by H. D. Gordon
Eventually, after winding deeper and deeper, we reached an enormous cavern, and the sound of trickling water filled the space. I released a breath of air I had not realized I’d been holding as the ship came into view, as the group of people I loved turned and faced us, as their expressions relaxed in relief.
“Dita!” Ada cried as she ran at me, wrapping her arms around my leg despite the fact that it was bloody and my clothes were dripping wet.
Ana followed right on her heels, throwing her arms around my other leg in a mirror of her sister’s actions. All the stoicism I possessed was not enough to keep a small grunt of pain from escaping me, but I had to swallow hard past a lump that had formed in my throat. I also had to blink several times to contain the tears that wanted to form in my eyes.
It was then I realized that for a minute there, I’d truly thought I would never see the twins again, that I would never see any of these people again, and I was so very damn grateful that I was getting to.
Now there was no amount of fortitude that could keep the tears at bay. When Delia came forward and hugged me as well, along with Demarco, and the ladies who had all followed me to this point, I could only swipe the tears away and fight a losing battle against the shivers that were trying to rule my body.
At that moment, someone on the deck blew a whistle, and the ship’s captain leaned her head over the bow to sneer at us. “All aboard!” she yelled. “I’ve got places to be, so hurry it up.”
Cora had glided over to me in the smooth way her kind had, and after hugging me along with the others, she whispered, “I can’t believe you made a deal with the Dead Pirates.”
The expression was hard to muster, but I managed to give the Vampire a small smile. “The safest and most efficient way to travel,” I joked.
Cora shook her head, but I could see from the look in her eyes that she had also been worried I wasn’t going to make it, and was glad that I had.
The Dead Pirate’s ship was a thing of legends, and as I stared up at the massive bows, the finely shaped and well used wood that curved around the bottom, the expertly created statue of Poseidon that headed the front, with his trident and long, thick beard, I could hardly believe it myself.
The ship was massive, and it took up most of the cavern in which we were standing. A dock had been set up, which my party now climbed so that they could board. There was a wide river that cut through the center of the Murdock Mountains, something I had not known until Kyra and I searched the place many moons ago, trying to locate a good place to make our shine, and in the process, we had stumbled upon the river and the pirates that came and went as well.
The pirates were not dead, of course, but stories claimed they could not die, either, that they had been cursed with eternal life for some long ago committed sin. I’d learned that they used the pass through the mountains to transport stolen goods, and my next logical leap had been that if things went bad with Lukas Borden, I would barter with one of the pirate captains to get me and mine out of the Southlands.
As it had turned out, things had indeed gone bad.
Still, stepping onto the pirate ship was a surreal feeling, like stepping into a fairytale, or through the door to another world.
That’s where we were heading, I realized.
A whole other world.
My only hope was that we would not be haunted by the one we’d left behind us.
Chapter 31
Inside the mountain, it was always night.
The only sun that made it through the rock was revealed in golden streaks that did little to pierce the shadows and warm the magnificent place.
According to our fearsome captain, the pirates had been using this pass for ages, and at some point, the heathens had fixed some torches to the walls and convinced a magic user to infuse them with the undying flame blessed by Apollo.
These torches were set at intervals just wide enough for the shadows to swallow the ship in between, casting everything into darkness deep enough that one could not even seen their hand hovering before their face. This would last about ten seconds, and the ship sailed on in the pitch black before the blue light of another Apollo blessed torch once again illuminated the cavern with its low glow.
This blue light also danced along the shimmering stalactites hanging from the ceiling, making them look as though they were crafted from ice and diamonds. The river on which the ship sailing kept its easy pace, its path through the rock having been carved out for thousands of years.
I passed out after only a handful of minutes, the energy it took to change out of my soaking clothes and into some dry ones the last I had to spare.
When I awoke, I was below deck, and it took me a moment to remember where I was and what had happened.
I could not remember about what I had been dreaming, but I came to with sweat coating my forehead and my heart leaping out of my chest as I gulped down air. When I was able to calm myself, squeezing my eyes shut to drown out the echo of Wolves howling in agony left over from whatever dream I’d been having, I pulled myself to a seated position.
I was alone in a small room below deck, which held little more than an old cot and a wooden chair, and I thanked the Gods for this small favor. I couldn’t be sure of what I looked like at the moment, but I was sure that I wasn’t quite ready to face anyone just yet.
Eventually, though, I made myself get up. Someone—Devon, if I had to guess—had left me a basin and fresh water, towels and other items that would go a long way in making me feel less grimy, and I put them to good use.
All the washing and scrubbing and brushing in the world couldn’t cleanse away the stains I’d spilled on my soul, however, and this was something I sensed more than I thought.
