Dead Moons Rising: First in the Honest Scrolls series

by Jack Whitney

  Speak, Queen Ravenspeak.

  Fear evacuated her body. She suddenly felt empowered in its grasp.

  Show me the secrets my insides hide.

  Her chest launched forward. Breath departed her lungs.

  She was sitting in the Throne Room again.

  Nyssa and Dorian were on their knees at her feet, hands behind their backs, gags over their mouths.

  Aydra tried to speak. She launched herself out of her chair. But the chains wrapped around her body cut against her torso. She looked down and realized her feet were locked to the floor. She tried to move, to speak, but the strings were sewn through her lips again.

  And then Rhaif appeared behind her youngers, twirling his sword in his hand.

  “You are the reason for this,” he hissed, pointing his sword at her. “Because of your betrayal, they will die before you. You did this to them.”

  Aydra struggled against the chains, pleading and shaking her head. Her youngers. On their knees. Her chained to silence on her own throne.

  Rhaif raised his sword over Nyssa’s head.

  ENOUGH, she shouted into the darkness.

  The scene dissipated around her. Her chest was heaving as she felt the wet swamp hair of the Berdijay beneath her once more.

  Rupture and rapture—

  Stop speaking to me in code, she ordered it. Is that all you have? My brother and sister dying before me? They told me you were swamp and ash. Necrosis and angst.

  She stood to her feet and met its raging red eyes, feeling her heartbeat throb in the ringing silence of the forest around them.

  Strike fear into my core, Berdijay.

  His palm disappeared beneath her. She sank into the depths of its shadows, cold mist swarming around her body.

  She was standing in the Council Chamber, wearing the blue frilly dress her brother liked to force upon her. A plastered smile she could not erase was stamped upon her lips. The council members laughed around her.

  She was standing at her locked window. The raven tapped on it desperately. She felt no connection to it, only an emptiness where her creature had once filled her. Her door opened, and Willow came into the room, carrying a great white dress.

  She was standing in the Throne Room. Ash stood by her side. The Temple maiden stood before them. A white veil shrouded over her head. She was turned towards Ash, the same plastered smile forced upon her lips.

  “You’ll no longer need to worry for your kingdom,” he told her. “You can live out your days in peace with me. No more of the travels to take care of criminals or ships coming on our shores. No more worrying about the people beneath you.” Ash took her hands. She looked down and realized her fingers were burned, wrinkled, and damaged.

  Her brother was staring at her from behind Ash, his eyes flickering fire.

  Aydra ripped her hands from Ash’s grasp. She reached for the veil on her head and threw it off her. The noise of her crown hitting the floor echoed in her ears. Her weight shifted, and she felt her heartbeat pulse adrenaline through her bones.

  “No.”

  Rhaif pushed Ash aside, his fingertips darkening. He grasped her throat in her hand and rose her off the ground.

  “Do as you’re told, sister,” he hissed. “Take your rightful role in this kingdom.”

  She swallowed hard against the heat of his fingertips. “I’d rather die.”

  She was thrown backwards out of his grasp. Fog wrapped around her body beneath her. She fell into darkness and the void of its core.

  Her eyes closed, and she accepted the consumption of death surrounding her.

  —Her back hit dirt. She winced at the pain of a rock hitting her rib.

  Stand.

  Stand.

  Stand.

  Slowly, she felt her normal core returning. Aydra pushed herself to her feet again. The adrenaline coursing through her made her breaths short. The Berdijay paused before her. And then it did something she did not expect.

  —It bowed.

  The shadows evacuated the clearing in a split, as though time were rewinding around itself.

  Aydra dizzied on the spot.

  Breath returned to her lungs.

  Her body collapsed onto the ground.

  The wet of the stream wrapped itself around her again. Water babbled in her ears. And then she heard the splash of someone coming towards her.

  Arms grasped beneath her shoulders. They pulled her out of the water and onto the bank. She was sat up against someone, and palms pressed to either side of her face.

