took a few moments for the iron in the long, curved blade to go to work on her, but once it did she released her hold on me, rearing up on her hind legs as she swiped and swatted at the place where I had thrust in the blade.

  She howled, an ear-piercing cry that brought tears to my eyes, but it didn’t matter. She couldn’t reach the knife; every inch of it had been swallowed by her body, and all that remained was the small entrance wound.

  Byron slammed into her, his jaws clamping around her throat as he rode her to the ground, snarling and growling in an attempt to rip her apart.

  Sucking in a deep breath, I rolled onto my side, colour running in my vision like bright streamers and threatening to swallow me completely. I used my one good arm to drag myself through the short grass toward Lucy’s cage.

  Byron roared in agony, and I squeezed my eyes shut to stop the tears from blurring my vision further. Upon reaching Lucy’s cage, I slid the silver bolt across the door and dragged it open.

  “Come on, we need to get you to safety,” I said, reaching out my good hand to her. But she shook her head and lifted her frightened dark eyes to stare at something just behind me.

  A clawed hand wrapped around my ankle, the nails digging into my flesh, and crushed the bones in its punishing grip before Auriella dragged me away from the cage. She swung me up from the ground, only releasing her hold on me once I was airborne. I saw the standing stone rushing up to meet me and instinctively tried to raise my arms to protect myself, but only one responded. I hit the rock, and the world went dark.

  “I thought banshees were tougher than this?” Auriella taunted, her face a mask of pleasure as she raked her clawed hand down my back, my flesh parting beneath her touch like butter through a hot knife.

  I hung from the chains, my body limp, my mouth no longer able to scream from the pain she was inflicting upon me. What would be the point? Screaming only brought her pleasure anyway.

  “Darcey, you have to wake up. You have to fight,” Byron said, his voice gruff and far away.

  I jerked awake and raised my head up from the grass, pain reigniting in every inch of my flesh and lancing through me with such ferocity that I wanted to scream. Screaming only brought her pleasure anyway. The words came back to me in a wash of memories. The chains, the torture…it hadn’t been a dream. It was a memory of my time spent in Faerie as Auriella’s prisoner before the Faerie Court had passed judgment and turned me into their bounty hunter.

  I bit back the scream, forcing it into the ball of rage that was building within me.

  Turning my head, I caught sight of Byron. A lone tear tracked down his human cheek as he lay on his side. The angle of his body looked all wrong, but his eyes were still filled with determination.

  “You have to stop her,” he said, his voice weak as blood flecked out on his lips.

  Death hung in the air all around us, so close I could taste its bitterness on my tongue.

  “Shift back,” I said, pushing up onto my knees.

  “Can’t…” That one word took more effort than his previous ones. “Save her… for me.”

  I glanced toward the cage, but it was empty. Auriella was holding Lucy by the hair in the centre of the circle directly in front of Lunn and the moon, which had now reached its highest point. I didn’t recognise the words she was chanting, but they felt old and full of power. The power of transformation.

  “You’ll be fine,” I said to Byron. “I’ll get Lucy and Lunn, and we’ll get you fixed up… You just need to hold on.” I stumbled over the last three words as I fought back tears.

  He was dying. I could feel it as surely as I could feel the air on my face and the grass beneath my fingers. He was dying, and it was my job to comfort him, to mourn for him as he passed. But…

  Glancing back toward Auriella and Lucy, I knew I wouldn’t have time to do it all. This was the choice the Between had warned me of. I’d thought it was the decision to cure the pack instead of Lucy, but I’d been wrong. The choice was this, here and now. Did I stay here with Byron, do my duty, and bring him his peace? Or did I walk away and risk my very essence to save his daughter and Lunn?

  “You just hold on,” I said. “Everything will be fine.”

  “I thought… fae couldn’t… lie,” he said, smiling at me as I climbed to my feet, the pain in my torn shoulder only a distant ache to the sundering of my heart.

  With my good hand, I grabbed the sword strapped to my back and pulled it free with a whisper of metal on leather as I crossed the grass toward Auriella and Lucy.

  Lunn’s eyes, filled with sorrow, met mine. Without thinking, I thrust the blade through Auriella’s back, just below where I imagined her heart would be. She screamed and released Lucy, and I struggled to draw the blade up through her body.

  Jerking away from me, the sword still jutting out of her back, she swung around to face me.

  “You will die for this,” she cried, lunging toward me and reaching for my throat.

  “Perhaps,” I said, “but not for the reasons you think.” We stood inside a stone circle, a place of between, and the ‘tween places belonged to the harbingers. Auriella closed her clawed hand on my throat, and I squeezed my eyes shut and thought of Faerie.