Just as I was about to exit the small room and go face all the people who were no doubt waiting for me to fill them in on my latest exploits, there was a knock on the door. It opened without waiting for me to answer, and Kyra stood there.
For a long moment, we only stared at each other. The Sorceress still looked tired, but not half dead, as she had the last time I’d seen her. Her curly hair was a wild cloud above her head, her violet eyes perhaps a little dimmer than usual, as if a certain spark were lacking. But her mouth tilted up in a smile as she assessed my state the same way I’d assessed her.
Then we were in each other’s arms, hugging each other so fiercely that wild horses would have had a hard time dividing us. We held on for a while longer, and tears ran down my cheeks as I breathed in the familiar scent of her, as I recalled all of the most recent happenings, what she had done to save me.
We were not blood. Hell, we were not even the same race, but we were family.
When we finally released each other, I had already wiped the tears from my face, and one side of my mouth pulled up as Kyra swiped away hers.
“You stupid ass bitch,” she said, laughing through the tears.
I stared at her a moment before breaking out into laughter as well. This had always been the way with us; we would barely make it out of some crazy situation I usually had some hand in getting us involved in, she would cuss me out, and then we would laugh as if us almost dying was the funniest thing in the world.
It died quickly this time, however, and we embraced each other again because a part of us still couldn’t believe that we were both here, both alive.
“What happened after I passed out?” Kyra asked.
I swallowed, the words feeling thick in my throat. “Lukas attacked us,” I said. “Him and Erek fought… Erek killed him.”
I told her about how I’d knocked Erek out because he had said he was going to arrest me before Lukas jumped out and tried to kill us both, and about how I’d stolen the horse and ridden like hell back to the mountain.
The Sorceress sat silently beside me on the cot while I did so, her violet eyes steady as she took in every word.
When I was done, she released a slow breath. “Do you think he’ll come after us?” she asked.
There hadn’t been time to consider this,
but as I thought about it now, a shiver ran down my spine. “I don’t know,” I answered honestly.
Kyra nodded. “And Lukas… What about his people? What about Lucian? Are you sure he didn’t make it out of the fire?”
I squeezed my hands into fists to keep them from shaking. “I don’t know,” I repeated. “And, no, I can’t be sure. I think he burned up inside with the rest of them.” I had to pause, because the words tasted bad in my mouth, like blood and ash.
Yes, those Wolves had been Lukas’s muscle, had been trying to kill us, but that didn’t make the way in which they’d burned any less horrific.
I supposed they would join Ezra in haunting my dreams at night, but that was a problem for later.
Kyra nodded again, as if she’d been expecting these indefinite answers.
“What about the Seers?” I asked. “You used a lot of illegal magic back there… Will they be after you now?”
The Sorceress smirked, but there was little humor behind it. “Yes, I suppose they will… Which is why I hope you paid that crazy pirate bitch enough to take us all the way across the seven seas. Between Lukas’s people, Erek, and the Seer’s Hunter’s, we’re going to be the most wanted females in history.”
“I paid her enough,” I replied, and my head tilted as I considered. “And I don’t know, have you read any of our history? There are some pretty badass females on the books.”
“Um hmm,” Kyra hummed. “Shall we check in on the little mess we left behind, then?” she asked. She reached into her purple cloak, which was now dry enough to make me wonder just how long I’d been sleeping, and pulled out a translucent orb that was about the size of an apple.
I stared at the orb in her hand. “I’m not sure I want to know,” I admitted. The mountain walls would block the Seers from being able to track the magic, but that didn’t mean I was ready to face things.
Kyra looked at me through the corner of her eyes. “Not even about Erek? You don’t want to know what he told his Hound friends, who likely found him unconscious beside a burning building with a bunch of dead Wolf criminals inside?”
I choked out a laugh. “Well, when you put it like that…”
Kyra’s orb swirled with gray clouds not unlike those that had chased us into the mountains.
She waved her hand over the surface, muttering words in an ancient language, and slowly, a scene began to unfold inside its glassy depths.
There were the lavender fields outside Borden, and there was the storehouse, the fire that had been engulfing it finally dead, leaving only a charred mass that looked both sad and pitiful under the light of the early morning sun.
Hounds in uniforms were everywhere, crawling over the place like ants on a hill, some carrying clipboards, others gathering evidence in bags, others chatting and keeping back a small group of onlookers and reporters who had found their way to the scene.
Kyra held the orb aloft in her palms, and we leaned our heads together as we peered at it. We were close enough that she heard the small intake of breath I took when the orb revealed Erek Blackwood.
His green eyes were weary but focused, and he was standing beside another Hound, looking down at something. When the angle shifted a little more, and the orb revealed that they were looking down at Lukas Borden’s dead body, which had shifted back into his mortal form upon his death, my already tight stomach clenched even more.
