Daughter of the Moon (The Moon People, Book Two) Page 3

  Adel grunted, fixing her glower on Netya. "We leave tonight. With any luck they will give up on tracking us if our trail is old by the time they find it. Look at me, girl," she snapped.

  Netya jerked her chin up sharply, her throat tightening as she faced her mentor's ire.

  "One reckless victory does not grant you the wisdom to be so foolish with your own life, let alone the lives of your pack-sisters. You have kindness in your heart, but kindness is not something to be spared so lightly."

  "I did not wish to see anyone hurt," Netya replied, but the den mother quickly cut her off.

  "The world is a large place, girl. Lives come and go day by day. Though it is our duty as seers to cherish them, you must learn when and where to spare your aid."

  "I believed I was the only one who could help—"

  "And if you had lost your life?" Adel snapped. "How many more people would have had to go without your aid in the years to come? In all the months I have spent training you, I would have thought you might have more respect for your own safety by now."

  "That is enough," Caspian said softly, just as Netya felt the warmth of tears touching the corners of her eyes. Such harsh words hurt the most when they came from Adel.

  "She is not a child in need of your protection," the den mother replied, leaning across the embers to grasp her apprentice by the chin. "Let this be the last time I must say this to you, girl. Learn to control your heart, and learn to control your wolf. We are feathers swept up in a gale. One mistake will be all it takes to scatter us to the winds. Let us hope yours was not it." She let go, looking away with a snort. "Now go, tell the others we are leaving. They will be travelling through the night until we are far beyond the reach of Turec's territory."

  It was sometimes easy for Netya to forget how terrified she had been of Adel when she first came to Khelt's pack. The two of them had grown close since then, but from time to time she experienced a cold reminder of how harsh her mentor could be. The den mother had little patience for failure or foolishness. She had lived a harsher life than any of them, and it had left her with a hardened shell that rarely split open to release the warmth that still lingered inside.

  Swallowing the lump in her throat, Netya nodded and rose to her feet with the others, feeling Fern squeeze her hand as they stepped out of the tent.

  "She is harder on you than the rest of us," her friend said. "I still think you were brave."

  Netya nodded, but it did little to make her feel better. It sometimes felt like an impossible task, living up to Adel's standards. There was so much left for her to learn, and she was forever struggling to achieve it in her mentor's shadow. Now more than ever, when their group was small and vulnerable, without so much as a den to call its own, she felt overburdened by the weight of responsibility resting on her in the eyes of the den mother.

  She brushed the back of a hand across her eyes before Caspian could see, drawing herself up and squaring her shoulders. In many ways, her life had been easier when she felt small and helpless. A naive young girl without the skills of a hunter or the insight of a seer. She had been a simple concubine to an alpha back then, and he had done his very best to shield her from the harsh challenges of life. Now that she had embraced them, however, there was no turning back.

  Approaching the fire in the centre of their small camp, she took it upon herself to call for silence and convey Adel's instructions to the others. She left out the finer details of the encounter with the white hunters this time, but the news went over no better with her pack-sisters than it had with the den mother.

  "Must we run all winter?" Lyucia, a golden-haired seer responded, her cheeks flushed with annoyance. "My mother needs rest. Her legs are not suited to this travelling, and I have none of my herbs left to soothe her pains."

  The elder to whom she referred put a hand on Lyucia's wrist, shaking a head of blonde locks that were identical to her daughter's save for a few strokes of elegant silver. "If Adel wills it, I will endure."

  "You would follow her to your death, Mother! The days are cold and the nights are colder. Our tents barely keep out the wind, and this land births none of the plants we require for our medicines! How much longer until the snows grow heavy and trap us in this barren place?"

  "All the more reason for us to keep moving," Briar said. "We're almost past the mountains. The weather will be warmer once we head back south."

  "You should have been more careful," Lyucia addressed Netya once again. "Had you not been spotted we could have rested here a day longer."

  "Perhaps it is better that she was." Caspian stepped forward, and the golden-haired seer shrunk back a few inches. "We did not know we were so close to a rival pack's territory. If we lingered unawares, they might have caught our trail and taken us off guard."

  Lyucia pressed her thin lips together, clearly unsatisfied. As part of Khelt's pack, she had been among the most senior of the females. A talented and loyal servant of the den mother, it had been difficult for her to part ways with her mate, who had been equally devoted to his alpha.

  Caspian's voice hardened, and even Netya felt her inner wolf snapping to attention when he barked his next words.

  "Well? You heard the den mother's instructions. Finish your meal and take down the tents. We must be ready to travel by nightfall."

  Lyucia's head finally bowed in submission, and she sat back down to finish her food. Caspian kept his sharp gaze on the small group of women a moment longer, looming over them with a presence that compelled obedience. For a moment a strange feeling of apprehension tugged in Netya's chest. Caspian blinked, as if surprised by his own actions, then relaxed slightly. His expression softened, and he was back to being the man she recognised.

