Moonbound (Moonfate Serial Book 1) Read online

  Moonbound

  Moonfate Serial - Part One

  by Sylvia Frost

  All characters appearing in this work are fictional. Any resemblance to persons, events or locations is only coincidental.

  Copyright © Sylvia Frost 2014.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this text may be reproduced in printed or electronic form without prior permission, unless used for review purposes.

  Cover by Sophia Feddersen

  Edited by Joshua Essoe, Ashley Davis, and Carol Davis.

  Acknowledgments:

  Thanks go to many people, but most of all to the incredible community of writers at Kboards.com and V.M Black who showed me that I could do this. Like it or not, this book is for you.

  The Moonfate Serial

  Moonbound (September 30th, 2014)

  Huntbound (October 31st, 2014)

  Bloodbound (November 30th, 2014)

  Heartbound (December 31st, 2014)

  For more information on the Moonfate serial, sign up for my newsletter here.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter One

  “Can a monster love?

  This question haunts every account, every myth, every dream humanity has ever had about the creatures known as werebeasts. Even our very first story—the tale of Adam, Eve and the shifter named Lucifer—is plagued by this mystery.

  Was Lucifer a demon determined to ruin Eve and spawn a species of monsters? Or was he a fallen angel so in love with a human woman he destroyed paradise for a kiss?

  We will never know. And perhaps we shouldn’t ask why Lucifer tempted Eve at all, but another question:

  Why did she give in?”

  Beasts, Blood & Bonds: A History of Werebeasts and Their Mates

  By Dr. Nina M. Strike

  When I was fifteen, I swore I’d never buy a gun. Mom and Dad believed weapons only made problems worse, and after the attack I wanted to honor their memory. But it’s been seven years of running since then, and I think if I ever want to stop, I’m going to have to admit that my parents’ view of the world may have died with them.

  So here I am waiting at the counter of Edward’s Arms and Ammo, mustering the courage to ring their customer service bell. Its curved surface warps my reflection so my face flickers between Marilyn Monroe look-alike and chubby twenty-something and back again as I shift from foot to foot. Looking at it makes me wish I could be one of those girls whose biggest demon is her dress size.

  Ding.

  Two minutes lurch by, then three, and my only company remains the stuffed wolf’s head snarling at me from above the cash register. I don’t feel alone, though. I never do. Not when I know that somewhere out there is a beast searching for his one true mate. Searching for me.

  I worry the bandage on my wrist and try again.

  Ding. Ding. Ding.

  “Heard ya. Just cleaning out the back.”

  I jump.

  A middle-aged man wearing red fatigues and holding a box of magnets emerges from the shadows. “Scared ya, didn’t I?” He smirks to himself.

  “No, it’s fine,” I say, even as my skittering heartbeat disagrees.

  The shopkeeper steps behind the counter and drops the box onto it. A magnet jumps out and spins across the counter toward me. Instinctively, I pick it up and start to hand it to him. Then I see what’s on it.

  Oh.

  A shard of longing pierces my gut, and the edges of the world seem to fade and twist until the image on the magnet fills my whole sight. It’s something I haven’t seen in seven years. My parents’ faces.

  The picture is from Christmas. Dad’s wearing a goofy smile, Mom’s trying to pose glamorously in front of the tree, and thirteen-year-old me is grinning, oblivious to how frizzy her blonde hair is and the fact that her Gryffindor t-shirt is inside out.

  I stroke the magnet’s cool, smooth surface with my thumb. I never thought I’d see this picture again. The Federal Bureau of Supernatural Investigation confiscated everything after the attack. As I caress it, my thumb moves from the top of the magnet to the bottom, and I notice a sentence written above our heads that I didn’t see before.

  May the Williams family be always in our prayers and may justice rain down upon their killers.

  Holy shit. This shopkeeper has turned my parents’ murder into some kind of anti-were movement centerpiece and is using our old Christmas card picture as propaganda for the cause.

