By the Light of the Moon

by Blake, Laila

  “Now you,” the new Brock said with a sense of self-importance as he strode back to her side. Moira swallowed hard, still staring, tracking his movements with her eyes.

  “I … how did you do that?” she exhaled, still utterly caught in the wonder of the moment and the disbelief of what she had seen. It was beautiful but frightening and she suddenly thought she had a slightly better appreciation of Owain’s reaction. She, at least, had been prepared for the sight.

  Brock, however, sighed in frustration. It did something to the cast of his face that made his beauty quite terrifying; much more so than any disappointment shown on old Brock’s face ever had been.

  “Just like you did that night, girl. You have to remember it; that night you let some filthy half-animal mount you like a whore? No? Not very memorable, that pet of yours?”

  Moira stared, her cheeks flushed crimson and she blinked hard a few times to keep her eyes from spilling over. She didn’t understand why Brock would say something like that. Her bottom lip quivered and she raised her brows.

  “I … I don’t like it when you speak of Owain that way,” she said softly and took a deep breath.

  “What?” Brock asked in a would-be calm manner, his brows raised dangerously in his sharply angled face. “Look at me!”

  Moira obeyed, confused as to what he was searching for when he just stared into her eyes and her face, and then picked up the empty mug he had used earlier to sniff at it skeptically.

  “I just said … there is no need to talk of Owain this way. He is a good person. A good man.” Moira explained, blinking and confused. She could see Brock, the new Brock, and grew scared of him. In fact, she couldn’t believe she hadn’t been scared all this time.

  He was still watching her and confusion turned to disbelief and then a grudging kind of respect on his strange face she couldn’t look at for long without feeling the need to blink or look away.

  “You’re strong. You fought it fast … I underestimated you,” he said quietly, still watching her like a hawk. Moira hardly dared to breathe. Her hands were numb but her arms hurt and she was so tired and so alone.

  “I … I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t understand … you have been this way all my life? And I? I have been, too?”

  Sighing, Brock nodded. She was easier to deal with when she wasn’t so annoyingly human, really. Still. She was strong for a crossling.

  “They were beautiful creatures once, the Blaidyn,” Brock went on, ignoring her frightened stammering. “Pure. Fighters, obedient, good. A perfect creature. Now, degenerate filthy weaklings and traitors.” He snorted and then grinned at the anger in her face. “Do you know how they got that way?”

  Moira shook her head.

  “Interbreeding, child.” Brock’s simple answer registered confusion on her face and so he continued. “They mingled with humans, fucked them like he fucked you. They can’t stay from them, really. And the perfect fighter grew weak and human. They had doubts and ambitions, they grew selfish and fought amongst each other and against their masters. It’s why you, little Moira, are an abomination now. We saw what it did to the Blaidyn and we made sure it would never — never — happen to us. But you slipped through the cracks, didn’t you?”

  Swallowing hard, Moira shrugged. “What do you mean?” she asked, curious despite herself, despite wanting to hit him or scratch out his eyes. She found herself curiously less scared now, a fatalistic idea clicking into place where her life had little meaning while she was still trying to understand the world she had suddenly been plunged into.

  “You were born after breeding with humans was outlawed. But even as such, someone like you is taken through a rigorous ritual that tests your strength and your magical potential. It divides the wheat from the chaff. Like your sister. But you never finished them, your mother abducted you and hid you here … but now we found you again.”

  Moira frowned, a series of emotions flashing through her mind, none tangible enough to hold on to for long.

  “R … rituals?” she asked, if nothing else, trying to gather what she could, trying to understand even if it was the last thing she did before she died. At least she would die knowing who she was and where she came from.

  “Yes,” Brock answered, for the moment seemingly content to answer her questions. “Rituals that are designed to trigger your magic and your glow and test if you are worthy. Most are not, but the ones that are, are declared Fae and accepted into our ranks. And you, Moira, might just be one of those few.”

  He was eying her intently enough for her to shrink away from him. She was feeling more and more helpless, tied up as she still was. She wouldn’t have been able to do much with her bare hands, but she wouldn’t have felt quite so utterly vulnerable.

  “You’re not weak. You know the fief; you could be helpful to me if you so chose. It would … be beneficial to you.” Brock’s glow was slowly ebbing away again and it was easier to look at him now. Still she couldn’t possibly say how old he was or find words to describe his facial features. It was unnerving; so utterly non-human, however striking the similarities were.

  “Of course, the rituals are non-optional. I will take you across and they will be performed on you … but if you were to show yourself amenable, I could help you.”

  “Help me?” Moira asked, voice low and spiteful. It made Brock grin indulgently.

  “Yes, my dear, help you. Your magic is already triggered, so they will concentrate on testing your worthiness; whether your character and your magic can withstand obstacles. Panic, pain, deprivation. I can train you before I take you there … ”

  Just for a moment, there was a warm and wanting expression in his cold blue eyes, but then it was gone and Moira was sure she had imagined it. “Or I can throw you in and let them break you and break your glow like they broke your sister. They almost broke you, already, didn’t they? You’ve always felt it deep inside, that something got too close and too deep? That something made you hurt and made you feel alone?”

