Stalk the Moon

by Jessica Lynch

  Alex, though, he hasn’t got a prayer. The hole in Hunter’s shoulder might have miraculously closed up. My memory of the injury is still super fresh.

  “Thanks for the advice,” I tell him. And I’m only a touch sarcastic.

  He doesn’t seem to mind. “I’ve got one more piece for you. If you’re looking for some more answers… well, guilt is a very powerful motivator. Fear even moreso. And he is very, very afraid to lose you.”

  Hiding my bewilderment is impossible. So is keeping quiet so that Alex would get the hint and leave. “Hunter? Seriously? We only met me a couple of days ago. Why would he care?”

  “That’s true. He just met Noelle. Artemis, however...”

  He doesn’t need to finish that thought. The weight of his words hit me like a ton of bricks. I stagger and nearly fall backward into the hot spring. If Hunter really does come—

  “He won’t be coming after me. Not me me.” Why does that hurt so bad? Hunter’s the one who started with the Artemis bull right when I met him. He knew. He’s always known. “He wants Artemis.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  He didn’t have to.

  I’m not that much of a moron. His innocent, helpful act is too perfect. I know Alex is manipulating me because of whatever problem he has with Hunter. He’s using me as a pawn against him.

  At least, he’s trying to.

  When I staggered, I slipped and nearly fell below the water. I caught myself but not before I had to take a couple of steps to the side. The mud at the bottom of the hot spring is dotted with plenty of smooth stones. There’s one right under my left sandal. It’s what I slipped on.

  Ducking under the water, I palm the stone and pop back up, breaking the surface with a soft splash. The chill in the air causes goose pimples to cover my exposed skin as I rise up out of the warm water.

  It’s not a bow and arrow. It’s not a knife. It’ll still friggin’ hurt.

  I’ve gotta give him credit. With my bra translucent, my nipples are on full display. His grey eyes locked on my face, he pointedly doesn’t look any lower.

  I show him the rock, wagging it so he can see it. “I’m done talking. I want you to go. If you’re still here by the time I count to three, I’ll throw this.”

  “Artemis—”

  “One.”

  He sighs. “Fine. Noelle.”

  “Two.”

  “Can’t we just—”

  Nope. “Thr—”

  Alex bows one final time.

  “I’ll find you,” he says again, and the certainty in his statement, in his stance, makes me grip the rock even tighter. “I’ll always find you. Until then, sister.”

  He’s really fast. By the time I recover from his last taunt and rear my arm back to throw, he’s already too far away for me to hit him.

  20

  The rock hits the top of the lake with a soft plop and a tiny splash before it drops back to the muddy floor.

  I really have to get out of this place. It’s making me violent.

  Because I’m not so sure that Alex left like he obviously wants me to believe, I hover in the center of the lake for a few more minutes. I don’t want to wait too long, in case he was telling the truth about Hunter, but I’m also not so keen on walking around in my soaked underwear when anyone could be peeking.

  Staying in the lake isn’t an option, either. Eventually, the sun will go down and I’ll be stuck in the middle of the woods by myself in the dark. I needed to have a better plan before that happens.

  Fingers crossed I stumble upon a portal and then all my problems will be solved.

  That thought in mind, I start to wade toward the shore. The ripple of the still water is soothing, and nowhere loud enough to drown out the heavy stomp of footsteps approaching.

  Crap.

  I pause, straining my ear to listen. Maybe I’m imagining—

  A bird squawks as if it’s been disturbed. A snapping branch. The crackle of drying leaves. Thud. Thud. The warning steps of a man who's not trying to hide his approach.

  Damn it. Alex was right. It’s gotta be Hunter.

  I swivel in the water, giving him my back. My emotions are all out of whack. I’m angry that he came after me—but, at the same time, I have to admit I’m pleased to see he cares that much. Then I remember he’s only coming after Artemis and I have to take a deep breath before I start combing the floor of the lake for another rock.

  If I’m really supposed to believe everything Alex said, if I’m actually this Artemis chick, then I’m only jealous of myself. And isn’t that some crazy shit?

