Huntress Moon (Bones and Bounties Book 2)

by Bilinda Sheehan

  “I was sent on behalf of the Faerie Court,” I said, but I was cut off by a loud hissing that erupted from all sides, as though I was trapped in a pit of vipers.

  “What does the Court want with us?” the man called out, the power in his voice searching for any weakness from me.

  It wasn’t unusual for vampires to have powers beyond the average preternatural, but it was just my luck that what awaited me in the darkness was something more than just a blood sucker.

  “They say you have encroached on the lands of the nymphs,” I said, keeping my voice as devoid of all emotion as I could. The last thing I wanted was for the blood sucker to be able to get a true read on me.

  “I do not see any nymphs, do you?” he asked, sounding utterly reasonable.

  “I don’t see nymphs, but I did see blood,” I said. “If you have killed them, we both know what will happen.”

  “Yes, I know,” he answered, his voice growing closer.

  I heard the kind of rustling sound that wind makes as it passes through the leaves on a path in autumn. A cold hand slid around my throat, and a hard body pressed against my back.

  I could feel the power that animated him, an unnatural, malevolent force that kept him from the clutches of true death. I’d heard tales of vampires being little more than glorified demon-possessed creatures, but I’d never really spent a lot of time getting up close and personal with them, so my experience was limited.

  But as this one pressed against my back, I could feel his essence, could feel Death as it longed to reach out with its bony fingers and pluck the thread of life that kept the creature from moving on.

  Even through my clothes, the iciness of his body leeched into me, and I fought the urge to shiver. I didn’t want to give him anything—no reactions, no emotions, nothing.

  “If you do this, you will reignite the war,” I said. “I am sent by the Court, and if I do not return they will declare the treaty void.”

  “It was voided in Ireland,” he said, “and I thought the fae could not lie.”

  I froze, my body taking on the absolute stillness that came from being a harbinger.

  “I have not lied.”

  “If you are not the liar, then someone has lied to you—I can smell it on your skin, a bitterness that taints you.”

  “I did not lie,” I repeated, running the possibilities through my mind. Was he lying? It certainly wasn’t impossible…Wasn’t that something vampires were good at?

  “No, it is not,” he answered as though I’d said the question aloud.

  “Get out of my head,” I said.

  His grip on my throat tightened, but I remained still. I would not start the battle. The moment I fought back, his newborns would descend upon me like ravening animals. But if I played along, made no sudden movements, and talked him around, then perhaps, just perhaps, I would walk away without getting my throat ripped out.

  “I like it. Death stalks you.” He nuzzled in against my hair.

  “That is where you are wrong. It does not stalk me—I stalk it.”

  He laughed, the sound bouncing off my skin as he wrapped his other arm around my waist. The urge to jerk away from him washed through me with enough strength that I rocked on my heels, narrowly managing to keep steady. He hadn’t pinned my arms, yet he knew I held a machete in my hands. Hell, he was moulded against my body, so he had to know I was armed to the teeth.

  “Such foreplay! You might lead one as old as me to believe that you want this,” he said, and I felt his teeth graze my neck.

  “As old as you?” I repeated. “We are of an age.”

  “True, but your power is gone, whereas I just get stronger.”

  He moved then, his neck arching before he swooped down to bite. His speed surprised me, but as his mouth came down toward my neck, fangs fully extended, I snapped my head back and connected with his face and teeth with a resounding crunch.

  So much for getting out of there without starting a war.

  He roared, sending his creatures into a frenzy. He didn’t release me despite the force of my blow, but I felt his blood splattering down over my hair and neck.

  Flipping the machete in my grip, I jabbed it backwards, slicing along my own side so close I felt the leather of my tight jacket part against the blade. It sank home, and I tipped it upwards, struggling to thrust the sword in the direction of his heart.

  He fell away from me, taking the machete with him, and I rolled to the floor as another vampire raked his claws through the air where my face had been just seconds before.

  I flung myself forward, my hand already inside the bag of holy items as the next vampire fell on me, pinning me beneath his weight.

  I pressed my hands into the floor and bucked my body upwards, tossing him off with the strength of the fae blood that rushed in my veins. My power was not what it had been, but I was still fae.

  I tugged the bottle of holy water free and sprayed it in an arc, directly into the faces of the approaching vamps. Their pained screams and the sounds of them crashing into one another were the only indications that I had successfully found my mark.

  The howl of a wolf caught my ear, and something flew past me. The air was suddenly filled with growls and the crunch of bones as flesh was torn free, making my stomach turn.

  As I hopped to my feet, something grabbed me from behind, its strength catching me off guard as it tightened its grip to vice-like proportions and began to squeeze. As I fought against the hold, each breath became harder and harder to take. Another vampire moved in front of me at such close proximity that I could see the flash of his dark, power-filled eyes.

  He slid his hand around my throat, pushing my head back so that it rested against the shoulder of the one who had me in his clutches.

  “You should not have come here, little one,” he said, his voice like the rustling of dry leaves.

  He struck, his fangs sinking into my neck as I fought the grip of the vampire holding me. When I tried kicking him with my legs, he lifted me from the floor with a rough grunt. My arms were pinned to my sides, and though I clawed at his legs with my fingers, I may as well have been clawing at a brick wall for all the good it did.

