*Ella*
“What the fuck is going on?” Ryatt seethes. He steps in front of me, his sword of pure darkness clutched in one hand so hard his knuckles turn white.
The cloaked woman’s mouth ticks into a tight smile. “It’s been a while, Alpha.”
Ryatt tilts his head, his eyes narrowed and murderous. “Do not make me ask you again.”
She slowly motions toward the cloaked figures behind her. Further in the trees, I can see two glowing beasts standing totally still. More hellhounds. “We sensed a threat a week ago. One of our hounds took care of it.” Her eyes land on mine again with interest. “But I see we may have been mistaken in our actions.”
I’m still holding Granger’s head in my lap. He groans, coughing weakly. It’s a wet, bloody sound. “He’s really hurt, Ryatt,” I whisper, my voice shaking as I keep my eyes on the woman–the witch.
“This could be perceived as an act of war, Ravenna. Are we not allies? Am I not your king?” Ryatt’s voice is sharper than I’ve ever heard it before. He’s pissed. Rightfully so.
Granger’s chest is in ribbons and bleeding freely. I reach to try to cover the wounds with his shredded shirt to no avail.
She bows her head, “It was a mistake, Your Highness.” She lifts her head and stares at me, but Ryatt steps within her line of sight, blocking me from view. “You’ve found your Luna at last. Her scent…. What is she?”
“Take us back to your coven, Ravenna. I have dying men that need healing. We can speak of this later.” Ryatt turns from her and snaps his fingers. His men spring into action, shifting and dressing as best they can. We’re not far from camp.
“Hannah–” I whisper, reaching out to grab Ryatt’s hand as he stalks toward camp.
He looks down at me for a split second, saying, “I will get her. Stay here.”
I inhale sharply as he walks away, leaving me holding Granger. The witch, Ravenna, hasn’t moved. She and the rest of them are still standing at the edge of the trees and staring right at me.
He must trust her to some extent if he’s leaving me here with her.
I hold her gaze. She barely blinks. Unease ripples over my skin as she tilts her head to peer at me from a different angle. “You're an interesting specimen, sister,” she says lightly, her voice soft and pitched, almost childlike. Her eyes slide to Amanda, who has been lingering in the shadows behind me like she’s been sizing up these witches, debating if they’re a threat. “Interesting.”
“What’s so interesting?” I snap, unable to keep the bite out of my words.
Ravenna chuckles, her eyes sliding back to mine. “Your scent…. It’s been a long, long time since I’ve come across one of your kind, Luna.”
“My kind?”
“A witch, of course. But not like us. You’re…different. Made, in fact.”
“Made?” The word feels strange on my tongue, but I don’t have time to question her further before Ryatt and his men return. Ryatt motions toward Granger, and several of his men lift the wounded man up and put him on the sled beside Hannah.
My throat tightens as I see a glimpse of Hannah’s face. She’s so pale. She looks sicker than ever. I tear my eyes back to Ravenna as I rise on shaking legs. Ravenna is watching the sled with interest, her dark brows arched.
Sudden anger washes over me, cutting through any remnants of shock and adrenaline of the battle that just took place. “You attacked my friends. One of your hounds nearly took a woman’s leg off.”
“They’re designed to defend our territory. The hound was only doing what it was told to do.”
“My friend–” I seethe, needing to pause and catch my breath. I ball my hands into fists and continue, “My friend is terribly sick. She won’t wake up. She can’t move. She can’t do anything. Nothing. I was told by a healer in Granite Rise that she needed to be taken to the witches, and that’s what I did.”
“But you were not with those women who breached the lines drawn in the forest marking my territory from the land of the wolves, were you?”
“I was occupied,” I grind out.
“Hmm…” Ravenna’s expression hasn’t changed at all. She looks mildly amused, if anything. “Had we met sooner, there may have been more we could have done.”
“What does that mean–”
“We’re leaving for the coven, now,” Ryatt snaps nearby.
Ravenna looks up at him and slowly nods. She eyes Amanda, still in her fox form. She smiles down at her, and with a single flick of her finger, Amanda shifts back into her human form. Amanda screams in surprise, shielding herself from the view of every man, wolf, and witch in the vicinity. “What the hell!”
Thorne tosses her pale blue cloak at her, and she catches it with one hand, but her eyes don’t leave the witch.
A heavy, metallic scent hangs in the air between us. The same scent I’d caught shortly after Ryatt closed us into the rock cleft. Magic.
“Come, we will guide you,” Ravenna says to everyone and then turns toward the woods.
* * *
Ryatt is livid. I don’t blame him. He lingers in the back of the group, like usual, as we walk through the woods for the next several hours. Amanda breaks away from me at one point to walk beside the sled, her voice soft and melodic as she speaks to Granger.
