The Moon Witch

by Linda Winstead Jones

  “If they were fine, they would be here,” Sophie said. “They would be camping in the barn, or they would have already started to rebuild. Look at this place, Kane. Whatever happened here, it happened a long while ago.”

  “They might’ve moved to town after the fire,” he suggested.

  “They did not move to town.” Juliet might, in dire circumstances, but Isadora? Never. If she were able, she’d be here. “We had no trouble finding this place, today,” she said.

  “You led us,” Kane answered sensibly.

  “Someone should’ve stumbled. One man or more should’ve taken a wrong turn or fallen behind. Getting here was too easy. The protective spell has been broken.” Sophie turned in her husband’s arms and rested her head on his chest, hiding from the sight that ripped at her heart. The rain turned to snow, the first snow of the winter for the Southern Province.

  “I’m scared,” she whispered.

  He held her head against his chest, protecting her from the snow her grief and her power and the child inside her created. Even though she had learned to rein in her powers so that they did not affect those around her, she had never dealt with an emotion like this one. The pain was too much to control.

  “Arik will come back with good news,” Kane assured her.

  She closed her eyes and prayed with all her heart that he was right.

  “When I left here, I told Isadora and Juliet that I had no sisters. I told them I never wanted to see them again.” A howling wind made the snow swirl around her and Kane and the cabin. Her long yellow skirt was lifted from the ground, and it swirled and whipped in the wind.

  “They know how much you love them.”

  “Do they? How can I be sure?”

  He just held her close, his arms warm and strong around her. Eventually the wind died down, and then the snow stopped falling. Sophie took control of her emotions and tucked them deep inside. She replaced the grief with more constructive emotions. Anger. Determination.

  If Juliet and Isadora were alive, she’d find them.

  And if they were not alive, she would find the person responsible for this tragedy and she would make them pay.

  Ryn sat at his eldest brother’s table. Calum’s wife had herded the children outdoors, where they were to play with neighboring friends until called inside for the evening meal.

  “I’m sure that everything will be just fine,” Becca said brightly. Calum’s wife Becca was pretty enough, but she was also unerringly optimistic. To Ryn’s way of thinking, this was not the time for optimism.

  “Nothing will be fine,” Ryn said in a low, calm voice. “My mate is Queen, which means my only duties are to impregnate her when she so desires. Not only that, she is the red-haired Queen, who will bring peace to the people by taking a Caradon into her bed and giving him a child. How is this fine? How is that in any way fine?"

  Becca flinched as he shouted and slammed his fist into her dining room table.

  “Maybe the legend is wrong?” she offered in a trembling voice.

  Calum, who had for the past six years been leader of the Dairgol Clan, laid a hand on his wife’s shoulder. “Becca, would you make my brother something to eat? He looks as if he’s been living on leaves and overcooked tilsi for weeks.”

  She gladly escaped to the kitchen, and within minutes they heard the rattle of iron pots and spoons from the room beyond.

  Ryn pointed to the kitchen door and said, “I can never do that.”

  Calum sat beside him. Married to Becca for the past seven years, he was not the restless man he had once been. Being a husband and father and clan leader suited him well. “Do what?” he asked.

  “I can never ask my wife to prepare a meal, or rub my shoulders after a long day. She will command me. She might very well ask me to fetch her something to eat!”

  Calum grinned widely. “You cannot know this. It is too soon.”

  Ryn leaned toward his older brother. “And what of the Caradon? Am I to sit back meekly and allow a beast to touch my wife? To give her a child?”

  Calum’s smile faded. “In the name of lasting peace? Perhaps you have no choice.”

  “Would you allow it if the woman in question was your wife?”

  Calum did not answer, and wouldn’t. He and his Becca had found the love that Juliet had inquired about on more than one occasion, and it was messy. They argued often, venting their feelings for anyone who might be about to see, and then made up with kisses and apologies. Becca always worried overmuch when the full moon came and her husband took to the hills, and she cried when he came home because she had missed him and worried for his safety. And Calum was no better than his overly emotional wife.

