Moon Bitten Read online

  Moon Bitten

  A Dark and Twisted Fairy Tale

  Angharad Thompson Rees

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Interlude – White Hot

  Chapter 5

  Interlude - Darkness

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Interlude - Everything

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Witch Hearts - Free Sample

  Sisters of Three

  Into The Woods

  Also by Angharad Thompson Rees

  About the Author

  1

  “Be careful,” Blaxton warns.

  I pull the hood of my red cape over my head, concealing myself against the gust of frigid winds biting with ice and spite. The sky hold the promise of more snow to come. He does not let go of my hand. And it’s not the snow concerning him.

  “Blaxton,” I say—his name as sweet as honey on my recently-kissed lips. “Do not concern yourself. It is but a short walk through the woods, and yes, I promise to stay on the tracks.”

  I raise an eyebrow, threatening him to contradict me. But he should know my penchant for wandering and losing myself. That’s how we met—deep within the woods during the first days of spring, when frost thawed atop the lake and his green eyes melted ice from my nervous heart.

  He pulls me into his chest, his body warm against my own, tempting me to stay. Tempting me to never leave. I melt into him, lips hot as the first flakes of snow dance from the sky.

  “Blaxton, no,” I say, pulling myself away with reluctance. The space between his heart and mine gapes as if the very universe could fill the hole. “I have to get back to Grandma, you know I do.”

  His face drops at her mention. Grandma despises him despite his soft features, warm honey eyes and sweet, crooked smile. Though I suspect her hatred is aimed more at the threat he will steal me from her. Just as her daughter, my mother, was stolen so many years ago I can no longer picture her face. But that was different. Mother did not fall in love as I have. She was taken…

  By wolves.

  A perfectly timed howl echoes across the valley, carried along the land muted by snow. Blaxton raises his own eyebrow at the beast’s call and I laugh. An empty tin-like sound of hollow mirth and creeping fear.

  “I’ll be fine. Tomorrow,” I say, allowing a smile to creep across my frost-numb face. “Let’s meet tomorrow, same time and place.”

  Blaxton captures loose strands of my red hair in his pale fingers. The contrast startling like blood on snow. Tucking the strands behind my left ear, his fingers trail my cheek as he kisses my forehead. “Tomorrow,” he promises. “But… Woolsey will be here.”

  I tense. There is something about his friend, the way he looks at me, that sets me on edge—makes my stomach coil within itself.

  Blaxton’s face pulls into an apologetic grimace. “Don’t worry, I’ll change plans. I’ll think of something, so it’s just you and me.”

  And I know he will. He always does.

  There are not many things in the world harder than leaving Blaxton behind, but I don’t look back as my feet crunch on snow hardened by late afternoon frost. For there are other things to worry about, other things keeping me focused on getting home before nightfall. Such as the strange deaths accumulating in the village by the day, or should I say, night. Bodies found mutilated and gnawed, limbs missing, necks ravaged.

  My pace quickens, as much as the deepening snow will allow, and I ignore its cruel bite gnawing from my feet to my ankles. Toes already numb. And all I hear is the deep silence of the snow-laden landscape—my lone steps and heavy breath as I break into an ungainly jog. I wish at this point, to be a skipping fox, and perhaps that’s how I may look if eyes watched my red cape fluttering against the white snow from a distance. But the eyes I feel upon me do not feel distant. They feel close and hungry and perhaps I am making this up with fear and folly.

  The deaths.

  A lone wolf’s howl.

  The gossip; what if the lone wolf has returned? It took Red’s mother all them eons ago. Perhaps it has come back to take her too? Overheard conversations and superstitious nonsense.

  But still, I break into a sprint as Grandma’s cottage comes into view.

  2

  Sounds travel differently upon snow. It’s as if the entire world sleeps while each step a crude yell. Each breath a rasping heave.

  There is neither birdsong nor the rustling of leaves overhead. A deeper silence perhaps than silence itself. So when Grandma’s scream bellows from the cottage in the distance, the sound races towards me like a raging storm.

  I charge along the path, despite fear weakening my bowels. But it’s not only her scream pulling my heart downwards towards my pounding feet, but the snarling growls and malicious yelps accompanying her cries for help. Somewhere, in the back of my mind, the place locked deep within my subconscious, I’ve heard those sounds before. A memory too painful to hold, too cruel to remember. Mother’s sacrifice to save me while I was mere bairn.

  I snap that memory back into its box as I race up the wooden steps of the veranda. A strange moment to notice the blue paint flaking from the walls exposing patches of tired, rotting oak. A stranger time still to notice the flower boxes empty and barren save from frost-touched soil as dark as death. Another step and I burst through the door already ajar.

  It’s the heat that first hits me, the raging warmth of the roaring fireplace hot against my cold, cold cheeks.

  And then the blood.

  “Grandma!” I scream, an awful primal sound raging from the deepest depths of my soul.

  Both she and the wolf pause for a microsecond, all eyes on mine. Grandma’s scrunched up pain-ridden eyes are filled with a deep fear. Blood smears the entire right side of her face. The wolf’s amber eyes stare with bottomless hunger and rage.

