Daughter of the Moon (The Moon People, Book Two) (62 page)

"Our warriors watch the pathways to the forest at the east and west of the camp," Nekare continued, occupying the grim silence by talking rather than letting the tension between them linger. "Of course, you know you may not leave."

Netya bobbed her head slightly when he looked to her for confirmation. Of course she could not leave, not unless she wanted to chance outrunning a pack of seasoned hunters.

The reason the southern side of the plateau was not guarded soon became apparent as they drew nearer, and a sheer drop off the edge revealed that there was no way to reach the forest below short of plummeting to a certain death. Nekare led the way to the edge before approaching any of the tents, showing her a small stream that spilled out of the rocks before spattering down to join a raging river far below. She could not get close enough to the edge to see properly, but it looked as though the churning watercourse was emerging from a cave directly beneath the plateau itself.

"You can come here when you need to wash or relieve yourself," Nekare said. "The seers will make sure you are fed. I would not try to share meals with the warriors. It would be better for you if you did not speak to them at all."

Netya nodded her head in silence once again, and after she had taken a moment to see to her body's needs Nekare led her back to the centre of the camp and around the ring of tents until he came to one positioned directly above the sound of the river below. It was not an especially large or grand abode, but Netya could sense what lay inside. She closed her eyes, wishing that she could be anywhere else.

"Go in. He knows we are here," Nekare said.

"Please," Netya replied in a whisper, suddenly wishing she had tried harder to ingratiate herself to the man. "Will you not come in too?"

He shook his head. "The alpha wants you alone. I have other things to attend to." He gestured at a group of people clustered near the camp's eastern entrance. "Tamnin is back, and the fool will not speak to anyone. The seers think him afflicted with another of your curses." His words were earnest enough, but Netya could tell they were more for his benefit than hers. He did not want to linger and make himself complicit in whatever the alpha had planned for her.

"In here, Sun Wolf," Miral's muffled voice grated from within the tent. "Before I come out and get you."

Netya's blood felt as though it was turning to ice, stiffening her movements as Nekare nudged her forward and lifted the tent flap for her to enter. Wishing only that it would be over swiftly, she tried her best to steel herself for what was to come. But the source of her strength—that golden shell of hope—was thin and broken.

When she stepped into the alpha's abode, she felt only fear.

—42—

The Alpha's Will

Skulls and antlers, fangs and pelts, even the weapons of the Sun People decorated the totem stakes driven into the earth around the circumference of Miral's tent. Much like Khelt, he chose to adorn his dwelling with trophies of past conquests. He even sat upon a crudely cut segment of tree trunk similar to the log seats Netya remembered from the alpha's den on the outcrop.

Miral's dark hair was loose, hanging in two long parts against his chest as he reclined back against one of the stakes behind him. The fire crackling at his feet painted him in an unsettling orange light, casting his skin into contrast with the dark leather clothing he wore.

"Your witches did this to me," he said, flicking his eyes in the direction of his wounded leg, which was bound to a pair of straight sticks once again. "With that beast they summoned. Nekare tells me it was a bear, but I have never seen a bear that large." The alpha narrowed his eyes at her. "Tell me, what was it?"

Netya's response curled up and caught in her throat, and all that emerged was a faint murmur.

"You fear to speak the demon's name?" Miral continued with a shake of his head. "My seers believe I should burn you upon a pyre while you still live. They fear the kind of evils you keep as lovers. They tell me," he clasped his hands and rested his chin atop them, "that only when your body is charred to ash will your taint be gone from our home."

Netya tried to focus on her breathing, pushing away the thoughts of fire licking at her bare flesh and embers filling her lungs. It was all she could do to remain standing straight.

"No words for me, Sun Wolf? Or have you finally learned the lesson your mentor could not?"

She forced herself to shake her head slightly, keeping her eyes rooted on the same spot of ground in front of the fire.

"I have asked myself many times why I spared you," Miral said. "Your kind are filth, make no mistake of it. The blood of the Sun People still flows in your veins, even if you hide it beneath the fur of a false wolf. I have never tolerated your kind in my pack, nor do I wish to now. But I tell you this because I
did
choose to spare you. I am no fool, Sun Wolf. I know the power you and the rest of Adel's children wield." He gripped the pole behind his seat suddenly and hauled himself to his feet, limping toward her. "You will share that magic with my clan."

Beneath the wilting intensity of Miral's gaze, Netya felt compelled to speak, willing to do anything to keep the alpha from coming any closer.

"I cannot. It is Adel's magic, not mine."

Miral smiled. "Then I was wrong to let you live. What value do you have without your magic?"

Netya backed away until one of the wooden stakes pressed up against her leg, and her fingers unconsciously found themselves gripping the pole of the flint-tipped spear that had been bound upright against it.

Miral's grin spread. "Take it." He jerked his chin in the direction of the spear. "Kill me, Sun Wolf. I know you must want to. Your man's blood was the finest I tasted in many moons."

Netya screwed her eyes shut as she noticed the pendant Miral had taken from her at the gathering still dangling from his waist wrap. Another trophy. She willed herself to jerk the spear loose from its bindings. Her grip grew tighter, but her hand would not move. She could not. Not even for the sake of a beast like Miral.

"I would not stop you, you know," he said. "All you need do is take that spear. Drive it into my heart. Your man is gone. You will never see your pack again. What do you have left to live for but your vengeance?" He tilted his head, waiting expectantly for the blow that they both knew would not come.