  The between places were always just a heartbeat from Faerie for a banshee, and whether my power was withered or not, I could still use them to travel there. Of course, the energy it took to do so would act like a beacon to the Court, and they would know what I had done as soon as I crossed the veil. If Auriella didn’t kill me, then the Court definitely would for defying its rule and entering Faerie without invitation.

  Auriella stumbled, dragging me with her as her brain caught up with her body. “What have you done?” she said, staring around at the lush forestry surrounding us.

  The stone circle was gone, and Lunn, Lucy, and Byron were nowhere to be seen. They were still in the human realm.

  I drew in the scent of Faerie and used Auriella’s momentary distraction to draw the Bone Blade and plunge it into her chest.

  Her skin blanched as she released her hold on me and took
a few steps back. She reached down and gripped the Bone Blade with her clawed hands, attempting to pull it free.

  “I charge you with the deaths of humans and werewolves, Auriella, Mother of the Hunt and Beast Mother,” I said. “I charge you with the attempted murder of one of our own. You have fae blood on your hands, and I condemn you to Faerie’s own justice.” I dropped to my knees as the combination of blood loss and pain finally overcame me.

  “You can’t do this,” she said, panic filling her voice. “You don’t have the power or the authority.”

  “I think you’ll find that, as the Court’s enforcer, I do. But more than that, as Faerie’s own harbinger, I have the right.”

  “I only wanted him to hurt the way he hurt me,” she cried out. “Do you know what it’s like to have the only man you’ve ever loved break your heart? To watch him fall for another, have children with her, and then love them more than the children you shared with him?”

  I shook my head. “No. But Lunn’s betrayal of you doesn’t make your actions right.”

  Auriella screamed as the ground beneath her feet began to shake. Vines snaked upward, wrapping around her wrists and legs, tugging them in four different directions. She shifted back to her human shape and struggled against the vines, and then rapidly returned to her beastly shape. The changes came faster and faster until my eyes could no longer keep up.

  The air was split with what sounded like a crack of thunder, and Auriella was hoisted into the air as her magic was ripped from her body. It came away like a violet web, the shape of her beast trapped inside it as she struggled to keep her power. But Faerie would not be denied its vengeance.

  She screamed, and the earth erupted around her, the vines drawing her down until the ground swallowed her completely. I wasn’t sure what I had been expecting, but it hadn’t been for Faerie to swallow her whole and take the Bone Blade with her. Crawling forward, I searched through the dirt but saw nothing, not even a trace of her presence. The Bone Blade was nowhere to be found.

  “Darcey!” Idalina called out, and I twisted around to see her making her way through the trees. “Where the hell were you and…” Her eyes raked over me. “Oh sweet goddess, what happened?”

  Closing my eyes, I swallowed back the nausea that threatened to overwhelm me. When I opened them again, she was crouched down next to me.

  “Auriella’s dead… at least I think she is. I can’t be certain, because Faerie seems to have swallowed her.”

  Idalina stared at me with wide eyes. “Faerie swallowed her?” She searched my face, probably looking for signs that I had lost my marbles.

  “I condemned her to Faerie’s judgment, and then all this weird shit happened,” I said. “It ripped the magic out of her and then…” I stared down at the spot on the ground.

  “Remind me never to piss Faerie off,” she said, glancing nervously down at the dirt as though worried it would suck her down too.

  “Can you get us out of here?”

  Idalina nodded. “Can you walk?”

  “With some help, yeah.”

  She took my good arm and carefully draped it over her shoulder before helping me to my feet.

  “Can I borrow your jacket?” I was beginning to shiver, probably from the shock of everything that had happened. And, fae or not, I was still more than capable of experiencing trauma.

  Idalina slipped out of her black denim jacket and draped it over the shoulder of my injured arm. Simply feeling the fabric resting against my skin was enough to cause gruelling pain.

  “You sure you’re good?” she asked.

  I nodded despite the pain and glanced back down at the ground. Auriella had deserved everything she’d gotten, and maybe even more, but that was Faerie’s decision.

  “Yeah, I’m good. We need to get back to Lunn.”

  Without another word, Idalina started forward. I let her half-drag, half-walk me out of Faerie, leaving Auriella to whatever fate had in store for her.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Crossing through the veil was far more painful Idalina’s way, but it also required no outlay of power on my behalf, so pain it was.

  We emerged back into the human realm on the opposite side of the stone circle, and it took me a few moments to reacquaint myself with everything. Lunn was no longer pinned to the towering stone at the centre of the circle, and the moon had moved from its peak position.

  The time difference between the human realm and Faerie was always a little disorientating. I spotted Lunn on his knees next to Lucy, and a bunch of other weres, some still in human form, huddled around something. My heart sank. I knew what they were huddled around—or rather, who.