  To buy myself some time to get my head on straight, I call out to him the same thing I said to Alex.

  “Come on, Hunter. Didn’t I tell you not to follow me?”

  “My lady?”

  Holy shit. My stomach drops to my toes. Um, that’s not Hunter.

  My back stiffens and I realize that I’m still standing there with my tits hanging out. I quickly crouch down and spin back around, turning to see who’s there.

  It’s a guy. After stumbling on Maron in the bushes yesterday, I’m not sure if I should be relieved or not that the guy is human. Since I’m hiding in a hot spring, wearing nothing but my underwear and my knife is still way out of reach? No. Not relieved.

  I’m about to flip out.

  He’s a big guy, not Hunter big, but bigger than Alex. Stocky, too. He has light brown hair, like straw, and it hangs down to his shoulders. His clothes are different, too. His pants look like they’re made of brown leather, and he has on a matching vest pulled tightly over a tan shirt.

  “Who are you?” I demand. “Where did you come from? What are you doing here?”

  He licks his lips, then heads for the lake. He’s a couple of feet away from my bag and my weapon and I start praying like hell that he doesn’t get his hands on them.

  I shouldn’t have worried. His eyes are dark and kind of glassy, but they’re definitely focused on me. I have his entire attention.

  “My lady.”

  As if he’s in a trance, he starts to pull on his vest. He shrugs it off, tosses it to the side, and makes quick work of the shirt beneath it. Once his chest is bare, his hands go right to the ties of his pants. My brain finally catches up with what I’m seeing.

  Holy. Fucking. Shit.

  This dude is stripping.

  All of my panic disappears in a flash.

  “How dare you!”

  The glow starts at my fingertips, sparking and spreading until my whole body is lit up in a brilliant silver that reflects off the water and blinds me. I squint my eyes, fighting through the sudden shine.

  This… this intruder is simply standing there now. The glow seems to have dazzled him. At the very least, he’s still got his pants on.

  I have to do something. Blood pounds in my ears, my heart thump-thump-thumping as pure unadulterated rage rushes through me. This intruder has come upon me as I bathed, when I’m the most vulnerable.

  He has to pay.

  Water cascades off of me as I slowly rise up out of the lake. With the strange covering plastered to my chest, I’m as good as topless. He should never have been allowed to see me in the nude. His fate is sealed.

  He knows it, too. Through the shine, I watch as he lets his arms hang at his side. There’s a greedy look on his narrow face as he drinks me in with his gaze. Though his Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows nervously, he doesn’t blink.

  And I react.

  Covering my breasts with one hand, I throw my other arm out and shove at the air. Something pulses. My ears pop. I hear the beginning of a scream before it strangles and dies.

  Silence.

  I take a deep breath, battling the rage as I try like hell to calm down. The air has a bite to it. It smells like electricity, the sharp tang left behind after a lightning storm. My chest rises and falls, my heart racing like I’ve just finished running a marathon. I feel drained, too.

  After a minute, the glow finally recedes. When I can see clearl
y again, I stare, then quickly blink a few times because, holy shit, there’s no way I’m seeing what it is that I think I’m seeing.

  Standing across from me, anxiously pawing the dirt at the edge of the lake, is a stag. The word pops in my head and I instinctively know the difference between one of those and a buck. It’s a friggin’ stag, bigger and wider than the buck that carried me here. It has a massive rack of antlers and hooves the size of CDs.

  This is not a natural stag. No. This is a man—with a man’s height and weight—turned into a stag.

  And I’m the one who did it to him.

  “You.” I breathe out the word through the gaps between my fingers. My hand is over my mouth. “And I… but I couldn’t have, could I? No, no, no.” My legs go weak and I drop, plopping right down into the hot spring. The water seems oddly warmer all of the sudden, or maybe I’m too cold.

  Is this shock?

  I think it’s shock.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper.

