Master of the Moon
Page 1
Werewolf Vixen
She had the most erotic mouth he’d ever seen—full, sweetly curved, naked of paint.
“You’re beautiful,” she murmured, tracing her long, slender fingers over the curve of his chest. “Are you real?”
“As real as you, my dream,” he said.
Then her witchy gaze captured him, silver with magic. She bent to kiss him, her mouth wet and burning. As she moaned against his lips, he set himself to pleasure her, swirling his tongue between her teeth. Her corner teeth felt oddly sharp, but he didn’t care.
He caught the back of her head in one hand. Her hair felt as soft as a cat’s fur. Discovering the sensitive whorls of one delicate ear, he stopped to explore. Unlike his own, it wasn’t pointed. “You’re human,” he murmured.
“Not really,” she whispered…
Praise for the novels of
Angela Knight
“Knight…seems to have a promising future.”
—Booklist
“Nicely written, quickly paced, and definitely on the erotic side.”
—Library Journal
“Exhilarating…action-packed.”
—Midwest Book Review
Berkley Sensation books by Angela Knight
JANE’S WARLORD
MASTER OF THE NIGHT
MASTER OF THE MOON
MASTER
of the
MOON
ANGELA KNIGHT
THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc. 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Group (Canada), 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario M4V 3B2, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)
Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
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Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
MASTER OF THE MOON
A Berkley Sensation Book / published by arrangement with the author
Copyright © 2005 by Angela Knight.
Excerpt from Master of Wolves copyright © 2005 by Angela Knight.
Cover art by Franco Accornero.
Cover design by George Long.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
For information address: The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
ISBN: 1-101-15814-X
BERKLEY® SENSATION
Berkley Sensation Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
BERKLEY SENSATION and the “B” design are trademarks belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
Contents
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Several good friends helped me get this one into your hands. As always, there was my wonderful critique partner, Diane Whiteside, who helps me spot the howlers as I go long. Then Morgan Hawke and Sheri Ross Fogarty gave it a fresh read and helped me find still more stuff to fix.
And as always, my thanks go to my editor, Cindy Hwang, who gave me the chance I’d always dreamed of.
Thanks, ladies!
PROLOGUE
The Palace of the Cachamwri Sidhe
401 A.D., Christian Calendar
2033rd year of Dearg Galatyn’s Reign
Llyr Galatyn paced the chamber, fear and hope warring in his chest. If anyone could save his father from the wound he’d suffered, it was Merlin. The alien wizard’s powers were greater than any Sidhe’s.
But the Dark One who had struck down Dearg Galatyn was also a creature with vast powers, and the magic that had tipped its poisoned blade was slowly eating the Sidhe king from the inside out. None of the Sidhe healers had been able to reverse the spell.
Dearg was perilously close to death.
“Do stop that pacing,” Ansgar Galatyn growled. “You wear on my patience.”
As if he’d ever had any. Still, Llyr obeyed, moving instead to the window to look out at his father’s garden. The sound of falling water pattered from the nearest of the three fountains, and a deceptive peace lay over the flowers bobbing gently in the night breeze.
Dearg had always loved his roses.
Grief rising, Llyr breathed in their rich perfume. Just that morning, the stench of the battlefield had gagged him as he and his father fought the Dark Ones who had ambushed them. The war to save their human cousins from the demonic invaders had been costly indeed. “If Merlin can’t reverse the spell, Father won’t last the night,” he said. “I don’t know what I will do without him.” The thought of the old man’s death lay on his heart like a stone.
“Well, I, for one, plan to make a great many changes.” There was a note of menace in Ansgar’s voice.
Llyr looked over his shoulder. His brother lounged in his favorite chair, dressed to catch a woman’s eye in a blue tunic, thick hose, and boots, all richly worked with gems and gold thread. He’d braided sapphires into two locks of his hip-length black hair. There was no grief at all in his slight smile.
With his father dying, Llyr had donned a plain black jerkin and leggings; he hadn’t had the patience to fuss with full court garb. “Aren’t you getting ahead of yourself?”
The smile turned into a sneer. “You can’t imagine he’ll name you his heir? You’re a child.”
He was one hundred and two. Though young by immortal standards, he was no child. Ansgar, on the other hand, was two centuries older.
Llyr’s first memory was of his brother’s kick.
He’d always known why Ansgar hated him, and he was just angry enough at his brother’s callousness to use that knowledge now. Flexing an arm, Llyr drew attention to the outline of a dragon curled around his biceps, shimmering with ancient magic. “You may be firstborn, brother, but you’re not the Heir to Heroes.”