  “Where did you get these?” I thrust the magnet into the shopkeeper’s face.

  “Made ‘em myself.” He grins, exposing his tobacco-stained teeth. “Found the picture online from a news story and added the words. Magnets were a big seller for a while, but they’re just takin’ up space now.”

  I clench the magnet in my fist until it hurts.

  “Pisses ya off, too, doesn’t it? What those monsters did to that poor family?” His nametag glints. Edward.

  “Edward—"

  He holds up a hand. “I know what you’re gonna say. I think we shoulda rounded ‘em up, and their dirty mates, too. Put ‘em in camps. Not just tagged ’em. But that’s why I sell these.” He pats an antique show-rifle hanging behind him. “And these.” He motions to the junk around us: silver crosses dangling from chains, shelves overstocked with liter after liter of scent-suppressant spray, reprints of werehunting manuals centuries out of date, earplugs for avoiding the power of a werebeast’s call. And magnets. Of my parents.

  “You can’t do this,” I whisper.

  “Why not?”

  “That’s somebody’s life. Somebody’s family.”

  “Was somebody’s life.” He shrugs. “Newspaper that ran the story is out of business, the parents are dead, and everybody knows the girl’s been missing for years. Read even the aunt’s gone now. Who’s gonna complain?”

  “No one,” I mutter bitterly as my anger fizzles. I certainly have no right. I stayed in a tent while werebeasts murdered my parents, too scared to do anything but hide. And I’ve been hiding ever since.

  Edward crosses his arms and sucks his teeth. “Can I help you with somethin’?”

  “I need to buy a gun.” I push the magnet back against the cash register with my left hand, my right still behind my back.

  “Worried ‘bout the full moon and all them new weres around, huh?”

  “Something like that.”

  He pulls out a stack of paperwork from underneath the desk. “I don’t know anybody that believes them government lies. So what if they haven’t done anything since the first attack? So what if they’re all tagged? They’re monsters. Monsters kill.” He licks his dirty thumb and leafs through a couple of forms before sliding them over the counter to me.

  “Just fill these out and give me your ID. No license to carry required anymore.”

  I dig into my purse and practically fling the plastic card toward him.

  He holds it up, scanning for a moment before his face goes slack with surprise. “Hot damn.”

  I flinch. How did I not see this coming?

  He lowers the paper and gestures with his head to the magnet. “You’re her. You’re Artemis Williams.”

  “I try to keep a low profile.”

  “No shit.” His gaze jumps between me, my state ID, and the magnet in ra
pid fire.

  I steel myself for all the typical questions. Why did you run away? What are you doing now? And, most of all, why do you think they did it? Why did werebeasts emerge from a hundred years of supposed extinction just to kill your parents?

  But when he hands me back my ID, all he asks is, “Why ya back here, then?”

  It’s not the worst of questions, so I answer as I pocket the card. "My aunt left me my parents’ old house.” It’s true, but not the whole truth.

  Edward’s brows furrow in what would be sympathy on a less grizzled face. “Sorry tuh hear that.”

  I wrap my fingers around the bandage.

  Before my aunt left me the house, I’d always run whenever too many weres showed up in town or my identity leaked, or even if the wind blew the wrong way. Not because I was worried someone would attack me, but because of the matemark.

  The white crescent of fur appeared on my arm a month after the attack. At first I tried to deny what it was, but once the nightmares started, I knew that like Eve, Psyche, and Belle before me, I was doomed to be the mate of a monster. Forced to carry their spawn. Except not really forced. Because all a werebeast has to do is touch their mate to set their bodies on fire. A gun seems like a paltry weapon in comparison, but the threat of a silver bullet is the only thing that can scare a werebeast.

  “Well, seems like you’re all grown up.” Edward looks me up and down, his eyes lingering on my ample chest before he says, “Let’s get you a gun.” He squats and reaches for a shiny pistol at the front of the case. It looks out of my price range.

