Servant of the Moon #1 - unedited draft

Helios stalked through the empty stone manor. Every room in the place was empty, and the vampires were gone. No scent of the vampires who fled remained, except a trail that indicated they had traveled overland to the south and west to the the coast with two wolves who smelled of moonlight. He growled his unhappiness, the Moon’s Servants had helped the vampires escape him. The only evidence that this building had even been lived in 7 days earlier was that there was no dust. The vampires had taken everything but the building itself. Everything that had been left behind was burned, so not a single scent remained in the whole building as he stalked from room to room. Faintly his pathetic wolf caught a scent and whined, it was the scent of a frosted autumn night.

He followed it to a room with a pool. The shadowed water lay perfectly still. She had been here. The scent of moonlight, power, and something else mixed with his mate’s, something like ice or perhaps snow. It taunted him. A pale woman walked up behind him as he stared into the black mirror of the pool’s surface. She looked like a colorless ghost, her white blonde tresses as bleached as her skin. No matter how much time she spent kneeling under their god, she never tanned. Her white eyes took in the room before she knelt to touch the surface of the water. A ripple moved out from her fingertips, causing her reflection to jump and blur.

“There was powerful magic here, dear brother,” she observed pointlessly.

“I know I can smell it, sister,” he growled. He hated her.

They may have the same mother but he could barely tolerate her presence, even when she laid on the altar beneath him. He wanted her death since the first ceremony when he was 14. Being the son of an alpha werewolf and a witch meant his senses were far more acute than either race. He did not need her to tell him to obvious. His sister’s vampire father had died to feed the fire of their mother’s deity and Helios hope that someday he could pour Sekhme’s blood in the censers. He would be the one to lead their kind to power, to make their god the king of the gods and goddesses. He would rule with his mother beside him and his mate at their feet. His sister and all vampire kind would bleed to fuel the bloodfire that would bring their god back to this world.

“We need to tell mother we lost them and start a new search for a source of...”

“Do not tell me what I should do, Sekhme,” he interrupted, growling,“If you had not delayed us, we would have the Augur Vampire and her children.”

“I will not apologize for offering prayers to Aten-Apophis, Helios,” she hissed. The water in the pool began to steam and boil under her fingertips. “Do not growl at me like the dog you are.”

He clenched his fist to keep from striking her, “Do not hiss at me like the blood-sucking snake of chaos you are.”

They glared at each other for a moment. She rose and walked over to him, trailing her fingers down his chest. His wolf was repulsed by her touch. He would rather be touched by a rotting corpse. He bared his teeth at her.

“Tsk tsk, don’t be that way, brother.”

His skin side stood very still, reaching slowly to take a hold of the back of her hair roughly, snarling in barely contained fury, “Do not touch me.”

She gasped slightly at the pain, then smirked, “I will do as I wish. You have failed to seed my womb because of your stupid beast. I am eldest, and it is my right to bear the firstborn of the He who Burns. I am your mate, tell that to your beast.”

“You are not my mate, sister. My mate was here with the vampires. My wolf can smell her. I no longer need you, I only need to find her,” he announced malevolently as his hand closed around her throat, stopping her retort.

Sakhme pulled at his hands, her eyes bulging as fire erupted around him. He growled at her, “Finally after all these lives, I will sire my true Father’s children; my mate will bear them, not you. I am sure mother will be saddened when I tell her how the vampires left a trap and killed you.”

The inferno faded, until only the few flammable benches and cabinets in the room were smoldering in piles of ashes. Darkened windows had exploded outward from the heat, allowing streams of setting moonlight and rising sunlight to pour in on opposite sides of the poolroom, as steam and smoke escaped into the rich blue sky. Her fire had burned everything but him because he was his father’s son.

Helios placed a chaste kiss on Sakhme’s dead lips. “Goodbye, sister. Say hello to Hella for me.”

In a single swift movement, he pulled her head from her corpse so she could not be resurrected, and tossed both pieces in the now dry pool. Perhaps he should have waited until he found his mate, but in the heat of the moment, his temper and his wolf had been finished with her taunts and her touch. Always she reminded him of how he was less than her, and he hated her because, to her and their mother, he was just the indwelt puppet of their god of sunfire, war, and chaos. To them, he was just a vessel through which the Burning One acted, but no longer. His younger sister Hella was the only one who had seen his true potential, but she had died in the snow of Nova Scotia. He would make himself a god in this world and he would feast on the flesh and burn the blood of all who defied him.

Striding out of the dark house, he looked up at the overhead sapphire sky and grinned, just like the color of eyes his wolf claimed his mate had. At last, he was free. After generations of his soul being bound to the Priestesses of the Sun, he was free. The spell to make his half-sister his mate had failed to produce any children or bind his wolf to her. Just as it had in the previous two generations, because each time, it had failed to convince the wolves that had belonged with those bodies of the bond.

