Page 48 of The Fated Hunter Wolf
Mariyah watched, unflinching. “Now you’ll listen.”
She flicked her fingers, and my wolf dropped to the ground, legs buckling. The ash still clung to my fur, pulsing in time with my heartbeat.
I shifted involuntarily, bones cracking, fur receding, until I lay naked and trembling in the dirt. Human again. Vulnerable. “What did you…”
“I showed you what you did.” Her voice was flat. “To yourself. To her. To the bond the Shadow Moon Goddess herself knotted between your souls.”
I spat, trying to clear the ashen taste from my mouth. “There is no bond. There never could be with the woman who killed my brothers.”
Mariyah barked a laugh loud enough to startle birds from the nearby trees. “Lie to yourself if you must, but don’t waste my time with falsehoods.” She stood, her cloak rippling, though there was no wind. “Your brothers. You think everything is about your brothers and not at all to do with the sacred bond you just tossed away as if it were common trash. You wish to know where these precious brothers are?”
My heart stuttered and my fingers dug into the dirt as I rose to stand before her.
“I do.”
“Then look.”
She tossed a handful of dirt into the fire. The flames leaped higher, spitting sparks that formed patterns in the air.
“I don’t see a fucking thing,” I snarled.
“Because you choose not to.” Mariyah stepped around the fire, eyes narrowed. “Your mate showed you in the vision she cast at you. You ignored what you didn’t want to see.”
My jaw ached from clenching my teeth. “She’s not my mate. She said she killed my brothers.”
“Did she? Or did she say what was necessary to make you walk away?”
I surged to my feet, naked and filthy but beyond caring. “Don’t twist this?—”
“Your brothers.” She cut me off, one finger pointing to the fire. “Look.”
I looked. The flames had formed a shape that resembled a mountain range, jagged peaks silhouetted against smoke.
“The Silverspine Ridge,” I breathed. “That’s folklore.”
“It’s where they were taken. And held. And changed.” Each word fell like a stone. “Their souls wait there still. Neither alive nor dead. Trapped in the in-between, where shifter becomes monster.”
My stomach lurched. “What does that?—”
“They are kept by those who feed on what you are, little son of a king.” Her eyes reflected the unnatural fire. “Those who bled your mother dry. Who feast on the marrow of the Shadow Moon Goddess’s children and grow stronger with each passing moon.”
Vampires.
The word hung unspoken between us, but my wolf howled in recognition. The ancient enemies of our kind, the blood-drinkers who existed in shadow, the night-walkers who preyed on what was sacred.
“That’s—” I shook my head, disbelieving. “That’s impossible. There was a pact, centuries ago. Fuck, we even do business with them. We know they are self-serving assholes, but it’s not like before. They backed off for the sake of profits.”
“Did they?” Mariyah’s lip curled. “Or did they simply grow tired of open warfare when stealth served them better?” She kicked dirt into the fire, and the images disappeared.
She reached out, fingers stopping just short of my chest. “You carry the curse in your blood, Orion. As did your father, and his father before him. The curse that hollows out your pack, steals your children before they draw breath. That curse was no accident. It was crafted. Distilled. Perfected. And now it has almost accomplished what it was designed to do—extinguish the royal bloodline of the Shadow Moon.”
“That was the vampires?”
Mariyah chuckled. “You give them too much credit.”
“Then who?”
“When you figure that one out,” she smiled with gray teeth, “everything will become clearer. There will be no peace for Orion until the lost threads are woven together again. And if you think that speaks only of your brothers, you will lose the threads most precious to your future. Enemies and fate have always been bedfellows, after all.”