Rage leaped in Ansgar’s eyes. Despite himself, Llyr had to control his flinch. When he’d been a child, his brother often beat him when he wor
e that look. Afterward, Ansgar would use his magic to heal Llyr’s injuries so he could deny the crime if the boy was foolish enough to go to their father. Then he’d beat him again for tattling.
Llyr hated his brother with a pure, incandescent passion. He also knew if Ansgar became king, it wouldn’t take him long to see that Llyr met with a fatal accident.
But before Ansgar could spew more of his venom, the door of their father’s chamber opened. Llyr turned, hope leaping.
It was dashed at the look on Merlin’s ageless face. “There’s nothing we can do,” the alien wizard said, as his mate Nimue slipped out after him. “I have attempted a dozen spells, but the poison overcomes them all.” His gaze met Llyr’s in warm sympathy. “He wishes to see the two of you.”
“Finally.” Ansgar rolled out of his chair and strode eagerly toward the chamber door.
Llyr frowned at Ansgar’s back, wondering whether his brother’s hands were entirely clean in the ambush that had left their father dying. Surely even Ansgar was not capable of such treachery. If Llyr ever discovered he had been…His fingers tightened on the hilt of his sword as he followed his brother into the chamber.
He saw with bitter cynicism that Ansgar had fallen to his knees beside the old man’s bed, holding Dearg’s hand, shoulders shaking in a fine imitation of grief. “Father,” he said, voice breaking. “Oh, Father…”
Dragon’s Breath, Llyr ached to call his brother out, but the side of Dearg’s deathbed was not the place to do it. The old man loved Ansgar with a father’s doting blindness.
Controlling his anger, Llyr moved to the other side of the bed and took his father’s icy hand. Tears welled in his eyes as he looked down into Dearg’s face, and he blinked them back fiercely.
The king had been youthful and handsome just that morning, but barely five hours after the ambush, his face was as drawn as a skull. The body that had been so powerful when they’d sat down to breakfast now appeared little more than a bundle of dry twigs, and his opalescent eyes were dull and filmy.
“Father,” Llyr managed, a dozen desperate words flooding his tongue. He didn’t think he could say any of them without losing control of his grief. The king’s fingers tightened on his in response.
“Listen, my sons,” Dearg husked. Each faint syllable seemed a work of vast effort. Llyr and Ansgar had to lean close to hear him. “My time is short. I will not speak of my love for you. You know of it.”
“Oh, whatever will I do without—” Ansgar burst out.
“Shh…listen. I cannot leave one of you the kingdom and give the other…nothing. There’d be…trouble. Our people have had enough”—he had to stop and pant before he could finish—“enough of war.”
Llyr ached to deny he’d lead a rebellion if Ansgar became king, but he held his tongue. For one thing, he wasn’t sure it was true. Ansgar would be a nightmare as king. Even war would be preferable. But Dearg had never seen his eldest son’s faults.
His father gave them a tight, painful smile. “So it’s fortunate I have…two kingdoms for…for my two sons.”
Ansgar stiffened. “What?”
“You, Ansgar, will be king of the Morven Sidhe…while you…you, Llyr, will hold the Cachamwri throne.”
“No!” Ansgar spat, throwing aside the old man’s hand as he exploded to his feet. “You can’t give the Cachamwri to this puppy! I was to rule both kingdoms—I am firstborn! The Morven are a conquered people, while we have ruled the Cachamwri ten thousand years.” He shot a deadly glare at Llyr. “I will not take his leavings.”
Dying or no, Dearg’s icy will showed in his eyes. “You lack the mark, Ansgar. The king of the Cachamwri Sidhe…must wear Cachamwri’s Mark. As the Heir to Heroes…Llyr can call the Dragon…in the hour of our greatest need. As he must answer when Cachamwri calls. This is our pact with Cachamwri, the Dragon God.”
“This for your pact.” Deliberately, Ansgar spat on the floor beside the bed. Furious at the insult, Llyr dropped a hand to his sword. “Cachamwri is a fool, if he’d choose this whelp to wear the Mark over me.”
“No!” Dearg rapped out with surprising strength. “You will not kill one another. Heed me now!”
The brothers turned, startled, as the king lifted one frail hand. Magic flared around it, sparking and glowing.
Whoooom!
Before either could react, the magical blast slammed into them both with a cold, burning ferocity. Each cried out in shock. “What have you done, old man?” Ansgar gasped, falling to one knee as Llyr struggled to hold his feet.