He believed it was because his mother did not understand the truth of the bond, and because wolves were stronger than his mother realized. His beast did not want a weak vampire witch-hafling, he wanted the strong she-wolf he was bound to. He wanted the power he smelled mixed with her scent. His shewolf who was an oracle of the Moon. He laughed aloud in giddy anticipation. The wolf in this body had been the strongest one yet, and it would not be denied its true mate as the others had.

Springtime had come and Comhnyall was glad the late winter/early spring long-lining season was over and he could work on the dry, warm land of the farm instead of the frigid, wet deck of the Seawolf. Nyall drove the rebuilt diesel tractor into their barn, he had just finished turning and furrowing a large field that had lain fallow for two generations. He had spent several days clear cutting and pulling stumps, today he plowed and furrowed the soil to get ready for tomorrow’s seeding, and now he wanted nothing more than to fall down and go to sleep. Tomorrow, he and the family would be planting the starts, grown so carefully in trays for the last few weeks.

The smell hit Nyall as soon as the exhaust from the old machine stopped surrounding him when he closed the barn doors. He rubbed his face tiredly, and angrily wondering why Moire had to pick today to render tallow for her and Mamó’s soaps and creams. The nearly rancid-food scent of old fat chunks boiling themselves into the wax-smooth crème was almost too sickening for his tired wolf to bear. Mixing it with the sweet and floral fragrances the humans liked in the soaps made strange but oddly tantalizing vapors that had his wolf curious today. What under the Moon was she making and why did she have to make it today? He stalked toward the house in search of food and answers.

In the kitchen, both old wood burning stoves had pots of rendering fat, cooking the tallow into soaps. The sweet scent of herbal oils did not cover the smell of the rendering.

“Oy Moire, did ye have ta stink up tha house today?” he snapped. They had both let their hair go back to their natural color and her coppery curls were tied up away on top of her head, but a few still hung in sweat strands around her face.

Her eyes flashed fiery rage, molten gold, burning him, “I ‘ave orders fur two hun’red bars an’ nah enough ta make ’em, so aye I ‘ave ta do et today. Thay need ta cure enough to wrap by next week. If ye do nah like it, why don’ ye go play in the woods like ye ’ave all week.”

“I ‘ave nah been playin’ in tha woods. I ‘ave been clearin’ tha field so we can ‘ave a decent crop this year an’ nah ‘ave ta waste our savin’s on buyin’ food till weh leave.” He growled out.

“Ha! When weh leave, as ef weh e’er will, an’ when will tha be, Nyall, because it seems like ye be leavin’ all tha time with Shamus.”

“Nay, when we leave ta old Wemyss.” He was too tired for this fight again.

“We be runnin’ then, an’ nah leavin’, running like cowardly pups who can nah hold what es theirs,” she mocked him as she ladled hot rendered soap into a long mold.

Comhnyall slammed his hand on the counter, “Aye, weh be runnin, Moire. Thaire be five of us against those who would see us dead. It’s nah safe fur ’em ta know we’re here.”

She slams a pot into the sink and starts on another, “So first we’re hidin’ then we aire runnin’. Well, thank ye for clearin’ tha up fur meh. Meh poor wee brain did nah know we were hidin’ like wee rabbits. I guess all ye trainin’ was fur naught.” She shakes her ladle at him, splattering him with hot soap mix.

“Why ye blamin’ me? I did nah kill our pack and make us rogues,” he snarled as he rubbed cold water over the burned spots.

“No, but ye decided ta move us ta this leaky, draft house without so much as a word or a by yur leave. I would rather be back in Mamó‘s den. At least, I felt warm an’ safe there. Not waking up ta look out tha window every time tha wind makes the trees groan,” she snapped. It angered him and his wolf that she did not feel safe, as she went on ranting. “I wake up here, an’ you are gone ta follow some wolves about for days on end, leaving meh tacking down tha shingles and stuffing cotton ‘round tha windows ana I be tha one carryin’ wood an’ such till I feel like meh insides are being cut apart. Then ye tell meh, ye let those wolves leave alive before ye were off with Shamus to fish...”

“I do nah like ta leave ye, but I ’ave to work. I am sorry that it pains ye to do things but I have scars to, I hurt too. Ye not the only one who was hurt that night.” he interrupted angrily. “And I had ta let ’em live...”

“Nay, ye did nah! They killed our families!” she screamed at him and, in the heat of the moment, she slapped him. They stood, staring at each other horrified.

