Moon Broken

by H. D. Gordon

  Pulling myself to my paws took a little effort, but I’d sustained much worse injuries in my lifetime, so I managed. I blinked several times as my gaze fell upon the body of the Hound who’d been about to kill me. His eyes were open and staring toward the darkening sky… but not seeing a thing. His large, muscular form had collapsed beside me, and scarlet blood was pooling out of his neck, where a wicked looking dagger protruded rather cleanly.

  Glancing around, to my utter surprise, Asha was standing there. Her curly hair stood out in every direction on her head, and her beautiful face was flush with the heat of battle. She wore black leather from head to toe, and in the whites of her eyes, blue lightning flashed.

  Raising an eyebrow at me, she approached the Hound’s body and jerked the dagger rather unceremoniously out of his neck. She wiped the blade on the Hound’s shirt before tucking it into her boot.

  I was still in my Wolf form, so I had to tilt my head back to look up at her. It also meant that I couldn’t verbalize anything.

  “You’re welcome,” Asha said. “This makes us even.”

  Behind us, I could hear the Hounds I’d been leading here finally catching up. Those bastards were never around when you needed them. I glanced down at the dead Hound’s body, and back up at Asha.

  “What?” she said, and smirked. Mocking the Hound, she added, “I’ll just say I had no choice.”

  But she did. She did have a choice, and she’d chosen to save me. I had a feeling that despite her constant attitude with me, I was going to have a harder time hating her from now on.

  The Hounds who’d been chasing me rounded the corner, and I noticed that Mekhi must’ve split off with Goldie when we’d first begun the chase. A pang of worry struck me, but I pushed it away, needing to believe that Goldie could handle herself, that she was probably already at the rendezvous point with Adriel. Safe and sound.

  Asha jerked her chin at me. “Better get running, little Wolf,” she said.

  I snapped a growl at her but did as she suggested. But, first, I took a moment to watch as she scaled the side of one of the buildings like a damn spider and disappeared among the rooftops.

  Then, the Hounds were almost upon me. I let them see me, noticed that there were now six of them on my tail, and started my run anew.

  This time, I paid equal attention to where I was going and what was in front of me. After a few more turns and side streets, I reached the destination, the stupid Hounds still on the pursuit.

  It seemed the Erl Queen’s Valac had completed their task of rounding up the Hounds as well, as there had to be a couple hundred Hounds gathered in the immediate area. They stood suspended, like insects caught in a web, as they ran into the trap like the simple fools that they were.

  “You made it,” said Goldie’s voice in my head, and I turned to see her panting near the edge of the gathered Hounds, her tongue lolling out of her mouth in her exhaustion.

  I tipped my head to her and returned my attention to the wondrous scene around me.

  We stood in the very heart of Mina, where a glittering pool of water served as the centerpiece. Stepping stones spanned the pool, and these stones led to a platform with tables and chairs and orange trees in large ceramic pots.

  Standing atop one of these tables was Adriel, and despite the absolute stunning nature of the place, it was to him that all the eyes were drawn. Indeed, that power that I’d felt when I was further away was much stronger here, like a pulse that travelled along the cobblestones and over the surfaces of the buildings. It rippled over the surface of the pool, making the water shimmer and churn as if kicked up by a fierce, invisible storm.

  Surrounding the courtyard were various other trees that blossomed and bloomed with flowers that were pink, gold, and white. They made an effective wall of green that offered the space some privacy and serenity amidst the gray stone buildings. If not for the overwhelming smell of magic, I knew that the scent of these blooms would own the area.

  But magic rent the air, making the fur on the top of my head and between my shoulders stand on end. It was so potent that I thought if I stuck my tongue out, I might be able to taste it.

  Adriel’s eyes glowed a dazzling scarlet, and his ebony hair was coifed up messily in stark contrast to his pale skin. His handsome face was set in concentration, the fine lines of his jaws clenched against the enormous amount of power he was wielding.

  It rippled over every inch of his muscular form. He wore his usual black slacks and black button-up shirt, but I could see the flexing of his abs and arms and chest as he summoned the magic to capture all the Hounds in place.