  It was strange, seeing him like this. Only a scarce few times could she recall her man taking on the kind of authority that was usually reserved for alphas. It was an authority that she had been attracted to, back when she was Khelt's woman, but it was also part of the reason she had come into conflict with their old leader. She did not know how she felt about seeing the same qualities emerge in Caspian.

  —3—

  Wolves of the Wild

  They were back to travelling again, pushing on hard and fast through the intermittent snow and spatters of hail that beat down from an overcast sky. The clutch of winter tightened its hold on the land around them day by day, turning shallow pools that had once held fresh water to ice, and hiding treacherous ground beneath shrouds of snow.

  The pack travelled quickly on the legs of their wolves, bundles of belongings bound across the backs of the strongest while the weaker scouted ahead. They had left much behind in the days since their travels began, absent of the strong men who would usually have borne the supplies of the pack. The chunk of flint Briar had been working might have made for several dozen excellent knives, axes, scrapers, or any of the other numerous tools they were in need of, but it had been left abandoned near the ashes of their fire before she could put any of it to good use.

  Thankfully the going became easier once they finally rounded the northern edge of the mountain range and found themselves able to head south again. The unwelcoming land behind them gave way to rich pine forests broken up by sweeping valleys and hills, offering both warmth and shelter from the bite of winter.

  Once she was sure Alpha Turec's territory was far behind them, Adel allowed the pack more time to rest, but they never paused for more than a few hours at a time before moving on. It had taken many weeks to circumvent the mountains, and their few ragged tents would not be enough to see them through the winter if they were caught out in the open, without food or water to sustain them as the cold season reached its bitter peak. Worse, the den mother impressed upon them daily the importance of keeping their noses to the ground for the scents of other wolves. She had no desire to be caught off guard again as she had been by Turec's hunters, and the whole group shared in her apprehension.

  Caspian and the den mother seemed to have some vague knowledge of the packs who m
ade their home in this land, but neither was personally familiar with what they might encounter, nor how alliances and borders might have changed since the last pack gathering some three years ago.

  As one of those frequently tasked with light scouting and hunting duties, Netya tried her best to observe all of the plants she came across, both new and old, and fit them into the mental list she had learned when she first began her apprenticeship as a seer. Travelling left little time for Adel and the others to instruct her directly, but she tried to carry on expanding her knowledge in whatever small ways she could.

  More pressing of a task, however, was mastering the will of her wolf. That was an area of her learning that could not be left to languish as the days passed by. Fern and Caspian were her teachers, and even Wren, who had only recently learned to command her own wolf, was able to empathise with the struggles facing her pack-sister.

  Adel had advised that she keep the feral part of herself suppressed as much as possible, at least until they faced less trying times, using only the strength of her wolf's body to see her through their travels without indulging the keener impulses of its spirit.

  It was a difficult task. Every time she took the shape of her animal she felt it squirming and writhing beneath her skin, desperate to unfurl the full span of its senses, tasting scents that she had never before known and picking out sounds so minute as to be inaudible to the ears of a normal woman. She wanted to be guided by these things, to follow her heart as it tugged her along the invisible trails that she somehow knew would lead her to fresh prey and safe paths through the forest.

  All these things and more she longed to embrace, but she had quickly learned that letting her focus slip was a mistake, especially when she was alone. Scouting by herself, she could let herself become captivated by phantom scents for hours on end, straying far away from the others until her good senses finally snapped back into focus and gave her the forethought to panic. She had not been alone in unfamiliar lands often, and despite the confidence of her wolf's impulses, she was no experienced traveller. She could not track properly, she was a novice of a hunter at best, and she possessed only the barest minimum of skills necessary to keep herself alive in the wilderness. Surfacing from the depths of her wolf to realise that she was alone and distant from the rest of her pack was a frightening enough experience to crush the will of her feral side back to the bottom of her mind.

  Thankfully, the skill of her sensitive nose had been enough to lead her back along her own trail every time she became lost, but it had resulted in many wasted hours of exhausting panic as she struggled to catch back up with the rest of the group. She needed to learn to control the impulses of her animal, before it led her down a path from which she might not so easily return.

  The pack awoke one morning to find that the clouds had parted, and a rare kiss of the sun's warmth had broken through to bless the cold months with a reminder of summer. Adel allowed her weary group a few extra hours of rest to enjoy the good weather, and Netya and Caspian took the opportunity to slip away, their paws crunching through the dappled carpet of pine needles as they followed a sparkling stream away to the west. It was a good time for her to practise mastering control of her wolf, and one of the few excuses to spend time with Caspian when they were not exhausted from the day's travel. With him carrying supplies with the main group, and Netya abroad hunting or scouting, it had been days since they got to spend time together so freely, and her heart soared at the prospect of spending several hours alone with him.

  They came to a stop in earshot of the tinkling sounds of a small waterfall, where the stream trickled over a lip of moss-covered rocks before continuing its journey down below. The land they now walked in was an eerily beautiful place, quiet and close-knit, quite different from the forests Netya had grown up in and the open plains where Khelt's pack had made their home. It filled her with wonder to look out beyond the tips of the pine trees in front of them, only to see the land rolling onward again through hills and valleys, until it finally blurred into the shapes of what she could only assume were more mountains. The rich woodland scents filling her muzzle were musty and ancient, untouched by woodsmoke or the odours of sweat and leather. The smells of people were comforting, but that was all they were. Even before Khelt's bite had seeded the wolf inside her, Netya had always been possessed of an inquisitive curiosity that tugged her away from such comforts. It was what had drawn her to embrace the Moon People's way of life when they first took her from her home. How many other girls of her kind would have responded in the same way?