  “Aydra—Aydra, come back—”

  Draven’s hands were on her cheeks, pushing her hair back off her face as he squeezed her. “Can you hear me?”

  When she didn’t speak, she heard him curse under his breath.

  “Dammit, Aydra, answer me!” he finally shouted.

  “Stop begging, Venari. It’s unbecoming of such a King,” she managed.

  His body relaxed, and he muttered another curse under his breath. The strength she’d felt standing up in front of the Berdijay flowed through her veins.

  She’d survived the mind games of the Berdijay.

  Sitting there. With his arms around her. Her heart began to pick up pace again at the warmth of his grasp.

  “You’re crazy!” he declared, palms pressed to her cheeks. “Have you no fear for anything?”

  A jagged huff of amusement left her as she continued to try and catch her breath. Draven’s fingers softened on her face. She could hear his shortened breaths, feel the wind of it on her lips. Her own breaths slowly evened, and she reached up to feel his cheek, wishing she could see his eyes upon hers. See the desperation that she heard in his words on his features. Her thumb stroked his lip, and she felt his nose touch hers. Her heart thudded in her chest as she felt an intense pull in his direction.

  And when he pressed his lips to hers, she swore the wind stopped whirling around them.

  Perhaps it was the adrenaline. Perhaps it was the darkness.

  She wasn’t sure if she cared.

  All that existed in that moment was the pair of them.

  Fucking curses, what was this?

  Their chests pulled flush together. He kissed her hard, his hands not knowing where to explore on her first, but the need swelling between them did not give to much time. She threw her leg straddle over his waist, and groaned into his mouth upon feeling him already hardening beneath her. His fingers tugged in her hair, quickly followed by the grasp of his digits in her hips. The moment he touched her wetness between her legs, he groaned into her neck, and she nearly came apart at the way he teased her clit.

  She wanted him. Right then.

  She found her way into his pants then and gasped at the girth of him in her hands. Her hips bucked, and she captured his mouth with hers once more, distracting him long enough that she could move herself onto his length.

  Her heart stopped. She had to pull back from his face and pause a moment as she felt him fill her. A warm tickle radiated over her every muscle. He grasped her hips and pushed himself deeper inside her, curse words emitting from his lips against her collarbone. The feeling washing over her body was of fire and ice all at once. An addiction, affliction, she never wanted to rid herself of. Every muscle in her body relaxed, and her entire being surrendered to him. She felt his thumb on her lip, and his forehead rested against hers once more.

  “What are you?” she heard him breathe, apparent that he felt the same bewilderment as she.

  “Yours,” she whispered back.

  He paused, and she wished she could have seen his face. She pressed her hands against his cheeks, and he pulled her flush against him as she started moving her hips, slowly up and down, savoring the feeling of him inside her as no other had ever filled her before. She didn’t understand what sorcery or bewitchment it was radiating between them, but she knew wanted to savor it, to feel it linger and radiate through her bones and muscles. She knew she would never feel it with another. And when she felt herself coming to her end just mo
ments later, her hips digging deeper and faster with his, his mouth open on her neck, the stars danced above her with her final gasp, and she came apart with him beneath the forest canopy.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  THE FLARE OF the sun washed over her face. She felt herself moving, as though she were lying atop something breathing. A warmth she was unfamiliar with surrounded her. She nuzzled herself into its depths, not sure she cared who it was she was so comfortable against, but when she heard the grunt of him beneath her, she remembered the night before, and a small smile grew on her lips as she opened her eyes.

  Draven’s thick hair was splayed out over his shoulders and the ground. She couldn’t help herself from reaching up to his neck, entangling her fingers in his hair.

  The sudden seizure of her hand in his made her eyes widen.

  “No one touches my hair,” he growled, one eye opening. “Not even the Sun Queen.”

  She smirked at him. “You Hunters and your precious hair,” she muttered.

  He raised a brow. “How many Hunters’ hair have you tried touching?”