  “I was thinking something more used.”

  “No way I’m giving our Artemis Williams anything but the best.” He lays the pistol on the counter gingerly. “You ever shot a gun before?”

  “Yes,” I lie. My heart beats harder as I stare at the trigger.

  “‘Course you have. Bet you got yourself a collection already.” He pulls the gun apart, taking me through a whirlwind tour of all of its special chambers, features, and specs. I tell myself I don’t need to know how it works, that it’s just a prop. If my mate finds me, I won’t kill him, just force him to leave.

  “How ‘bout this one? She’s a hundred fifty, but for you I'll make it a clean hund-o and throw in some silver bullets too, unless you want somethin' fancier?”

  “I—” I twist a hand into my blonde curls, trying to soothe the anxiety burning in my chest. A hundred dollars will mean I eat ramen for the rest of the month. “This one’s fine.”

  He threads his fingers through the loops of his tattered khakis. “You gotta fill out the paperwork first.”

  I take a deep breath. “Do you have a pen?”

  He nods to a jar on the other side of the magnets. I stretch to pick one out, and a second too late I realize I’m using my right hand. He can see my bandage.

  Shit. I scramble back to the paperwork. He stays silent. It’s only at the end, after I’ve paid with my almost-overdrawn debit card and he’s finished packing up the gun, that he opens his mouth.

  “Whatcha gonna use it for?” He closes the gun case with a snap.

  “What do you think?” I blink at him innocently. My ample boobs, curved belly and ampler ass are usually catnip to creeps like Edward.

  “I don’t know what I think.” His lips tighten. “All I know is that you got a bandage ‘round your wrist and that I had a cousin once whose daddy beat her and she had a bandage ‘round her wrist, too.”

  I stiffen. If he finds out I’m matemarked, there’s no way he’ll sell me the gun.

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  His eyes narrow. “She had lots of bandages. Lots of tiny cuts, until one day she got a big one.” He holds up his wrist and draws his knobby finger over it in a sharp line. “Like this.”

  “You think I’m going to hurt myself?” I ask slowly.

  He raises his wiry eyebrows.

  I give a long sigh, unable to hide my relief that he hasn’t guessed what’s really underneath the bandage. Although he’s not entirely wrong, either. When I was fourteen, before I met my best friend Lawrence and we ran away, I thought about killing myself. Pills, though. Not a gun.

  “Well?”

  “No,” I say firmly. I’m probably not going to hurt anybody else, either. Here I am, wiping out the last of my savings when I’m not even planning on pulling the trigger.

  Edward lowers his chin, looking at my face for the first time. “Okay. Well here ya go, then. We have classes on Thursdays and Saturdays if you’re interested.” He slips a yellow sheet of paper into the plastic bag before reluctantly handing it to me.

  A dingy kind of twilight filters in from the exit, making the strip mall outside look even sadder, if possible. Better get started. I’ve got a long ride home. Sighing, I head toward the exit.

  “Are you gonna kill him?”

  I stop. “Who?”

  “The one who got away. The werebeast that didn’t turn himself in.”

  I swallow, trying not to picture my parents’ bodies. It’s hard because I relive their deaths almost every night in my nightmares. The crooked limbs, the glassy eyes. The screaming howls of the werebeasts. Every night the outcome is the same. They die. I can’t change it, and I can’t change real life, either.

  “I’ve got enough problems already without going hunting for more. And even if I didn’t, I’m not that brave.” I open the door, and it gives one last whingy ding as I do.

  “But that’s what’s great about ’em. Guns,” he shouts after me. “They make it so you don’t have to be.”

  Chapter Two

  The first thing I do when I get to the house is cram the gun into the duffle bag leaning against my air mattress. I can’t afford a real bed, even though I’ve been here for a couple of months now, and my aunt didn't have any furniture either. She was in the process of selling the house when she had the aneurysm, so it’s a husk of a building. The only things left adorning the walls are the electrical sockets.

