Daughter of the Moon (The Moon People, Book Two) (4 page)

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 made 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 difference 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.