  The master vamp’s fangs slipped through my skin like a hot knife through butter, the pain surprisingly minimal as he began to feed.

  Something cold grabbed my right arm, and the teeth that sank into my wrist were not as gentle as the master’s. I cried out as the newborn worried at the wound the way a dog might gnaw on a tasty bone.

  A pained screech tore the darkness, quickly followed by a whimper, but the vamp’s power washed over me, sucking away my will to fight, my drive to survive. The more he fed, the more I wanted him to, and I arched my neck to give him better access.

  There was so much he could give me, so much I wanted from him. Pain and pleasure mingled together, making it impossible for me to tell one from the other. I just knew that I wanted this—I wanted him to drain me dry, to suck the life from my body.

  The moment that thought popped into my brain, I was jerked free of whatever power the vamp had over me.

  I’d fought free of one monster in my past—Mannan’s grip on me had been all-consuming. Hell, I’d loved him, and not even that had been enough to stop me from breaking his hold on me.

  “No,” I said, fighting the grip, but the vamp holding me squeezed a little tighter. My movements were weak, almost pathetic, but I could feel my power coiling within. The master sucking on my neck groaned in ecstasy, his hand sliding up into my hair to hold me tighter.

  A fae’s blood was addictive—one drop and the vamps were hooked. That addiction had ignited a war that raged for centuries and had very nearly cost both sides everything. Life itself flowed in the veins of the fae. We were power because of our connection to Faerie. When the vampires fed from the fae, they were given back the rush of life that they lacked. I could already feel the dead vamp’s heart beginning to beat in his chest as he crushed his body to mine and bit down harder.

&nb
sp; But there was one thing I could do that other fae could not.

  I could die.

  My connection to the Between and my abilities as a harbinger had me straddling the line between life and death.

  I grasped the power that lay inside me, imagining my heartbeat slowing, my lungs shutting down, each breath growing shorter until there was silence.

  The master jerked away, ripping his fangs from my neck as I went limp in the other vamp’s arms. The one at my wrist continued to feed, but it was pointless.

  “No, no, the others lasted longer, she cannot be dead already.” The master’s voice rose in anger.

  I watched from unmoving eyes as he grabbed the vamp biting down on my wrist by the hair and snatched him away, sending his fragile teenage body spiralling through the air and landing with a thump against the far wall. He cried out, but the master ignored him.

  Embracing death had its perks, I thought as the darkness within the mall peeled away to reveal what lurked within the shadows. In total I counted thirty-five newborns, their torn, stained clothes making me wonder just how long they had been hiding in the mall.

  The ones who weren’t gathered around the master, eyeing me with greedy, lust-filled gazes, had surrounded Byron. I’d heard his beast howl, but he had shifted back into his human form, and his body was covered in wounds, cuts, and bite marks that dripped blood onto the floor. But he was wielding my machete, slicing through those vampires foolish enough to get too close.

  The vamp holding me jiggled my lifeless body. When I didn’t move, the master grabbed me, carried me to the centre of the room, and laid me out on the ground. His hands slid down over my chest, pressing and prodding with fingers that felt more like ice picks than anything human.

  “I know you’re not gone,” he whispered to me, leaning closer so that he could stare into my unmoving eyes. “I want you to watch as I make your little wolf my pet. You may be able to play dead and deny me that which is mine, but he cannot.”

  Anger welled in my core, and I fought to keep it from overwhelming the magic that kept me dead. I was weak, and the combination of blood loss and my own power, diminished by what I had done to Mannan, made it much harder to keep the magic in place. He watched me carefully, searching my face, but I clung to the power. If I gave in now, I would be as good as signing our death warrants.

  The master rose to his feet and crossed the floor to where Byron continued to fend off the vamps. As I released the magic holding me in Death’s embrace, my heart took one stuttering beat, followed by another. I drew in a breath and my lungs responded painfully, expanding as my chest rose and fell.

  My limbs tingled as my blood supply slowly returned, and the darkness surrounding me crept back in, leaving me practically blind. Rolling to my feet, I pulled my throwing knives from my belt and launched them in the direction of the vamps surrounding Byron.

  Satisfaction curled my lips as the blades found their marks, and I heard the vamps hit the ground. Ducking out of the grip of the vampire nearest me, I crossed the space toward Byron. The master vamp’s voice curled around me, giving me just a second’s warning to throw myself to the side as his clawed hand cleaved the air. His fingers raked down my shoulder and latched onto my arm, spinning me back into his grip.

  But the distraction was enough for Byron to cut down several more of the newborns.

  “I knew you were not dead,” the master vamp said, running his hand down the side of my face.

  “You should have made certain.” I met his gaze. “Byron, cover your ears,” I shouted, drawing air into my lungs.

  The scream ripped from my lips, the high-pitched keening cutting through the air, and I felt the glass in the ceiling high above me tremble.

  The master released me, recoiling as he clutched at his ears and face.

  “Perhaps living inside a giant glass box wasn’t such a great idea after all,” I said, watching as blood ran from his ears.