  I told myself I didn’t mind the Spartan-ness of the place, that it was easier to forget the past than confront it, but as I strip out of my sweaty bike clothes and go to the shower, for the first time it feels truly empty. Maybe it’s because I saw my parents’ faces, but now I can’t help but remember what used to be here.

  Once upon a time this was my room, my sanctuary from chores and homework. I invented imaginary friends here, wrote songs here, cried here when Arnold Harris, my first crush, broke up with me at recess because the other boys were making fun of him for liking a “fattie” who ate too many cookies. He told me he still really liked me, but he just couldn’t take the teasing. That was when I swore that if I ever liked someone, I wouldn’t let what other people thought of me make me stop. And I wouldn’t stop eating cookies, either.

  Instead, I barricaded myself up in my room, and listened to the Backstreet Boys’ “Bye Bye Bye” over and over again. When my mom screamed at me to turn that auto-tuned abomination down, I yelled at her that “IT’S JUST AS DEEP AS OPERA. JEEZE!”

  I smile to myself as I slip into the shower, but it’s a bittersweet expression. I’ll never be that girl again. My parents will never be alive again. But as I towel off and shimmy into my oversized sleep t-shirt, I realize something else. This is still my house. I have the deed to prove it and the means to protect it, if I have to. I can make it safe here again.

  A grim optimism tightens my jaw. Then I open the door to my bedroom and what little hope I had evaporates.

  Moonbeams spill through the windows and cast the whole room in a dreamy glow. I flinch and look outside. There, beyond the ramshackle roofs of the other duplexes, hangs a giant full moon. A hunter’s moon. The nightmare is going to be strong tonight.

  I learned a long time ago that there’s no point fighting the dream; the only way for it to ever stop is if my mate finds me. But I don’t want that either. My mark aches as I fall into bed, my skin feverish under the white fur. Absently, I scratch at it as gravity drags my eyelids down and I fall aslee
p.

  The nightmare always begins the same way.

  I am inside a tent I can’t leave. Not until it’s too late. Miniature fortresses of library books surround my sleeping bag. Usually I can read every spine, but now all I can see are Nina Strike’s over-romanticized history of werebeasts and Twilight. Why is it so dark?

  I rise to my knees. Across the nylon of the tent my parents’ silhouettes play like shadow puppets. They’re fainter than usual, and the light around me is a dirty yellow.

  Pressing my hands against the tent fabric, my eyes widen as I realize why it’s dark and the light yellow instead of white. The moon is gone. And without the moon, the werebeasts can’t shift. Maybe I won’t have to watch my parents die tonight. I close my eyes and my chest tingles with a hopeful warmth.

  Outside, my father is twanging on his acoustic guitar, and my mother is singing. It’s almost midnight and they’ve already run through all the happy campfire rounds and settled into the slower ones. Their voices drift through the air toward me like leaves floating on some dark, endless stream.

  “By the waters, the waters of Babylon,” Mom sings. Her voice is beautiful and strong; it has to be—she was a voice teacher for a living and almost a professional opera singer until she had me. She used to say that she lost her voice when I was born because she transferred all her talent to me. She would hate that I don’t sing much anymore.

  Dad joins in on the second phrase, his voice blending into the harmony in a folksy counterpoint to her smooth tone. “We lay down and wept for thee, Zion.”

  Their voices weave together, but like the house, the song feels empty. It’s missing something. A third voice. In real life, I was engrossed in a stupid book. In every nightmare since, I can never bear to sing along, knowing what comes once the song ends.

  But tonight is different. Tonight I sing with them.

  “We remember, we remember, we remember thee, Zion,” I whisper, my voice hoarse from disuse and emotion.

  My hands press against the tent, warping my parents’ shadows as if I can gather them up and keep them safe. Maybe tonight, on this moonless night, I can. “We remember…”