  Moira shivered hard. She turned her head away from him and tried to breathe but at the mention of her feelings of pain and alienation, she felt those familiar iron bands span across her chest, pulling tighter and tighter across her lungs.

  “There it is,” he whispered almost lovingly, suddenly all too close to her ear. His fingers brushed over her cheek and she tried to shake him of but couldn’t move, not a muscle, could only watch the scene as though she was flying in the air above them, slowly getting dizzier and dizzier without oxygen.

  “It would be easy to finish the job, you know? I could do it right now, right here; I could take your soul and break it clean in two and you’ll never finds the parts again. Little Moira.” The strange tenderness in his voice when he threatened her made her head spin; it was pulsing painfully, each heartbeat pressing blood into it like an electric shock. It crackled under her skin, burned and sizzled. She wanted to scream, but there was no air in her lungs.

  “Or … you become mine, and I’ll make you strong.” His hand landed on her chest, gently and a soft glow emanated from his palm. Suddenly her lungs expanded again and she could breathe. The iron rings broke and she panted for air while Brock’s thumb brushed over the warm swell of her breast.

  “Wouldn’t it be a terrible waste of your glow? I can teach you about pain and panic, little Moira. I can teach you withstand it to turn it into pleasure, into strength — and then you can be Fae, and you and I can rule this fief.”

  Still trying to catch her breath, Moira finally found the strength to twist her torso away from his touch. Her eyes were glowing green and angry and she shook her head. Once, twice and again.

  “I never,” she got out between harsh, gasping breath, “wanted that. You … you want that. Deagan … wants that. Everybody. Not I.” She sniffed, shaking her head again until his hand closed around her jaw and held it i
n place with the strength of an iron frame. She could feel the tips of his fingers press easily through the thin sheet of muscle and onto her bone, the pressure made her head feel like it was about to burst.

  “Stupid. Such a stupid little girl you are still,” Brock said quietly, coldly. Whatever effort he was exerting on Moira’s jaw, it didn’t register in his voice at all. “Wants to be free and yet still doesn’t understand what freedom is. Stupid.”

  She couldn’t really speak, not under his grip, but she was glaring at him, eyes glowing bright and green. There was another hint of light around her neck — just a flicker of strength as she held his gaze and choked out a single word — sound more than true articulated speech, but it was a word still; “Owain.”

  Freedom for Moira was a single word encompassing a whole life of possibilities and ideas and dreams to follow. Owain. The freedom to love, to choose, to be.

  Brock growled. The back of his free hand slammed against the side of her face hard enough to blacken her vision for a moment or two, hard enough to wonder if her face had caved in at the side, if her eyes were still round. The glow in her eyes and her neck was gone and Moira was blinking dimly, trying with all her might just to hold on to her consciousness. Owain.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Maeve winced and both Owain and Iris looked over at the soldier who simply shook his head and hurried them on. The castle was quiet at this time of night, but they couldn’t take any more risks. Owain had taken out the guard at the top of the stairs with a well-placed fist to the jaw but he didn’t want to do that again. The guardsmen weren’t at fault for any of night’s complications and he didn’t want to risk them anymore.

  “It was right up here,” Iris whispered. She’d been leaning on Owain on the last two staircases, and silently, he doubted she was strong enough to try any rescue attempt. Her bones old and brittle, her clothes still wet and cold, he wanted to see her in a warm bed with a mug of tea, not in a drafty tower staircase. But he stayed quiet, following the strange soldier’s lead.

  He could smell her now, knew she had been brought this way a while ago, could even smell the draught that had knocked her out cold. It made him shiver and he had to suppress his wolf strongly to stop him from wanting to leap up those stairs all by himself and tear this Brock’s throat out.

  Instead, they all moved quietly; Iris as quietly as she could, staying a little behind when she knew she was breathing too hard. Stairs had not been her favorite thing for many years now. She leaned over the railing, bent forward to catch her breath and waved the other two on. They all knew it was a trap in one way or another but maybe, just maybe Owain could help their shifting fortunes.

  Just in front of the door, the soldier who Owain now knew was really a woman, a Fae and Moira’s mother - the combination of which made his head spin - motioned toward it and Owain nodded. He took a step back, gathered his strength and then crashed against it with all the force his strong, muscular body had. It didn’t give way easily but when he kicked it hard just under the lock, it splintered and fell out of its angle.

  He had the first glance into the circular tower room and it froze his chest. At the other side stood Moira, balanced on a tiny stool. Her hands and feet were bound, her mouth gagged and she had a noose around her neck, her eyes bulging with fear.

  Owain made a first move to grab her when a sudden movement to the side caught his eyes and before he knew it, he had a knife in the side of his neck.

  It was only due to his superior reflexes that it missed the crucial artery, but instead pierced fingertip-deep in muscle tissue. Still, he cursed out in pain, rolled himself off to the side and pressed his hand to the bleeding wound.

  “Tut-tut.” A cold and condescending voice whispered from the side of the door and dizzyingly, maddeningly, Owain saw a figure melting out of a bookcase. He hadn’t seen the man when he entered, but now he stood there as though he had never moved at all, inspecting the bloody tip of a knife. “Another move and you break her neck, wolf-man.”