  I’d deserted Byron during his hour of need, but I’d had good reason for doing it. Of course, that didn’t lessen my guilt.

  Pulling out of Idalina’s grip, I hobbled toward the group as fast as my aching bones would allow. The wolves blocking my view parted, giving me full view of Byron lying on the ground, his unseeing eyes staring up at the moonlit night sky.

  My knees buckled beneath me and the earth rushed upwards as I crumpled to the ground. I’d been expecting it. I’d known he was dying. Yet I still felt like someone had sucker-punched me in the gut.

  Reaching out toward him, I brushed the lock of silvery hair back from his face.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said, my voice cracking as my throat became blocked with unshed tears. “I’m so goddamned sorry…” The words were woefully inadequate given just how broken I felt, but there was nothing else I could say. Nothing I could do.

  “Holy shit,” someone muttered from behind me, but I didn’t bother to glance back. What did it matter? Tears started to course down my face as a sob built in the back of my throat.

  Someone gently touched my shoulder, and I turned and looked into the face of the little girl I’d seen crouched in my bedroom a couple of nights ago. It was Clary, and yet it wasn’t. I could see straight through her to the others gathered around Byron’s body. The wolves looked on with huge, staring eyes, and one of them actually growled, the fur on his ruff standing to attention.

  They thought she was a ghost.

  But I knew better. It was no ghost. The little girl looked like Clary, but that was simply the form it was taking for my benefit, to comfort me. It wasn’t a spirit, either. What stared down at me in the form of a child was the essence of Faerie itself.

  She brushed her fingertips against my cheek to wipe my tears, and when she lifted them away a large black orb sat in her hand. Without a word, she placed the swirling black ball into my palm and squeezed my fingers so tightly around it that I bit down on my tongue to stifle the pain. The little girl released me, and I stared down at the swirling mass only to find it gripped in skeleton fingers. My own fingers were still there, but I couldn’t shake the feeling she’d crafted the orb from my own bones… Was this how the Bone Blades had been created? Had Faerie helped the first banshee fashion them from her own bones?

  “Just this once,” Faerie said, reaching down to caress Byron’s face with its ethereal fingers.

  He started, his body bowing upwards as he sucked in a deep breath and his eyes widened in surprise. The moment he took a breath, Faerie disappeared, leaving behind only the faintest scent of blossoms.

  Byron gasped, struggling to draw breath into his injured body. Faerie had brought him back from Death’s grasp, but she hadn’t healed him. If we didn’t get him help soon, then everything Faerie had done would be for nothing.

  “Byron, you need to shift,” I urged, leaning over him as he rolled his eyes toward mine. Too much white was showing, and from the tinge of blue around his lips I knew the air he was drawing in wasn’t reaching his lungs.

  “Can’t,” he gasped, his body bowing upwards once more as if he was in terrible pain.

  “I can help,” Lunn said, moving closer to Byron. He gave me a small, sideways look before gripping Byron’s chin with his fingers and forcing the other man to meet his gaze.

  Byron struggled, and
I balled my hands into fists, digging my nails into the flesh of my palms as I watched Lunn work. The moment Byron went still, I felt all the air leave my body, my shoulders sagging as I watched the twitching of his limbs fade.

  We’d failed.

  Byron’s body shuddered as he noiselessly slipped his skin, his fur now flowing freely. His thick, silvery fur was unmoving for a few moments, but then the wolf drew several large, shuddering breaths, his chest rising and falling.

  And just like Ash, Byron shifted back to human. When he met my gaze this time, I could see Byron in there instead of the sickness.

  “He’s healed?” I said.

  “The infection ran its course,” Lunn said wearily. “He died, and once his body failed, the sickness was done.”

  It didn’t sound like a particularly plausible answer, but then I’d come to the conclusion that, where magic was concerned, plausibility didn’t really play any part in it whatsoever.

  Leaning over Byron, I smiled down at him and said, “See? I told you the fae don’t lie.”

  He grinned and struggled to sit up before wincing and lying back down on the grass. “I think I’ll just stay like this until the world stops spinning,” he said hoarsely.

  “You do that.” I moved out of the way as Lucy curled up beside her father and wrapped her arms around him. I could hear her mumbling to him, and Byron shifted his arm and drew her closer to his chest.

  Pushing up onto my feet, I watched the two of them interact before I turned away. The colour was slowly beginning to leach out of the world around me, and I only had a moment to wonder just how badly I was hurt before Lunn caught my arm. He looked much better than he had when he was lashed to the rock; the colour had returned to his cheeks, and he no longer appeared withered and weak. In fact, I thought as I looked him up and down, taking in his ripped jeans, he almost looked like the Lunn I knew.

  “Where is Auriella?” he asked, his grip the only thing keeping me upright.