  The apology carries on the wind. The stag snorts, his huge hooves pawing at the shirt and the vest that man had pulled off. Somehow I know what he’s asking me. Then again, given the circumstances, it’s pretty damn obvious.

  “I can’t. I don’t know how to turn you back because I don’t know how I changed you in the first place.”

  A second snort, louder this time. A puff of breath exhales through his long nose. A keening whine escapes the stag before the sound turns into a panicked whinny and he shakes his head frantically.

  I wince.

  He’s just realized he has a rack of antlers.

  I want to fix it, but I wasn’t lying. It’s one thing to realize this is my fault. It’s another entirely to have to take it back when it shouldn’t have been possible in the first place. Doesn’t mean I can’t try. Pulling my fingers away from my mouth, I try to remember what it was I did. I know I pushed at him, shoved some kind of… I don’t know, power, I guess.

  “Here goes nothing,” I murmur.

  The stag goes wild. And I mean stag.

  Nothing is right. Noelle doesn’t have the power. I can’t do shit. I don’t know what I’m doing and the angry buzz at the back of my skull makes me think that a part of me is pleased with the change.

  He dared to peek at a goddess. He’s lucky that my bow isn’t at hand or I’d shoot him for his insolence.

  My entire head throbs suddenly, a pain so sharp and intense that it nearly brings me to my knees. Gritting my teeth, I cradle my head. When the pain mellows into a more tolerable ache, I peek up at him.

  His eyes are wide. Terrified. It’s almost like he can sense that I’m a threat. I reach out toward him again and that’s it. I’ve spooked him. The man-stag rears back on his hind legs, thrashing his head before he wheels around and gallops away.

  All of my pain, my guilt, the irrational anger, and eerie righteousness vanish with him as he dashes through the trees. I’m shaky, drained, and there’s a terribly bitter taste in my mouth, like I swallowed battery acid or something as toxic.

  Dipping my chin below the water, I take a mouthful and swish it around before spitting it out. It barely helps. My head is spinning. Because the fact that such strong emotions disappeared as quickly as they came? It reinforces my terrible suspicions.

  They were never my emotions.

  That’s not me. I don’t react—or overreact—like that. So the guy got excited when he saw me skinny dipping. He should never have started to take his clothes off without my explicit invitation, that’s obvious. But where did I get off turning him into an animal?

  That’s not me. Even if I could do it, I wouldn’t. And, yet, some part of me definitely did.

  For the first time since I arrived here, I have to accept what that means.

  When Hunter arrives at the lake about half an hour later, I’m already dressed and waiting for him.

  The sleeveless white dress Alex gave me fits like a glove. So grateful that it’s fresh and clean, I don’t even try to figure out how he knew my size so perfectly. The length of braided silver rope stumps me for a couple of minutes. In the end, I’m inspired by Hunter’s weapons belt. I loop the braid around my waist and knot it. With a simple twist, I rig it so that my knife is tucked snugly beneath it.

  I almost don’t put on the silver armbands. Though I have a headache that’s making me cranky, I know I’m also being kind of spiteful. Alex tracked me down to deliver them and, since his visit caused me nothing but grief, I blame the cuffs.

  Up close, they’re beautiful. There’s not a single flaw in the craftsmanship. The silver is smooth and shines in the lingering sunlight. They have enough give to them that it’s easy to slip them on and decorate each of my unadorned upper arms. I slide one on, if only to see what it would look like.

  Whoa. Like the dress, it’s a perfect fit. And, okay, I gotta admit that I feel like a bit of a badass. Like I’m a huntress for real.

  Before I think better of it, I put on the second one.

  My hair is a disaster. I’m talking serious rat’s nest. Without shampoo or conditioner, it’s one big knot. Like I thought, it takes me ages to finger-comb the worst of the tangles out. I have to stop myself once or twice from grabbing my knife and hacking it all off. When it’s as good as it’s going to get, I braid my hair out of my face.

  After that, there was nothing left to do but wait. My headache is a throb in the back of my skull and wishing for some ibuprofen is a waste of time.