  Owain tried to look around, tried to find the mechanism but all he could see was Moira shaking and trying to keep a balance on her toes. Like a crazed man, he looked at the door but there was no soldier anymore. Instead, he saw a beautiful woman, so beautiful, he couldn’t quite look at her but he recognized the familiarity, the features she shared with Moira.

  “Brody, is that you?” she asked with a maddeningly sweet voice and for a moment, Owain was utterly sure he had fallen into a trap.

  “My name is Brock here, Maeve. And I don’t remember inviting traitors into my castle,” the man informed her coldly, not moving from his spot.

  “You have something of mine. I want it back.” Maeve answered without taking a breath. Owain stared at them, the cool, lofty voices that didn’t carry any emotion, any recognition. Owain wasn’t even sure she had as much as looked at her daughter in her predicament.

  “Something of yours?” Brock returned, raising his brows in mock interest. “Your other crossling, I suppose. So you got the first one back, wheezing somewhere a few stairs below? No wonder you’re hiding, Maeve. Two such creatures crawled out of your cunt, not a place any self-respecting Fae would ever venture again. Can’t show your face in decent company anymore, can you?”

  Maeve didn’t register a single emotion, but the tension crackled in the air as she tilted her neck and smiled sweetly.

  “Mighty words for a man who can only attain power among humans … ” she answered, her voice as kind and pure as a mountain spring.

  They were so focused on each other, Owain’s eyes flit to Moira, still helplessly tiptoeing on the shaky stool to keep her balance. If he could only reach her … still on the floor, he carefully, ever so slowly crept forward, employing every sense of the stealth predator in his heritage. Just a little, just a few more feet and …

  Owain grunted in pain as Brock’s knife wheeled through the air and pierced his hand clean through before the blade came to a stop on the stone floor. Moira screamed into her gag, fighting her bonds and staring down at him.

  His face was a grimace but he just grunted as he pulled the knife out of his flesh. He thought he smelled splintered bone but no marrow and steeled himself against the onslaught of pain. Both hands were covered in blood now but he registered that the knife was silver. It could have been worse.

  “Stay down, wolf, if you know what’s good for you.” Brock warned quietly, distaste evident in his tone before he turned his eyes back on Maeve, who was utterly ignoring the wolf. Except … was Owain imagining it? He had a feeling that she hadn’t stood quite this directly between them before.

  “Stop hurting my daughter’s pet, will you?” she asked with what sounded like amusement as she shook her head and raised her brows. “I’m willing to entertain your charade of power, but we both know that he can grab her long before the noose breaks her neck and you are still outnumbered.”

  Brock’s eyes narrowed as they flitted up at the girl who seemed utterly focused on the wolf and his wounds.

  “That would be true, but you are a traitor, Maeve. And your daughter is an abomination until she is declared Fae or non-Fae by the council. And now she is found and her sparkling little magic can be traced. How about a trade; your daughter for my silence?”

  “No deal.” Maeve said simply. There was nothing left of the sweetness and her voice was suddenly deeper, warmer. “My daughter goes free, that’s the only deal we can make. And … you don’t want to bring me in … ” a grin slipped over her features, “because what you are planning here, taking over the fief … it’s not sanctioned at all. It’s an act of war … and we are not at war. I think the deal you really want to make is my daughter for my silence, Brody. And you can keep your castle and your power.”

  Brody glared, staring at his knife that was now in the wolf’s hand, his eyes silver as he fought back the beast inside of him. A wolf was da
ngerous when he was hurt and not dealt with immediately.

  “And, yes, we still have numbers … ” Maeve smiled and at that moment, Iris appeared behind her. Inside she was quivering with fear but she faced the man who had taken her blood.

  “Not even you would try and kill me, Moira. You may be a traitor but you are not an abomination. You are redeemable. So is your daughter.”

  “Ah, but you see, I don’t like those rules. I’m Fae, I’m free … I can choose whatever father I want for my children, and I can choose to live where I want to live, just as you are doing. My daughter for my silence and if one day you do want to bring me in, my silence remains.”

  “Not enough,” Brock replied and then his head flung around to the wolf who had stood up on his two feet and was striding toward Moira in utter defiance of Brock’s orders. With another step he had his arms around her midriff, keeping her from having to stand on tiptoe to keep herself safe and was using his knife to cut her free.

  Brock’s hand moved to a hidden lever but Maeve caught his hand. “Don’t be so sure I wouldn’t kill you … ” she whispered, and then let go when he pulled away, his greater strength all too obvious to try and test it in that way. His lips curled in a cold smile.

  “Anarchist,” he whispered, nose wrinkling in distaste but Maeve shrugged with an almost flattered smile.

  “You’re not playing by the rules either, my dear. So … what do you want?”

  Brock glared at Owain who had freed Moira easily and had pulled her into his arms. She spit out her gag and they stared at each other silently. It was as though the room suddenly felt less cold from the simple exchange of wordless desire that transpired between their eyes. A moment later, she tore them away and ripped a strap of fabric out of her dress, which she started to tie around Owain’s injured hand.