Dearg’s hand fell weakly to the bed. His voice dropped to a faint, dying whisper. “If one of you attempts to slay the other with magic, my curse will turn that magic on you threefold. I will not have you…fighting…No more…war…” His eyes went fixed as his spirit fled.
“He used his own life force to power that spell,” Llyr whispered, stunned. “Why would he…?”
“Because he knew I’d kill you the first chance I got,” Ansgar snarled, climbing to his feet, his eyes blazing with fury in his white face. “So I’ll just have to look for another way.” He whirled and stalked out the door.
Llyr didn’t turn as the door slammed behind Ansgar. Slowly, he sank to one knee at his father’s bedside and took the cold, still hand in his. Dropping his forehead against Dearg’s icy fingers, he wept.
One Year Later
Llyr sat on the throne that had once been his father’s, looking over intelligence reports from his spies in the Morven Kingdom that Ansgar now ruled. His brother had been all too busy of late, ordering the execution of those who complained about the freedoms he’d stripped from the Sidhe accustomed to his father’s kind hand.
So far, though, he’d made no move against Llyr. With any luck, Dearg’s protections would be enough to make sure that dubious peace continued.
As if the curse was insufficient, Dearg’s will ordered that if either king tried to kill the other by physical means, the nobles of both courts were to rise against him and strip him of his crown. Llyr wasn’t sure it would be that easy, but hopefully the provision would never be put to the test.
Hearing the throne room’s double doors open, he glanced up. “The wizards Merlin and Nimue,” his guard captain announced in ringing tones.
Llyr straightened as the two aliens strode across the throne room toward him, both smiling. The lovers looked like mortal youths—barely old enough to be lovers—but an air of power hung around them that proclaimed they were far more than they seemed. He put his reports aside and gave them a welcoming smile. “Well met, my friends.”
The two didn’t kneel, and Llyr didn’t ask it of them. Their eyes held such age and wisdom that he found them slightly intimidating. “You look better,” Nimue said in her delicate, chiming voice. Blond, lithe as a nymph, she wore a delicate froth of ivory silk that belled around her tiny feet. “I am pleased to see your grief weighs less heavily on you, Your Majesty.”
“I only wish we could have done more for your father,” Merlin added with a sigh.
“I was grateful you made the effort,” Llyr told him. “None of our Sidhe healers were able to help him either.”
Merlin shrugged. “It was the least we could do, after all Dearg did to help us drive off the Dark Ones.”
His father had been skeptical of Merlin and Nimue when the alien couple had first arrived on Sidhe Earth two years before. After all, the last group of starfarers the Sidhe had encountered had been the invading Dark Ones thousands of years before.
It had not been an auspicious introduction. The Dark Ones preyed on the life force of others through murder and torture, and they had decimated the Sidhe people. It had taken centuries and the help of Cachamwri himself to banish them.
Even then, the Dark Ones had only fled to the next dimension over, Mortal Earth. That world was a copy of the Sidhe version except that magic barely functioned there. As a result, the humans who occupied it had no magical abilities, and the Dark Ones had been able to prey on them with impunity.
At least until the starfarers Merlin and Nimue arrived and convinced Dearg to help them drive the Dark Ones from Mortal Earth. Dearg had finally agreed, fearing the Dark Ones might otherwise decide to attack the Sidhe again.
In the end, the Sidhe and their allies had defeated the demons and imprisoned their leader, Geirolf. Unfortunately, that victory had cost the lives of Dearg and two thousand Sidhe warriors.
With an effort, Llyr lifted his head and shook off his grief. “Have you selected your champions yet?”
Merlin had told him the two aliens intended to create a race of guardians who would guide and nurture the human race into adulthood. To that end, they had created a magical grail that would genetically alter those who drank from it, making the women magic-using Majae, and the males, powerful vampire shape-shifters.
The wizard nodded. “Actually, that’s why I’m here. My Magekind—”
“Magekind?”
“That’s what we’re calling our creations,” Nimue explained in her soft voice.
“They need a base of operations on this dimension’s Earth,” Merlin explained. “Because they have so little magic on their own, they’ll need to live here to replenish their powers.”
Llyr sat back on his throne with a frown. “Merlin, this world belongs to the Sidhe. I don’t want an alien colony here.”
“You need not worry, Your Majesty. Avalon will be located on the other side of the planet from the Sidhe kingdoms.”
And the Sidhe bred so slowly, it would be millennia before there need be much contact between the two realms. Particularly given their recent casualties. “Still…”