“I... I b-be sorry, Comhnyall,” she breathed out in a rush, then ran out the door. He just stood staring at the space she fled with his cheek stinging almost as much as his heart.

“Ye need ta go after ’er, m’ogha, she has not been tha same since weh came ta this place. She sees her reflection every time she looks out the windows, or goes ta tha lavatory, et grieves her.” Mamó said quietly. “She is hurting, m’ogha (my grandson).”

He feels broken. “I am tryin’ Mamó,” he almost whimpers.

Mamó rubs his shoulder, “I know ye aire, Comhnyall. Now go catch yur mate, an’ don’t let her talk ye into her nonsense of ye needin’ a better mate than ’er.”

He looks down on Mamó horrified, he would never want another mate, even if they had not been able to have their bonding ceremony or mark each other. No, he would never want another mate. He loved Moire with his whole soul and wolf.

He ran out the door, the smell of the soap hid her scent from him, then he realized he only had to follow it to find her. Soon, he was running easily through the trees, he knew where she was going. Ainsley had shown him the spot where a small waterfall fell into a sinkhole and the ground was covered with tiny, star-shaped wildflowers and soft moss. Moire was sitting by the edge of the small pool, staring at the water, tears streaming down her face. She dipped her handkerchief in the water and rubbed her arms and neck. Her skin was flushed like she had gotten too warm while making the soap.

“Stop lookin’ at meh, ye scarred, ugly hag,” she snapped at her reflection, slapping the water then she started crying.

Comhnyall was shocked by her behavior, Moire was never one to care about her looks. He was surprised that she was so upset by it now. “Moire?”

“Go away Comhnyall, I do nah wanna talk ta ye,” she growled tiredly. Her face was blushed from soap making and wet with tears, but to him, she looked beautiful.

He crept forward, if he was in his wolf, he would be belly crawling. He inhaled slowly he can smell her sadness and something else. The soap she was making had a deliciously tantalizing smell that was clinging to her.

“Nay, my wolf an’ I need to be close ta ye, yur upset.”

“I am always upset, Comhnyall. Every time I see meh face or try ta use meh eye, I get upset. Last week in tha apothecary, a little girl pointed at meh face an’ started cryin’. I’m a monster now, a hag weth a weird moon eye. He made me this way an’ ye let ’im go.”

He could feel how much she loathes herself as he eased himself next to her. In the shadow of the hill, he could feel how warm she was. It made his heart race.

“First, ye aire nah a hag, ye aire beautiful. And second, I do nah care what some lil’ girl did, an’ third, if you wan’ me ta track ‘im an’ kill ’im fur ye, I will. I just let ‘em go so thay woul’ think we left tha territory. I did nah know movin’ would upset ye so, I only wanted ta protect ye, I be sorry,” Nyall apologized as he held her in his arms from behind, he could not stop himself from inhaling deeply over and over. She smelled so good and felt so warm. He whispered huskily, “I love ye Moire, I only want ye ta be happy, an’ en a safe place. I could nah bear et iffen something ’appened ta ye.”

She turned in his arms, “Oh Comhnyall, I love ye. I be sorry as well. Where’er ye are, I wan’ ta be.”

Her cheeks were blushed as she said it, then she pressed against him. Their lips connected and he felt the same heart stopping jolt followed by the galloping thrill that he always felt when she kissed him. But something was different this time, something like falling or flying or melting, and while his mind was trying to decided what it was, their wolves took over. This time their kiss went further, much further...

The stars danced above and the Moon’s half-open eye looked down upon them. Moire made small murmuring noises as she slept in his arms on their flowered mossy bed. In the heat of the surrendering of their innocence, he had marked her again. He didn’t ask, he just did it, and she had marked him back. The ecstasy of the bond fusing their souls together muddled his thoughts. He had lost track of how many times they had made love before hunger had driven their wolves to hunt. It was the first time Moire had shifted since that night. Their wolves had mated and marked each other, only to return to this place and their skins, to fall into each other’s flesh again.

His fingertips touched where she had marked him, it throbbed contentedly as he inhaled her tantalizing scent, with its floral and musk notes, and faintly metallic tinge. As he fell asleep, the bond twisted and curled around them, bloated and heavy like thick mist spreading through the trees from the morning shore fog. Obscuring everything in their world, making their real lives seem hazy and far away, the bond was well fed and content.

Nyall traced the scars on Moire’s pearly skin, marks that bore witness to her courage the night their pack had fallen, mementos any warrior would be proud to bear. She murmured in her sleep and he pressed a kiss into her temple before drifting off to a dreamless slumber. She was his and he was hers... forever.

Before the third day came, their bodies were one in passion over and over again. In the heat of those moments and hours, neither realized Moire’s weakness had only been overcome by the strength and power of her first heat.