  In my eighteen or so years of life, I’d never seen anything so magnificent.

  Adriel flexed his fingers, and the Hounds who were still arriving froze in their tracks. He gathered them as if they were no more than a handful of rice grains, inanimate things created for him to manipulate.

  As I stood in reverent awe of Adriel, telling myself sternly to stop wondering what that powerful body would look like without the fine clothes, the Hounds who were running right into his clutches looked as though they’d found themselves in a real life nightmare.

  If not for the potency of the magic, the scent of fear would have been overwhelming as well.

  The Hounds stared at Adriel as though he was a monster, and I supposed even through my newfound appreciation for him, I could sympathize with their fear. Hadn’t I thought exactly the same thing when I’d first met him, and for some time after, too? In fact, hadn’t I called him a monster? Hadn’t I held the fact that he was Mixbreed against him? It came to me with shameful shock just then that I’d only recently stopped referring to Adriel as “the Mixbreed” in my head.

  As I stood watching him atop that platform in the center of that shimmering pool, surrounded by Hounds who looked as though they’d been struck with the fear of the Gods, I felt ashamed of the way I’d treated Adriel. I felt ashamed of my own prejudices and ignorance.

  Now that I seemed to have awakened, it made me cringe to think of how deeply asleep I’d been, how very blind.

  When Yarik and Yarin and all the others arrived, I felt a sense of relief that surprised me. I was safe with these people, this mismatch group of incredible beings, and they were safe with me.

  Once we were reasonably sure that we’d gathered all the Hounds in the courtyard, Aysari and Eryx flew across the pool to that center platform, where Adriel was still standing strong, though looking even paler than usual. The two Fae raised their arms and began to hum in a tone that instantly made me want to curl up in a warm place and go to sleep. It was a song of the woods, and it called to the plant life around us.

  To my utter astonishment, the large trees with the pink, gold, and white flowers began to grow, but in a way that was most unnatural. Their brown, thorny limbs stretched and elongated, expanding until they formed an impenetrable dome around the entire courtyard, trapping the Hounds inside.

  Beneath it, the Hounds who were in their Wolf forms actually whimpered with fear, and if my strong nose was accurate, more than a few of them even wetted themselves. The Hounds in their mortal forms cursed and cried out, screaming racial slurs about Demons, Mixbreeds, and dark magic.

  If not for these racist remarks, I might have sympathized with them. As Wolves, we’d been separated from the other races into our own Territory, over which the Pack Masters ruled. All we knew of the other races were the stereotypes, the stories we were told that went back generations. It was no wonder the Hounds were so afraid of what they were seeing.

  The real wonder was that I was not.

  As soon as the Hounds were all contained in the tangle of thick, thorny branches, Adriel vanished from his position inside, likely needing to rest after wielding all that magic. Aysari and Eryx used their Fae magic to open a hole in the top of the dome, fly out, and then close it behind them.

  And, like that, all the Hounds who’d entered Mina were successfully trapped.

  The only question now was what to do with them. />
  24

  Goldie and I stood looking at the enormous dome of thorny branches enclosing the Hounds in the courtyard, trying to spot a specific Hound, and failing.

  “Did he follow you?” I asked telepathically. “I thought he was following you.”

  Goldie shook her red-gold head. “I thought so, too, but I don’t see him in there. Do you?”

  I scanned the group of angry Hounds for what felt like the hundredth time. “No, I don’t.”

  Inside the dome, most of the Hounds had shifted back into their mortal forms, and a few of them taunted us now from behind the impenetrable branches.

  “Let me out, ladies,” one of them said, gripping at his privates grotesquely and squeezing. “I’ll make it worth your while.”

  “Shut your stupid mouth, Hound,” Goldie snapped, but this only made the Hounds laugh and holler.

  Rolling my eyes, I took Goldie’s arm and pulled her away from the courtyard. People were taking turns standing guard, making sure none of the Hounds tried to escape, even though Aysari and Eryx were wholly confident that their branch dome was unbreakable.