  Ansgar and his wife Dona had a more palatable arrangement. They had children, and they liked one another very well. They were friends and partners and lovers, but there was little messy emotion to muddy the waters.

  Calum would never allow a Caradon or any other man to touch his Becca, no matter what the benefit to the Anwyn might be. In the name of peace, Ansgar would grudgingly allow his wife to share her body with another.

  Ryn refused to admit that it was possible this meant he had fallen in love with Juliet. She was simply his. Emotion would only complicate matters.

  “There is no need to worry now. It is possible the day the legend speaks of might not come for many years,” Calum offered sensibly.

  “After my death,” Ryn replied.

  “Not necessarily...”

  “After my death,” Ryn said again. He looked his brother in the eye. “I don’t care if it means unending war with the Caradon, no other man will touch Juliet while I live.”

  Calum clapped his steady hand to Ryn’s shoulder. “You love her.”

  Ryn did not immediately confirm or deny the accusation.

  “I’m sorry.” With that, and another clap of his hand to Ryn’s shoulder, Calum left the table.

  Love? No, that couldn’t be it. Surely what he felt was a possessiveness that was only natural where one’s mate was concerned. The feeling would pass.

  Eventually.

  Chapter Fourteen

  It was impossible to sneak anywhere when surrounded by guards who could not only see unnaturally well, but who could smell their prey at a moderate distance.

  Juliet wanted to see Ryn; she wanted to find her father. But instead of doing those two simple things, she had been relegated to a suite of luxurious rooms where she had more devoted servants than she could ever possibly use. The two times she’d tried to sneak out of the palace, she’d found herself being followed by not one but three spear-toting blue-clad guards. They meant well, but still...it was an annoyance.

  The old Queen had already started planning Juliet’s coronation and her own funeral. Apparently once there was a ruler to take her place, she would simply lie down and die, her duty to the Anwyn done, at least for this lifetime. Her mate awaited her in the next life, and only her duty as Queen had kept her living for such a long time. It was a concept Juliet had a hard time accepting. That two people could be born to be together, that they could carry their bond into the next life, that the concept of forever was more than a concept, it was very real.

  If that was true, then Ryn was her forever. That concept was as frightening to her as the idea of a lover who changed into a wolf with the appearance of a full moon. When he touched her and she allowed herself to forget who she was and what she had planned for her life, forever seemed like a fine idea.

  Ryn disdained love as unnecessary and overly sentimental, but Juliet knew that if she embraced the concept of a fated union, she would come to love Ryn, and in doing so she’d condemn him to an early death. Maybe if she kept her distance and focused her mind on other things, she would not fall into that trap.

  Sitting blessedly alone before an ornately framed mirror in her bedchamber, Juliet studied the changes in herself. In many ways, she felt as if she were looking at a stranger. The liberal gold striations in her brown eyes were startling, but that was not the on
ly physical change in her appearance. Her cheeks were pink, flushed with the heat of her newly invigorated blood. Instead of being restrained in a knot or a braid, her hair had been left loose. It was as if she could no longer stand to have it bound tightly atop her head.

  She had been gifted with a selection of blue gowns, all of them made of the finest silk. The maids who tended Juliet had already told her how magnificent she would look in the fine gold frocks she’d wear as Queen.

  Juliet still did not wish to be Queen, but for now she had resigned herself to the fate Ryn and the old Queen and everyone else claimed was inescapable. If denying who she had been born to be would bring war to this peaceful place, how could she walk away?

  Perhaps she was destined to be Queen for a while. That didn’t mean she had to remain ruler. Once the old Queen had taken her place in the next life with her mate, Juliet would devise a plan to put one of the old woman’s sons on the throne in a peaceful and orderly way. Since there were eleven of them, surely one would make an acceptable King.