I walk alone for an hour, at least, before falling back in step with Ryatt, who is not in the mood for talking.
But I have questions.
None of which he’s willing to answer.
“Are you upset with me?” I ask after a long pause in the questions I’ve been peppering him with, like, what the hell is going on? Who are these witches? Are we safe? What happens next?
“Not really.”
I frown then stop to pick up a large stick on the ground beside the well-worn trail we’ve been following for miles. In the distance, early morning sunlight bleeds through the trees.
“Keep up, please,” he says with annoyance, stopping mid-step.
“You don’t have to walk behind me–”
“I am your Alpha. It’s customary–”
“Oh, you’re my Alpha now? I thought I was your Luna–and mate–”
“Ella,” he grinds out, eyes flashing with frustration. “Get over here. Now.”
I swing my stick like a sword. “Answer my questions.”
“I am not upset with you–”
“Well, I’m upset with you, asshole. You kissed me and then shoved me into a cave big enough for a single child with two other full grown women.”
He runs his tongue along his lower lip, chuckling darkly. “You broke through my shields and turned the princess of Granite Rise into a hellhound.”
“She’s not a hellhound,” I sigh, swinging my stick again and walking forward. “I don’t know what she is, which is why I asked you thirty minutes ago!”
He grabs the stick and tries to yank it out of my hand, but I pull back until he lets go, then swat him with it. He sucks in his breath and growls at me, baring his teeth. “You’re being a child!”
“You have no room to talk, you bastard!” I swing the stick at him again, and it snaps in half against his upper arm. “I’ve been in the woods for weeks now, stuck with you and your men, while my friend dies on that stupid little sled, and we just got attacked by witches! I want to go home. I want to take a freakin’ shower and sleep in a real bed! I want Hannah back where she’s safe and to just move on from all of this!”
“What do you think I’ve been trying to do this entire time, Ella?” Ryatt stops walking again and turns to me. His eyes flash with a look I can only describe as… broken.
That gives me pause, and I lower what's left of my stick and toss it into the woods.
Our group has walked ahead of us, disappearing from sight over the crest of the hill we’ve been ascending for the last mile.
“And just so you’re aware,” Ryatt continues, each word clipped and sharpened to a fine edge, “I kissed you because I wanted to.”
I swallow hard. I wasn’t expecting that. “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why did you want to kiss me?” I realize how asinine this conversation is right now after what we’ve just been through, but I can’t stop myself from asking. My stomach tightens as I wait for his reply, even if I’m not sure I want to know.
Ryatt stares at me for a long time. “It’s just the bond.”
“Sure,” I whisper, hating myself for being disappointed by his answer. I walk ahead of him, picking up my pace and putting distance between us.
“Ella–”
I hear him exhale deeply behind me and grumble something incoherent under his breath as I walk to the top of the hill by myself, my breathing ragged and strained from the climb. Sunlight pours through the trees, which have become sparse and well distanced the higher I climb. I’m nearly blinded by the sun as I finally reach the top, having to shield my face with my hand and blink several times to clear my vision.
The air is stolen from my lungs when my vision rests on what’s below.
Tucked in a valley lies a small city that glimmers like gold in the morning sun. Chimney’s puff smoke that drifts toward the nearly cloudless sky. The city rests on the shore of a long, turquoise lake that shimmers in the sunlight, little boats dotting its surface.
Ryatt steps up beside me. The climb did nothing to him, apparently. He’s not even breathing heavily, unlike myself.
“Is this the Veiled Valley?” I ask, turning to look up at him.
“No. This is Moonrise, the last witch coven in Eastonia.” He offers me his hand, but I’m still looking at the city below.
“What happened to the rest of the covens?”
Silence settles between us for a long moment before he says, “There’s a lot you need to know. I understand that. I know I haven’t been able to… explain any of this to you yet, but I will. In time.”
“Why not right now?”
“Because you need to rest,” he says quietly, “and I need to figure out a way to get your maid back to her own kingdom.”
“Are we staying here for a while, then?”
“We’ll stay here long enough for the witches to heal Granger, and then we’re–” He cuts himself off abruptly. After a pause, he continues, “Then we’re going home.”
“Home,” I breathe, an image of the castle in Crescent Falls coming to mind. I close my eyes and try to tamp it back into the recesses of my mind.
That place isn’t my home anymore.
I open my eyes to find Ryatt staring at me, but he looks away when I meet his eyes. “Let’s go. I need to speak to Ravenna when we arrive in the city.”
“Can we trust her?”
“Yes,” he says without a second thought.
For whatever reason, if Ryatt believes that, then so do I.