  “Okay, so we need to assume Mekhi is still on the loose,” I said. “Neither of us actually saw him go into the courtyard, and neither of us spotted him just now. We should tell the others.”

  Goldie nodded, her pretty face tight with concern. “I already did. They’re sweeping the town and surrounding forest, and everyone is on high alert… I just hate the idea of him being out there somewhere.”

  I pulled her into a hug, and Goldie relaxed in my arms.

  “Me too,” I said. “But we’ll find him, and when we do, I’m going to kill him.”

  Goldie pulled back and met my gaze. Studying my face, she gave a half smile and tucked a piece of my dark hair behind my ear. “I thought we agreed to try and save the Hounds,” she said.

  I shrugged. “I’ll say I had no choice,” I replied.

  Goldie chuckled, looping her arm through mine and pulling me away from the site of the impromptu prison, where some of the Hounds were now howling up into the night.

  “After everything that’s happened,” Goldie said, “you’re still the same old Rook.”

  I shook my head, sighing and remembering my realizations in the courtyard earlier this evening, as I’d watched the Hounds cower in fear in the presence of Adriel.

  “No,” I said, “But I think I’m getting better.”

  Goldie gave my hand a squeeze. “I’ll drink to that, my love.”

  I found myself smiling again, and thought that it was an expression I could get used to wearing. The past couple days had been long, grueling, and more than a little crazy, but all in all, I felt as though things had turned out okay.

  “You’re right,” I told Goldie. “I’d say we’ve earned it.”

  Goldie snorted, pulling me along a little faster. “You’re Gods damned right we did.”

  I kissed her on the cheek. “I just need to make a stop first. Meet me at the tavern in an hour?”

  Goldie’s lips pursed as she raised an eyebrow knowingly. “Yeah, okay,” she said with a grin. “Do what you have to do.”

  I found Adriel in his small room within the library, where he’d taken me to heal after rescuing me from the clutches of the Enenra in the Dead Forest not too many moons ago.

  I hesitated beside the nearby stacks just outside the room when I got there, pretending to examine one of the tomes while shooting glances at the closed door of his bedroom.

  The longer I stayed where I was, the more my nerve seemed to be leaving me. Steeling myself, I drew a breath and headed for the door.

  I’d almost reached it when it opened. Asha stepped out of the room, closing the door partly behind her. She paused and raised a dark brow when she saw me.

  “He needs to rest,” she told me in her usual curt tone.

  From over her shoulder there was a sigh, and then Adriel’s voice, weary but still as smooth as always, floated out. “Let her in, Ash,” he said.

  Rolling her eyes, Asha stepped to the side and waved a hand for me to enter before stalking out of the library in her typical fashion. I tried hard to ignore the pang of jealousy that struck me at seeing her exit Adriel’s bedroom, but it was there, nonetheless. I told myself it didn’t matter to me what Asha had been doing in there. She had as much right to visit Adriel as I did. Maybe more.

  Suddenly, I felt utterly stupid, and turned on my heels so that I could run away, but before I could do so, Adriel’s voice drifted out of the room once more.

  “Are you just going to stand there, Rukiya dearest?” he called. “Or are you going to come in?”

  A single moment ago I’d thought that I couldn’t feel any stupider than I already did, but as I stood just beyond the threshold of that room, my cheeks flaring red, I realized I had been wrong.

  Releasing an unsteady breath while my stomach fluttered, I placed my hand on the heavy wooden door and pushed it open.

  Then, I stepped inside and shut the door behind me, feeling the heat of the small fireplace in the room as it blazed with a red and yellow flame… And a heat from somewhere inside me as well.

  Just as there had been the last time I’d been in here, there were stacks of books haphazardly arranged about the cozy space. The fireplace was a large column of stone that went from floor to ceiling in the center of the room with an open area where the flames flickered. There was also a desk with books on it, a nightstand with books on it, and three bookshelves with books on them.

  Other than that, there was the bed, and the ornate leather chair by the fireplace.