  Two days remained until the next full moon. Like it or not, Juliet felt the tug of her Anwyn blood. What would it be like to take the vow that not only made her Queen, but made her fully Anwyn as well? What would it be like to become a wolf? The nightmare of the claws still terrified her, even though she had not suffered with it in more than a week.

  The transformation from woman to wolf would be painful, she knew. How could it not be? Perhaps that was the pain she’d experienced in her dream, the ripping of flesh and the blood and the scream of transformation. A part of her was terrified of the change to come. But another part of her, the Anwyn that had slept for so long, wanted it. She wanted to run surefooted in the mountains by the light of a full moon. She wanted to embrace the animal that slept inside her, to find and discover the wildness that had been hidden inside a meek woman for such a long time. She wasn’t meek anymore.

  The door to her suite opened, and four women filed in. All of them were dressed in pale blue, and all entered the chamber with their gaze trained to the floor in deference. The Anwyn Queen must think her incapable of even the smallest chore. Otherwise, why were there always so many servants around?

  She doesn’t trust you. The answer came to her as clearly as if it had been spoken. Queen Etaina knew that Juliet had doubts about her destiny. She knew there was fear and uncertainty in Juliet’s heart. The old woman wouldn’t risk losing her replacement, not after all this time. The women who seemed to be everywhere she turned were not only maids; they were guards.

  Juliet stood and turned to face the servants. Women who had been taken and who were wed to palace guards, they were different in many ways. Short, tall, skinny, round, dark, fair. They came from many regions.

  They had one thing in common. They were all very happy.

  Juliet had resisted commanding Ryn’s presence. Distance was best; logically she knew that to be true. But she missed him; she needed to see him. Since she could not sneak out and go to him, what choice did she have but to request his presence here?

  “I’d like to see my friend this afternoon.”

  “Your friend? You have many friends in The City, my lady Juliet,” the short blond maid said sweetly. She lifted her pretty face slightly as she spoke. The others didn’t say a word.

  They were going to make her say it. “Ryn.”

  Still, the ladies before her didn’t react.

  “My mate,” she said more tersely.

  The blond smiled. “Of course, my lady Juliet. He will be ordered here immediately.”

  “It’s a request, not an order,” Juliet corrected.

  All four girls stood there with unasked questions all too clear on their faces. They did not understand why Ryn wasn’t already here, and they certainly wondered why their ruler would make such a humble request when her every word was a command.

  “Don’t order Ryn to the palace,” Juliet explained. “Ask him if he would please come to see me at his convenience.”

  They did not comprehend her reasoning. How long had they been away from the real world that they did not remember that no man took kindly to being ordered about by a woman?

  Surely these women had forgotten nothing. Their own husbands were like men everywhere. If anything, the Anwyn males were more dominant than most. But these captive wives saw Juliet not as a woman, but as Queen. Her word was law. Two of the women nodded their heads and left; two stayed behind. Guards, Juliet thought once again. They wouldn’t stop her if she tried to leave, but she’d soon have soldiers on her heels, and that wasn’t the way she wanted to go to Ryn.

  How on earth was she going to tell the man that she missed him?

  It was mere minutes before the doors to her suite opened and Ryn stepped into the room, flanked by guards on either side. Armed soldiers, not the pretty women who served Juliet in her chambers. Judging by the expression on Ryn’s face, he had not been asked at all.

  Juliet stood and faced him. Heavens he looked good. Different, but very, very good. Gone was the leather kilt and wild hair. His long blond hair had been captured in a neat braid that fell down his broad back. He wore snug trousers made of a soft brown fabric, and a loose-sleeved shirt that remained open at the neck. There were soft leather boots on his feet. She had often thought him beautiful, but until this moment, she had not realized that he was so conventionally handsome.

  “You look different,” she said softly.

  “So do you.” He had closed off the strand of the web that bound them together, and she did her best to keep her abilities dampened, so she did not know if he was pleased with the change in her or not.