  Her lips pursed, and she shoved him as she sat up. The swim of the night before radiated through her, and she felt a twinge of pink rise on her cheeks.

  The great black horse met her there upon her sitting up, and she grasped its reins in her hand, hoisting herself up to standing. The strength had nearly returned to her ankles, and the pain of it was a mere twinge on that morning.

  “Look at that,” Draven mused as he dusted off his pants. “She stands on her own.”

  “Almost,” she agreed. “Maybe I’ll be ready to go home before you think.”

  A flash of something settled in his gaze… sadness? No. Something that made his weight shift, and his hand rub the back of his neck.

  “What’s wrong? No telling me I’m not ready—”

  The feeling of his hands grasping her face made her words cease in her throat, and when she felt his lips press to hers, she had to grab onto his shirt to keep herself from falling to the ground.

  Her muscles turned to water, and her chest swelled with the same warmth from the night before. A chill down her spine, a honey-like glow trickled down her arms. She let go the reins and grasped his the back of his head and his waist in her hands, allowing him to deepen their embrace.

  A great sigh left him as he rested his forehead against hers. She steadied herself in his arms, allowing him to hold her against him.

  “What are you doing to me, Venari?” she heard herself whisper.

  He swallowed hard and pulled back to look at her, his palm resting on her cheek. “Last night… I wanted to tell you. I’ve wanted to do that since you sang their song,” he managed. “I wanted to know what that was like before you left, before things went back to the way they were.”

  “I don’t know that things will ever be as they were.”

  His weight shifted, and he kissed her once more. She relished his hands wrapped around her, squeezing her body against his. She could feel the need growing between them, his hands raking her sides and then squeezing her backside in his palms. Her thighs tensed at the desperation of his body, her hair raising on her skin. But after a few moments, she pushed slightly on his chest, knowing that if she let it continue that she would find herself against the trunk of a tree within seconds.

  “I believe we have an eight hour journey back today,” she managed in a breath. “We should get going.”

  He growled into her ear and her eyes rolled as he nipped on her throat. “Leave it to the queen to spoil the fun.”

  She shook her head at him as the horse knelt down beside her and he let her go. “The faster we make it back, the more time we have for fun later,” she said as she climbed onto the back of the steed.

  His brows raised. “Then by all means.”

  Draven kept sneaking sideways smiles at her the entire journey, so many that halfway through their journey, she shook her head at him and said, “Keep smiling at me like that and your people will wonder what kind of bewitchment I worked on you these last two nights.”

  Draven chuckled and packed his pipe. “And what a bewitchment it was,” he muttered as his eyes flickered to hers.

  It was an hour out from his kingdom that a slew of birds suddenly flew over their heads and burst into the sky from the canopy.

  Aydra’s heart skipped, and she pulled back on the horse’s reins.

  Here. Here. Here.

  “Fucking curses—”

  A gust of wind blew fiercely through the trees.

  Draven stopped his horse, his face paling.

  GO! Aydra told the horses.

  The horses reared, and both started down the path at such a pace, she nearly lost her balance on her own’s back.

  “I thought you told your sister you were okay,” he called over the wind.

  “And when have you ever known my brother to listen to anything?” she argued.

  “If he’s touched any—”

  “I’ll handle it,” she promised.

  The birds continued to chirp over her head. Her heart pounded in the half hour it took them to reach his home. The raven flew past her shoulder.

  Who is it? Aydra asked it.

  Your brother’s company.

  Aydra cursed the day she was ever born in the waters beside him.

  The noise of people shouting filled their ears as they approached.

  The scene before them made Aydra’s core thicken with red fury. Rhaif’s company was spread out over the clearing, a few of the Hunters on their knees in front of some. Every Venari in the trees had their arrows pulled on their bows. Swords were drawn. Belwarks in full armor as though they’d been marched five days from home for a war. Rhaif stood in the middle, Balandria on her knees before him with a knife threatening her throat.