  It was in this chair that Adriel sat, staring into the flames.

  I felt something in my chest give a tug as my eyes finally found him. It wasn’t until just this moment that I realized Goldie was not the only person I’d been genuinely worried about in our latest escapades. Adriel had used an enormous amount of magic in that courtyard, and the gentle thrum of power radiating off him that was usually a strong pulse was testament to this fact.

  He also looked paler than usual, as if the very blood had been drained out of him.

  Despite this, he was still as handsome as ever, of course, as striking as the first time I’d seen him… But there was more to him now. Or, at least, I was seeing more of him, and I came to the conclusion that I didn’t like seeing him this way.

  I didn’t like seeing him hurt.

  When the first tear fell from my eye, it took a few heartbeats for me to realize I was crying. I’d come into his room while he was resting, taken one look at him, and started crying like a damn fool. These thoughts and the embarrassment of it all only made the tears come faster, harder, until I was just standing there with salt water pouring down my cheeks, shudders wracking my breath.

  The small smirk that had been on his beautiful face when I’d entered slipped away, and through my sobs I heard him whisper with such sorrow that it only hurt my aching heart more, “Oh, Rukiya.”

  Then, he was standing before me. He moved with such supernatural speed that I blinked and he was there, having relocated from his resting position in the chair in an instant. He placed his cool, pale hands on the sides of my face and brushed the tears away with his calloused but gentle thumbs.

  “Shh,” he whispered, pulling me close, wrapping me into the safety of his strong arms. “It’s okay.”

  I shook my head where it rested against his wide chest, listening to the steady beat of his heart underneath. “It’s not okay,” I said, in a voice so small I hardly recognized it as my own. “None of it’s okay… I was so wrong, and I’m sorry. I treated you terribly, and I’m an asshole for it. I’m so sorry.”

  Adriel’s deft fingers stroked my back in circles, the fresh scent of soap and peppermint filling my senses. I wrapped my arms around him, sniffing back my sobs as a feeling other than shame and sadness slammed into me.

  Rather suddenly, I wondered what would happen if I found the nerve to lift my chin up and kiss him, if Adriel would kiss me back
.

  I felt his chest rise and fall with a sigh. “You never have to apologize to me, Rukiya,” he said. “Not ever.”

  I pulled back so that I could look at him, and marveled at how lovely his skin was this close, how smooth and perfect. His hands slipped down to my waist as he stared down at me from his taller height. His scarlet eyes made the flickering flames in the fireplace seem like nothing more than sparks and embers. The light danced over his handsome face and in the thick ebony locks of his hair, and I found myself wanting to reach up and touch it. To run my fingers through it and get a feel of what it would be like to grip his hair and use the hold to draw him closer.

  “I do have to apologize,” I said, finally gaining some control over myself. “I was wrong about you.” I swallowed, the words feeling inadequate, but no less necessary. “The whole world is wrong about you.”

  One side of Adriel’s perfect mouth ticked up, and I thought that if he kept looking at me the way he was, this thing between us was going to take a turn real quickly. The very idea both terrified and thrilled me, but now that I’d finally allowed it to float to the forefront of my mind, there was no getting rid of it.

  “The whole world is wrong about a lot of things,” Adriel whispered.

  I nodded in agreement, watching the way his lips moved when he spoke in that smooth, strange accent.

  “I made you something,” he said, stepping away from me and going over to the small nightstand near the bed.

  I subconsciously took a step toward him before I reined my body in.

  Adriel opened the little drawer of the nightstand and reached inside, and I watched the ease with which his muscular body moved as he did so. When his hand emerged, it was holding a silver chain. He glanced up at me and tipped his head back to summon me over, and I closed the distance between us with controlled enthusiasm. I could feel my heart thrumming in my chest, could feel the fluttering of my stomach.

  When I reached him, Adriel opened his hand, and I saw that the silver chain he’d retrieved from the nightstand was a necklace with a glowing red amulet. Adriel took my hand and pressed the amulet into my palm, his red eyes traveling up slowly to meet mine.