Page 150 of Untamed

The Hollow Moon is moving northward.

I take my hand off of the bark, a smile curling over my lips. I look up at the night sky and the faded moon. Three days have passed without the Blood Moon, and finally she has been forced to close her eyes to the wolves below. How fortunate that tonight is the night that vile female is choosing to leave her hidey-hole.Fortuitous; serendipitous, unintended, coincidental.

I walk further into the trees where the trunks are closer. Faster and faster so that the breaks between touches are lessened. My heart starts to beat, a bird fluttering in its cage. Faster, faster.

Don't let her escape.

"There you are!" the harried voice of One-Eye greets me. "Luna, don't wander off like that!"

I just smile at her. She stops, her expression becoming wary. "We are going hunting," I whisper to her.

She goes completely still, her one eye blinking at me. The look of wary fear slowly fades to be replaced by pure grit and determination. "Alright."

I smile and turn into the trees. One-eye is a good warrior. A strong female. Thankfully, our time together in the land of the Lake taught her to be quiet.

"Who are we hunting?" she asks, her voice as soundless as possible.

My smile curves higher. "The Hollow Moon. She can't live if I do as well." My feet move faster, the touches on the trees creating a seamless array of pictures. All my focus is on that female, the Hollow Moon.

"Goddess help us," One-eye says softly, a prayer swallowed by the forest.

She shifts to her paws, her brown and white wolf blending into the shadows as I race on feet, following the singing call coursing through my blood.

"Faster," I urge the she-wolf at my side.

One-eye's breath comes in steady pants, but my lungs may not even be working. Anticipation is driving me onward. Faster. Faster. Fire burns my muscles and sets my lungs aflame.

Pictures flyfasteras my fingers touch, touch. North we race, toward the deep forest. Foolish Hollow Moon, to flee north, to head deeper into the wood.

Trees blur past. Faster. Faster. Catch her quick. I scent it in the air. Hollow, false, bitter. My canines erupt.

One-eye growls, snarling, muscles bunching as she flies through the air, suddenlyfasterthan me. Streaking past, a blur of brown shadows clinging to her fur. An open maw, teeth sharp, white, lethal.

An odd noise, a hiss of rage mixes with a wail of fury. Fear and anger flash in dull blue eyes. Claws burst from my fingertipstoo fast, and I shed the first blood of my own making.

One-eye is a blur of fury, her teeth, and claws ending the enemy wolves foolish enough to side with the Hollow Moon. There is no mercy in this forest tonight.

One-eye circles us, her maw soaked black with enemy blood. I hear the Hollow Moon's cries, hermanipulations; falsehoods, lies, untruths.

"She is an animal!"

"Unnatural!"

"Look at her!"

Begging and begging and begging. One-Eye stays true, my stalwart left-hand in this battle.

Hollow Moon sees the futility and tries to run, to escape. The trees hem her in. She is meant to be a warrior of the moon. A luna. Her strength is as false as her soul.

Blood flies, wrapping the air with sharp copper. The wind cuts through the trees. Faster. Faster. Claws swipe, the wind blows. Blood coats my tongue and covers my eyes in a haze of red. Screams bounce from trunk to trunk, sound absorbed and reflected until the forest echoes with her pleas.

The moon shines weakly, peeking at us down below the forest canopy. I drive Hollow Moon deeper. Under the full-season trees that block the light from above all year long. Cypress and spruce and pine, mingling to shield us from her gaze. The wind blows. The trees sway.

In the shadows, the forest waits; the world holds its breath.

A yarch tree stands, alone amongst the stand of spruce, yellow needles sparse as the trunk raises to the sky. A false year-long, those needles will fall soon, leaving the branches bare.

The moon peeks through the sparse cover of the yarch. The world centers on the trunk, straight and true. It sways near the top, the wind sending a shower of yellow down to the ground. The yarch is rotting on the inside.

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