Their voices floated up from the orb. “What the hell happened here, Blackwood?” the Hound beside Erek asked.
Erek was still staring down at Lukas, his expression haunted in a way I knew too well.
“He tried to kill me,” he said. “His Wolves jumped me at the inn where I was staying, knocked me out, brought me here and tied me up.”
“Okay, but why?” asked the other Hound. “Because of that disappearance you were looking into. That—what was the name? Ezra Akers?”
“Ikers,” Erek corrected. “And… I don’t know.”
Another Hound was looking over Lukas’s body, digging through the pockets of his suit. He looked up at Erek and the Hound beside him, and held up a golden chain.
“What’s this?” the Hound beside Erek asked. He took the chain and held it up as well. A golden pendant in the shape of an E caught the early morning sunlight and glittered. Kyra glanced over at me with raised brows, and I quickly explained that I had slipped the chain into Lukas’s pocket when he’d visited my family at The Mound, and had leaned into kiss my cheek outside my house.
In the little orb, Erek snatched the necklace away, clearly recognizing it. “That belonged to Ezra,” he said.
The Hound—who I was starting to suspect was Erek’s superior—raised a brow. “So the two are connected. You think Mr. Borden tried to kill you because you were getting close to finding out what happened to Mr. Ikers?”
The Hound who’d been searching Lukas’s pockets stood and rolled his neck. “I’ve heard things about Mr. Borden here. It would make sense.”
Both Hounds looked toward Erek. “What about all the magic used here? Hell, I can still smell it in the air, and now, I got the damn Hunters breathing down my neck, demanding access to the scene.
Kyra and I held our breath as we waited for Erek to respond.
“Lukas must have had a magic user in his employ,” Erek said carefully.
Kyra and I exchanged glances.
“This is a Gods’ damned mess, Blackwood?” the Head Hound said. “Anything else we should know?”
I could hardly breathe as the orb focused in on Erek, as his green eyes stared back at me without even knowing I was there.
“Not that I can think of,” Erek said.
Kyra and I exhaled together.
After a moment, the scene in the orb disappeared, and the opaque gray surface reappeared. She slipped the ball back into her cloak, and looked at me with serious purple eyes.
“He lied for me,” I said.
The Sorceress snorted. “Yeah, well, you almost died for him.”
Silence fell in which we both just looked at each other. For now, there seemed to be nothing left to say.
After this, we found our way up to the main deck, and I paused as I watched my family gathered around a table. Not just my siblings, but the ladies as well, all sitting beside each other, a pack of misfits that had beaten the odds.
Kyra paused beside me, and I reached into my own pocket and removed a folded piece of paper, silky and worn with age.
“Lead us home, boss,” Kyra whispered.
So, finally, I did.
The End… For Now
Moon of Shadows, book 2 in The Blood Pack Trilogy, coming soon!
About the Author
H. D. Gordon is the author of several urban fantasy novels. She is the mother of two amazing daughters, and a lover of kick-ass females, beautiful things, and nerdy t-shirts.
She believes our actions have ripple effects, and in the sacred mission of bringing love and light to the world.
H. D. spends her time with family, eating desserts, and taking strolls by the sea.
She resides in southern New Jersey—which she insists is really quite lovely.
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Copyright © 2018 by H. D. Gordon
Published by H. D. Gordon Books LLC
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
All rights reserved.
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Cover design by Deranged Doctor Design
For all the brave & beautiful women of the world
Chapter 1
The summer sun blazed down over Dogshead and the surrounding lands as if it had been personally insulted by the mere existence of the place. I leaned against the squat wood structure that housed a bar and gambling den, stealing some of the shade cast by the wretched building, drawing deeply of the smoke balanced between my first and second fingers.
The clank and clatter of someone striking a tin bell rang through the square, and people began to emerge from the wooden edifices. The unpaved, dusty street—not having seen a good rain for nearly two weeks—sent up plumes of dirt as children and stray dogs darted here and there. Others gathered under the shade cast by the squat structures, leaned on fence posts, and sat beneath the awnings of hotels, hostels, and various dens of iniquity.
I remained where I was, smoking my square. It was the first of the month, the time when the new Dogs would be brought in, which was always a spectacle.
It was also a fight weekend, and I was one of the unlucky Dogs on the roster. When the unforgiving sun set tomorrow evening, I would step into The Ring for the eighteenth time—a number that matched my approximate age. I would be forced to shift into my Wolf form and fight another to the death.
I knew he was behind me before he spoke, and I tilted my head in the slightest to let him know it was so.
“You got a fight tomorrow, don’t ya, Rook?” His voice was gravelly and somehow inherently offensive. I turned to see Murphy step out of the shadows cast by the adjacent building like a scarecrow come to life—which was actually an apt description of the male.