  Instead, I entertain myself by throwing small pebbles in the lake, watching them skip. They don’t go very far, and only a couple actually have more than one hop, but I’m both anxious and annoyed and this is taking my mind off of the fate of the stag.

  Not to mention the strange and unwelcome presence deep inside of me that’s getting harder and harder to pretend doesn’t exist.

  Damn it, it feels like I’ve picked up a hitchhiker somewhere along the way. I don’t know how I got stuck with Artemis or what the hell any of this means. It sucks. And, the longer I’m crouched down, tossing pebbles, the more I begin to worry that Hunter wrote me off as a bad bet.

  I can’t make up my mind. Do I want him to come after me? Would I rather him listen to me and stay away? I’m indecisive and that only pisses me off more.

  Alex said he’d be here. Crazy archer was wrong—

  An audible sigh of relief.

  —then again, maybe not.

  Dropping my handful of pebbles and dusting my hands clean, it hits me that I should’ve known better before. There’s no way that Hunter would’ve made as much racket moving through the trees. Silent as the grave and even more deadly, I’d never know he was out there unless he wanted me to.

  I guess he wants me to now.

  I glance over my shoulder.

  Yup. That’s Hunter. My lips curl. I’d know that cloaked figure anywhere.

  He’s wearing his hood because, well, of course. The seam in his cloak is open, though. He has my bow in one hand, the enchanted quiver hanging low off his forearm, and a bundle of leather trapped against his chest.

  As I stare, he raises his head up to the sky, his hood falling to settle around his shoulders. There’s a look of profound relief on his handsome face as he says, “Thank the gods. I’ve found you.”

  Here I am. For better or for worse, I’ve stuck around. I guess it’s like my mom always said: better the devil you know. Hunter’s been with me since I stumbled into this place. Sure, I probably can’t trust him farther than I can throw him—and considering he’s basically a giant, that’s not far at all—but at least I know what he wants from me. Kind of.

  Artemis.

  I shiver and rub my arms, trying to stay warm.

  Hunter’s attention is immediately drawn to me. If he’s got anything to say about my new get-up, he keeps it to himself. Blinking slowly, stepping lightly as if I’m prey he’s afraid to scare off, Hunter cautiously approaches.

  “Noelle, I—”

  No matter what else is going on at this moment, I
know one thing: I’m not ready to talk to him yet.

  “Don’t.”

  “But—”

  “Seriously. Don’t. I…” My voice breaks. The pain in my head seems to double. Whoa. Okay. Taking a deep breath, I tell him, “I can’t. Not now.”

  Hunter frowns, then nods. Without a word, he sets down the bow and quiver in his hands, then shakes out the leather cloak he’s carrying. It’s my cloak. He holds it out in front of him.

  I’m shaking as I turn into his hold. I barely notice the shock and tingle of his bare hand as he reaches up to move my damp braid away and gently brushes against the skin of my neck. That done, he closes the cloak around me. The comforting weight hanging on my shoulders makes me feel a little better.

  Or maybe that’s simply knowing that Hunter really couldn’t stay away.

  Careful hands turn me so that we’re facing each other. Another shock when the tips of his fingers absently touch my chest when he reaches for the button. Once he’s finished doing up the front of my cloak, he picks up the quiver and slips it over my head, positioning it across my body.

  At some point, I should stop him. I can’t remember the last time I let someone take care of me like this—not since my mom died, definitely. But what happened with the stag has shaken me up more than anything else since I’ve been here, including the scorpion and the arrow. If only for a few seconds longer, I crave comfort from Hunter.

  When I’ve gotten my head back on straight, I should probably worry about that.

  Hunter appears satisfied that I’m physically okay. On the outside, I’m sure I look fine. Better than before, no doubt.

  He tears his gaze away for a second, bending low to retrieve the silver bow. He holds it out.

  “You want to take this—”

  I snatch it from him before he can finish his question.

  “Sorry,” I mumble. Just because I don’t think I can ever trust him again, it doesn’t mean I have to be a rude and ungrateful toad. “It’s been a really long, really weird day.”