  Draven bounded off his still running horse upon reaching the edge of the clearing.

  “You’re a long way from your beach, Sun boy,” Draven growled as he crossed the space between them. “Unhand my people and get out of my realm.”

  Rhaif’s lips twisted upwards as he met Draven’s fury over his shoulder. “Your realm? No. Your realm will be forfeit. You’ve taken the Queen as a prisoner and thus declared war on all of Haerland.”

  “I am not his prisoner,” Aydra called as she walked the horse forward.

  Draven shoved Rhaif backwards so hard that Rhaif was launched off the ground. “Unhand my people,” he demanded.

  Bard caught Rhaif’s falling figure. Three Belwarks pulled their swords at Draven’s throat.

  “Put your swords down,” Aydra almost shouted. “Now!”

  Rhaif gave an upwards nod to his men, who lowered their swords halfway. His eyes met Aydra’s then, and he straightened his cloak. “My sister—” he started to reach for her, but she bucked the horse dominantly over him. Rhaif swallowed hard and gave her a full once over.

  “I have not heard from you in over a week,” Rhaif spat. “Why have you been here near ten days now with no word if not for his kidnapping you? And where were you just now? Are you hurt? Did he hurt you?”

  Aydra stared at him so intensely from the back of the horse that Rhaif’s weight shifted.

  “Draven… please point me in the direction of somewhere I can speak with my brother privately,” she said through clenched teeth.

  Draven’s eyes darted between the pair. “As soon as your lackeys unhand my people.”

  Aydra’s jaw tightened, and she looked around them. “Unhand these people. That’s an order,” she nearly shouted. “They are good people. They’ve done nothing wrong.”

  The slow rate at which the Belwarks released the Venari people made Aydra fume. Draven helped a few of them from the ground, including Balandria, before turning back to her.

  “You can speak privately in my home,” he told her.

  Aydra winced as she stepped down from the kneeling horse. Rhaif started to reach for her, but she swatted his hand away. “Don’t touch me,” she warned.

  Draven
came forward with the makeshift crutches and she took them from his hands with a nod. “I’ll help you up the stairs,” he said softly.

  “I can carry her—”

  “No,” Aydra said as Rhaif started to reach out for her again.

  Draven tensed at her side, but she put an arm around his shoulders nonetheless. The three said nothing until they were at the top of the stair, and Draven let Aydra go by the bed so she could hold on to the post.

  “I have to check on my people,” he said to her upon letting her go.

  Aydra didn’t say anything, she simply gave him a nod, and she could tell by the look in his eyes that he knew something was wrong.

  Draven made a point to bump into Rhaif’s shoulder as he passed him.

  “My horses could use water, Venari,” Rhaif called back. “You’ll see to it they get it.”

  A low chuckle emitted from Draven, and the crude smirk on his lips when he turned made a chill run down Aydra’s spine. Draven shook his head mockingly,

  “Your horses…”

  Draven seized the collar of Rhaif’s shirt in his fists and lifted him up off the floor. Wind whipped the room, billowing a few of the papers off the desk and cutting around Rhaif and Draven’s figures. Aydra didn’t speak. She could see the strain in Draven’s neck and arms not to crush her brother in his bare fists.

  “If you ever come into my realm threatening my people again, I’ll make sure your younger is crowned King before the sunrise,” Draven growled.

  “You dare threaten me—”

  “It’s no threat,” Draven uttered. “It’s a promise. On your sister’s life and the sanctity of your kingdom.”

  Draven almost threw Rhaif upon letting him go. Rhaif stumbled on his feet, but caught himself on the desk. Draven towered over the Sun King’s bent figure, his fists clenching and unclenching at his side as the veins pulsed in his neck.

  “Do not push me, Sun boy.”

  Draven gave Aydra a short glance over his shoulder and then retreated down the steps. She could hear him shouting at the Belwarks upon reaching the bottom, telling them where they could get water for their own horses and daring them to pull another blade on any of his people.