  I screamed again, and the glass windows and walls exploded, sending sparkling shards raining down on everyone.

  Closing my eyes, I ducked and covered my head with my arms in an attempt to protect myself from the biggest pieces of splintered glass. Screaming erupted from around me, and the scent of scorched flesh and charred bone filled the air as sunlight streamed in.

  I ran for the door, catching Byron’s elbow and dragging him out, my grip on his arm slipping as his blood slicked up my hands. Collapsing onto my knees on the asphalt outside the mall, I sucked in several deep breaths. My body was slowly beginning to heal, but I would need time and a good meal to replace the blood I’d lost.

  Byron groaned amid the sound of glass hitting the ground.

  “I told you not to come,” I said, meeting his pain-filled eyes.

  “If I didn’t, you would be dead,” he said, pulling a particularly large piece of glass from his arm.

  Laughter bubbled up inside me, escaping from my lips in little gasps that had Byron staring at me as though I’d completely lost my mind. And maybe I had. The move I’d pulled in there had been more than risky—it had been stupid. The last banshees who used their ability to straddle the barrier between life and death had been at their full power, but that still hadn’t saved them from what came next.

  One lost her mind completely; the moment she had returned to the Between, the power of death had spiked, bolstered by Faerie’s power, and it had seeped into her veins, into her mind, and stolen it away. The others had been forced to put her down as an act of mercy.

  None of the others had ever been the same; they had simply faded away over time, their magic, their bodies, their very souls lost to the universe. Lost to a place where even the Between couldn’t reach out to them.

  Would that happen to me?

  My laughter turned to tears that tracked down my cheeks before dripping onto the ground.

  “What’s wrong?” Byron asked, moving closer.

  “If I tell you, you’ll think I’m mad,” I said. And in a way, it was true; how could I expect someone like him to understand what I had just done? It was going to sound nuts. Hell, I faced death every time I went out, every time I visited the sick and the dying, every time my job for the Faerie Court required me to take a life. It was as much a part of my life as breathing was; there really was no getting away from it, and yet I didn’t fully understand what I had just done. Wrapping my head around it was definitely proving difficult.

  “What did you do in there?” Byron asked, grabbing my chin and tilting my face up to his.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, whatever it was…” He paused, as though unsure of the right words. “Whatever it was, I felt you die. I listened as your heart came to a stop, your breathing ceased… And then you just weren’t there anymore.” His voice was low, strained by an agony I didn’t understand.

  “I did die,” I said, keeping my gaze trained on the ground.

  “So that’s it? You died, and I’m meant to just accept that?” His words held an edge of anger.

  Pushing back onto my feet, I closed my eyes against the sudden swimming of my vision. Recovery was definitely going to take food and fluids.

  “I’m not dead now, am I?” I said, gesturing to my ripped, blood-stained clothes.

  He shook his head and climbed to his feet. “So you died. Are you going to die again or what? Because from where I’m standing, what you said sounds like a bullshit answer to cover up the truth.”

  “Well you don’t get to choose what I tell you. I’ve said all I’m going to say, so accept it or don’t…”

  At least his wounds had stopped bleeding, the blood drying against his skin, his naked body practically vibrating with rage.

  “We need to get you some clothes,” I said, averting my eyes and staring out over the industrial estate. “How did you get here?”

  My ears popped, and I turned to see Byron’s wolf slinking away through the long grass that ran alongside the mall. He didn’t look back, and my heart sank into my stomach as I watched him
go.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Making it back to the office was more exhausting than I thought, and by the time I’d parked and locked the motorcycle I was only fit to slide in through the back door before slumping to the floor. My legs refused to move further, and a fine trembling had started in the rest of my body.

  I kicked the door shut with my foot and sat listening to the silence that flowed in around me like water around a rock. I’d allowed the bike to do all the steering without any real input from me.

  Glancing down at my arms, I was pleased to see that most of the cuts had healed, leaving behind pink scars that would eventually disappear.

  I lifted my hand to my neck to feel the ridged indentations of the vampire’s bite mark. The one on the inside of my wrist looked even worse. I’d taken bites from heart hounds that hadn’t been as nasty.

  Pressing my hands to the wall, I crawled upright and dragged myself toward the basement stairs, where a first aid kit, fresh clothes, and energy bars awaited me.

  “I thought I asked you to come and see me,” the Noree said, her voice coming out of the darkness.

  I jumped, the movement more effort than I was really capable of, and my legs cramped up beneath me, sending me crashing to the old brown carpet with a thud.

  “You’re injured,” she said, and I sucked in a deep breath through my nose before pushing through the pain and straightening my cramping muscles. I felt like someone who had been hit by a ten-ton truck. Of course, I had died, so there probably wasn’t much difference. But I didn’t remember the other banshees talking about side effects…unless you counted death and fading into nothingness. But I couldn’t come up with a better reason for being in such bad shape. Anyone who wanted me dead right now wouldn’t have any problem finishing me off. Hell, I’d be lucky if I could fight my way through the plastic wrappers on the energy bars.

  “Seems that way,” I said hoarsely.

  Noree moved into view, her white cane slapping off the door jamb and threshold as she found her way out into the hallway.