  Juliet dismissed her guards, male and female, with a wave of her hand. They departed silently and quickly, leaving her alone with Ryn.

  He walked toward her. “I understand you are to become Queen on the morning of the next full moon. Two days.”

  “I tried to delay the ceremony, but...” Juliet took a deep, nervous breath. “Queen Etaina insists.” She tried to lift her shoulders casually, but this was not a matter to be shrugged off. “I don’t know what happens next,” she said softly.

  Perhaps she was to be ruler for a time, but she needed Ryn right now. She needed the Ryn who had rescued her. The Ryn who had hauled her an immeasurable distance, insisting all the way that they were meant to be together.

  “Of course you know what comes next,” he said in an emotionless voice. “You become Queen, and I come running whenever you call.”

  “It won’t be that way,” she insisted.

  Ryn lifted his hands, palms up. “It is already that way.”

  “I told them to ask you to come,” she argued. “I did not issue an order.”

  “When the Queen asks, the answer is always yes.”

  “You’re angry.”

  “I’m disappointed.”

  In her? How could she ask that question? It revealed a neediness in her nature; it made her feel like the meek woman Ryn had rescued. She had a feeling this conversation could be endless, so she abruptly changed the subject. “I would like to meet my father.”

  “All you need do is ask.”

  Queen Etaina had been dismayed to discover that Juliet’s Anwyn father was a rogue, but it did explain why she hadn’t been born here in The City. “I don’t want my first meeting with my father to be a public display. I don’t want to share that moment with just anyone. Could you bring him to me? Quietly?”

  “He lives beyond The City walls. It might take a few days, perhaps even weeks, to locate him.”

  The idea of being alone here, without Ryn, caused a shiver that touched Juliet’s bones. She had fought him for so long, and now she didn’t want him to be too far away. “Can you send someone else out to find him? I’d like you to be here when I...” When she became Queen, when she became wolf.

  Ryn bowed sharply. “Whatever you command, my lady Juliet.”

  She’d liked it better when he called her wife and vidara.

  It was not Juliet’s fault that she’d
been born Queen. Ryn told himself that as he walked through the square, searching for a man he could trust to find and collect Kei Deverin of the Ancikyn Clan, Juliet’s father. She didn’t want the throne any more than he wanted to be the Queen’s consort, unmanned and powerless and always at the beck and call of a woman.

  Women ruled The City and the Anwyn, but in families that was not the case. The males ruled their own households. An Anwyn male worked a trade and built a home, and the woman he claimed as his mate came to him when he called. It was the life Ryn had always imagined for himself—ruler not of a people, but of his own home and family. It wasn’t Juliet’s fault that such a simple wish was now impossible.

  The man he wanted to see was always hereabouts. Birk was barely twenty years old, and his mate had not yet called to him. He was an adventurous sort, and instead of becoming an apprentice and mastering a trade or serving in the palace, he hired himself out for odd jobs of any sort. Birk would be able to find Kei, if the rogue had not wandered too far from The City.

  He could wander himself, Ryn supposed. When he found life in the palace unbearable, when he found answering to a woman intolerable, when he could no longer bear being an accessory for a woman of power, he could don his kilt and leave The City for cycles at a time. It wouldn’t be so very different from the days he spent in the hills hunting.

  A man could not be expected to answer if he were not close enough to hear his Queen’s call.

  Maybe he could even follow Kei’s example and travel far to claim other women. It was not the Anwyn way; it was not Ryn’s way. But if he found life as the Queen’s consort unbearable, perhaps he would be forced to turn his back on the Anwyn way.

  His mind turned again and again to the legend that said the red-haired Queen would take a Caradon lover. No matter how he tried, he could not divert his thoughts away from that detested subject. What Anwyn male would allow such a thing to happen? Even in the name of peace, what self-respecting Anwyn would stand back and allow an enemy, or any other man, to take pleasure in his wife’s body? No, not his wife. His mate, his woman, his Queen. Not his wife.