She tried to listen to his words. She wanted to summon up the anger to do as he said, but the thought of taking another person's life so deliberately was even more repellent than the alpha himself. Besides which, she feared what he might do if she tried. Any desire for revenge was second to the need she felt to protect her daughter. Just as Adel had fallen to her knees and begged for her apprentice's life, so too would Netya give anything she could to safeguard her child.

"I pity you, Sun Wolf," Miral said. "Not for what you are, but for the lies Adel has made you believe. You think you have the strength to stand against men like me, but look at you now. Any one of my warriors would gladly die for the chance to take a rival alpha's life if it was offered so freely." He gripped Netya's chin and forced her to look at him. "It is not wrong to accept that you lack that courage. To accept that, as a woman, you will never stand equal to the men of our kind. I would have you remember that, Sun Wolf. We all have our place in this world, and when your den mother defied me she spat upon the status of all men." The alpha's lip curled, baring a flash of white teeth. "Now, tell me that she was wrong, and that you understand your place."

"She was wrong," Netya forced out. What other choice did she have? "I understand my place."

Miral snorted, letting go of her chin with a rough flick of his hand. "You say it, but you do not believe it. Do not fear, Sun Wolf, those words will come easier the next time you speak them." He turned his back on her and limped over to his seat again, lowering himself down with a grunt of pain.

Had it not been for the spear she was clutching, Netya might have given in to the weakness in her trembling legs. She could not bear being in the alpha's presence. Every moment she remained, every word that he spoke, she felt another fragment of her willpower crumbling away. It was not enough that he had ended the life of the person she loved most—he had to reduce what little was left of her to nothing as well. A few days prior she might have risen to the challenge, tapped into her deepest reserves of strength and fought back until her last breath. But the things that had been the source of that strength were gone, and without them she felt as brittle as a withered sapling.

"Your pack," Miral said after a time. "Will they come for you again?"

"I do not know."

"You know very little, it seems. My warriors will not return to Adel's valley, but she cannot stay hidden there forever. She would not have risked sending you to hunt in my territory again otherwise."

"We came to hunt of our own accord," Netya replied, perhaps a little too hastily. "Adel did not allow it."

"Really?" Miral eyed her for a moment. "So she fears me, and yet you came anyway. There is a reason I make no claim to the valleys beyond the river. There is little in the way of prey but birds and bears there. Your people fear a hungry winter. That is why you began trespassing in my lands."

"We are growing our own food."

"And will you have it before the first frost comes?" Miral said. "Your people are starving. Answer me true, woman."

The menacing look in the alpha's eyes made Netya flinch. He had done nothing to harm her yet, but she sensed there was only a hair standing between her and his retribution.

"Yes," she said. "But we will make do."

"You will stop speaking of them as if they are still your pack." He tapped his chest. "You are mine now. This is your clan. And you will never set foot in that valley again."

Something about the alpha's words unnerved Netya even more than their base implication. He had first threatened her with being burned alive, but his previous demand about teaching his seers her magic seemed all but forgotten. Now he was treating her not as a captive, but as someone he had already taken into his fold. The confusion of his true intentions was almost as frightening as the threat of the pyre.

"What is to become of me?" she forced herself to ask, dreading the answer.

Miral made her wait. He stoked the coals of his fire with a stick, tossing a small log upon the embers and rolling it around until it caught.

"A wise question to ask," he said eventually. "I could give you to one of my warriors. We already have too many men and not enough females. But they would rather take you for pleasure than as a mate, and none would wish to pollute our pack with your offspring. It would make them far happier if I killed you. A sacrifice of a dark witch to appease the spirits." The alpha nodded to himself. "It would help them overcome their fear of Adel's ilk. I should do it. Most alphas would."

"Then why wait?!" Netya all but sobbed, unable to endure the way he was tormenting her.

"Ahh," Miral sighed. "Because perhaps I have been mistaken. Perhaps there is hope for a sun wolf among us yet. If you show remorse, that is. If you seek to undo the evil your den mother has sown within your heart. Is such a thing possible, I wonder?"

"Why must you do this?" Netya said, her eyes brimming with fresh tears. "Have you not done enough to me already?"

"It is no longer your place to ask such questions of your alpha," Miral growled, though his expression gleamed with predatory amusement. "Do you value your life, Sun Wolf?"

Netya's chin fell, then she made the slightest of nods.

"Then you will do your best to appease me, and perhaps I will let you keep it for a few days longer. Tomorrow, I may kill you." He glanced upward, working his lower lip back and forth in contemplation. "But perhaps you will give me a reason not to. Who can say. You are the seer, not I."

The crushing truth of the alpha's intentions stole up on Netya like a drop of cold water trickling down her spine. He had no real use for her. He cared not for her magic, or that she might be used to bait Adel into confronting him again. She was there only to sate his curiosity, or his amusement, and her life held value only for so long as it kept the alpha's attention. She was a plaything to him, worth no more than the trophies displayed around his tent. And it was only a matter of time before she was cast aside to display another, more interesting spoil of the alpha's conquest.

How long could her willpower hold?

Until my daughter is born,
she thought. It seemed a thin hope, but she needed to have faith that her visions still meant something. Somehow, if she could stay within the alpha's good graces until she gave birth, then perhaps her child might be spared. Miral had said his pack needed females. Perhaps that would be enough for him to overlook her daughter's half-blood heritage. Then, at least, her child would have the chance to grow into the woman she had glimpsed within her visions, even if it was under the watch of a monster like Miral.

Netya needed to hope. She needed something to keep her from falling to her knees and begging the alpha to take her life rather than subjecting her to any more of his cruel whims.

"Tell me again," Miral said, "how your den mother was wrong, and that you understand your place now. Then you may leave."