  A low bark from Caspian snapped her out of her wandering thoughts, a sharp reminder of how easily she had allowed the sights and scents of the woodland to distract her from the here and now. Inhabiting the body of her wolf was almost like stepping into the spirit world, that mysterious place where dreams were born, clouding reason and tempting danger. Just as she had learned to brave the spirit world under Adel's tutelage, she would have to do the same with her wolf.

  They left their animal forms behind them and sat down on a hillock overlooking the stream, enjoying the sun on their cheeks as Caspian took her face between his palms and kissed her.

  "I would waste the whole morning like this if I could," he said with a sigh, playing with the small string of wooden beads braided into her long black hair.

  "I would not call that a waste," she replied.

  He smiled, pressing his forehead to hers. "Perhaps not, but we will have all the time in the world to waste once the pack is settled. We must focus on taming that wolf of yours first."

  "It is difficult. I have no room to focus as I did with my training as a seer. The world distracts me at every moment."

  "That may be for the best. If you can learn to command your wolf under such circumstances, you will have a firm hold over her forever."

  "If I can learn to command her."

  Caspian's fingers traced their way down her cheek, stroking her jawbone to the tip of her chin. "There is a game we have our youngsters play when their wolves first emerge. A good way of teaching them many things without the need for lectures. It is mostly for the males, but your wolf may take to it also."

  "What kind of game?"

  He gave her a teasing grin. "A challenge, of sorts. Usually a race, or a tussle. The victor is determined not by who bests the other, but by who restrains themselves at the last moment, sacrificing their own success in an act of humility."

  "That sounds like the opposite of what my wolf would wish to do," she said.

  "Exactly. It teaches us to impose our wills over those of our wolves, choosing reason over instinct. We are not beasts, but that is only because we have trained ourselves to resist that part of our nature." His expression grew grave. "When Khelt bit you, that was his beast getting the better of him. It is a fine reminder that even the strongest of us are capable of terrible things when we grow angry or careless. In many ways, our kind are blessed, but I sometimes believe the Sun People are right in calling our wolves a curse. There are some packs out there who do not prize restraint as we do. I pray you never have to meet them."

  Netya nodded, his sincerity stilling any playfulness she might have felt. She remembered all too well the way her kind had painted the Moon People as savage monsters when she was a girl. They had been wrong about Khelt's pack, but perhaps there were others who had given them good reason to think as they did. She had no desire to let the beast within her run rampant.

  "This game, then," she said. "It sounds like a fine idea, but perhaps I should try it with Fern? She seems a better match for me than you."

  The smile returned to Caspian's lips. "Do not be so sure. Your wolf is stronger than you think. She may prove up to the challenge yet."

  Netya smiled back, but she was far from confident. How could she possibly run faster or fight harder than Caspian? He had the body of a warrior and the mind of a seer.

  Then again, she mused, had Adel not stood toe to toe with Khelt when the two of them fought? Despite the differenc
e in strength between them, it had not been nearly so pronounced once they took the shapes of their wolves. Perhaps she was underestimating herself.

  "Catch me," Caspian said, rising to his feet suddenly. "Then show me who the victor is."

  Before she could respond he had slipped into the guise of his wolf, bounding away down the bank of the stream. Something surged inside her, dragging her body forward instinctively, and before she knew it she was also on four legs, letting out an ecstatic bark as she dashed after him.

  Caspian was quick and nimble, hopping through the shallows from one side of the sparkling watercourse to the other, kicking up flurries of dry pine needles behind him as he bobbed and weaved across the forest floor. At first catching him seemed like a hopeless task, but Netya soon found that her legs were not growing tired as quickly as she had suspected. She was able to keep pace with him, having difficulty gaining, but never falling behind either. Her body was fast and nimble, and she began to wonder whether she might just stand a chance at catching him up after all.

  He was playing with her, darting to and fro across the stream, trying to make it difficult for her to follow, but in doing so she noticed that he lost a little speed every time. When she pushed herself hard to close the distance between them on open ground, it was simple enough for Caspian to match her sprint and maintain the space between them, but he would not be able to do so if she saved her burst of speed for the right moment.

  Holding herself back, she kept the impulses of her wolf in check, restraining the motion of her legs as the animal inside her yearned to run faster. Warm breath huffed through her muzzle, compelling her to catch up with Caspian's bouncing tail, but she held back, conserving her energy. The next time he tried to hop across a shallow spot in the stream, she lunged.

  Caught unawares, her companion seemed to sense that she was gaining on him, jerking his head to the side as she rapidly closed the distance between them. The water dragged at his paws, preventing him from gaining the distance he needed, and an instant later she was alongside him.