  “Run, Red! Run!” Grandma yells. Her wail jolts the beast back into its savage attack with a yelp of frustration. But I do not run. Cannot. I stand, stunned—silent as forgotten secrets as the pair wrestle on the ground in a blur of white fur and fang. Grandma’s grey hair is stained as red as mine as she rolls and struggles through puddles of blood on a threadbare rug.

  And finally, my body springs into action and my thoughts disappear.

  Fur is warm within my clutches. Hard, lean muscles beneath my palms. Teeth snap. Warm musky breath—with the metallic twang of Grandma’s blood—hits my face. I roar, grappling to pull the beast away. It barks in anger, and mauls my arm. Fangs splitting skin, bone and sinew. And I howl, recoiling for but a moment before I launch at it again. This time, the beast charges at me, slamming me onto my back. It growls and yelps, and for a moment I am glad its blood-stained fangs gnash inches from my face for it allows Grandma to save herself. But she doesn’t move, no matter how much I will her to stand. To run. To live.

  The wolf grabs at my wounded arm as I protect my face with my hands, its teeth puncturing skin once more. The pain is exquisite, a sensation reminding me how fragile souls are trapped within our breakable bodies. And I see nothing but those glowing amber eyes. The twilight hour has crept through the windows and doors, and the crackling fire glows brighter in the descending darkness. Above me, the wolf’s shadow looms high and large on the wall, flickering with the flames as I flicker from conscious thought to nothing but the sensation of fangs sinking into my flesh.

  Time passes. I lose myself in a black hole of nothing—no pain, no fear.

  The grandfather
clock chimes, waking me with a start and rousing my consciousness.

  The pain and fear now double.

  The wolf is no longer above me. It grapples over Grandma’s body once more. Blood covers the beast’s white fur and a furless black scar akin to a question mark follows the animal’s spine. But the only question I can think of is will Grandma survive this vicious attack?

  The clock chimes again, a deathly tick tock, counting down the seconds of Grandma’s life.

  Crimson stains my fingers, a warm thick fluid chilling my heart as I scramble to my hands and knees. There’s no time, despite another chime. There’s nothing I can do to save her. I’m too late. Too weak…

  “You can never have her,” Grandma moans. Resilient, even as she stares death, and the savage wolf, in the face.

  A guttural howl explodes, dancing from the walls and low ceiling of the cottage; trapped—like Grandma under the wolf’s fierce claws. Trapped, like me, paralysed in my body as I brace against a noise I cannot escape—the curdling of Grandma’s blood stuck in her ravaged throat as she dies.

  I clamber to my feet, rage propelling me to the small kitchen bench. A knife is in my hands before I have time to think, and I launch myself at the white beast speckled with red. The knife slices straight through its flesh and muscles as easily as puncturing an overripe fruit. It howls—a grotesque sound full of fury and anguish. The beast knocks me down, turns and lopes away, leaving me rasping on the floor—the knife still wedged in its flesh.

  I take one look at Grandma’s dead body and wish I hadn’t. And then, with no reason to stay, I pursue the wolf into the darkness.

  3

  Darkness wraps itself around me, and despite the low set moon offering little light, it is not hard to follow the wolf’s path. The red stains in the snow are like some gruesome fairy-tale trail leading to a house made of gingerbread or some other cruel witch’s abode. And I wonder where this wolf will lead me.

  Perhaps to my death.

  My wound pulses to the rhythm of my feet slowed only by the depth of new snowfall. A squeaking softness now, a sound like chewing cotton wool, a God awful sound for a God awful night. And though I should not curse, what else is there to do? Wolves have killed my mother and grandma both and I can only believe it is a curse.

  I continue following the bloody paw prints and speckles of blood leaking from the knife wound. Through the woods I track the beast, where trees loom over me, their skeletal branches laden with snow grasping at my very soul. Over the frozen timid brook I follow, hoping my weight will not break the cold touch of ice and frost and hopelessness, and send me crashing into the water that dares flow beneath the surface.

  I freeze. Short, shallow breaths balloon in front of my face. My wound smarts in the cold. I grasp it, and squat to inspect the paw prints on the ground. Next to them rests my knife, tip first in the bloody snow. I pick it up while considering the paw prints—they’re changing, elongating, morphing.

  I can only assume the beast is faltering, slowing—unsteady on its weakening limbs. Good. Perhaps the one knife wound was all it needed. But this thought does not bring me relief or joy as I continue to stalk, because the prints are morphing still, and this time it is undeniable.

  They have turned into human footsteps…

  And the footsteps lead directly towards Blaxton’s homestead.

  There are moments in life when reality and fantasy combine, and for several fractions of a second, I suspend my disbelief and consider the possibility of what my eyes can see but mind can’t fathom. Nothing makes sense but the erratic beat of my heart hammering against my ribcage. The footsteps do not go to the door, but around the house to the barns and stables. A deeper concern now surfaces.

  Blaxton.

  I cannot lose the only two people I love in one night.

  Neither candlelight nor fire in the hearth shines from the windows of Blaxton’s homestead. Instead, the wooden dwelling seems to place a finger over its mouth of a door and whispers an urgent shhh. My clumsy frozen toes stumble up the three steps, and the crash in the otherwise silent night sends a murder of ravens cawing into the nighttime sky. They soon settle back onto branches of the old oak that hovers over the house. And they watch me, waiting, perhaps, for their spoils. In the summer, the old oak looks like a safe warm promise. Tonight, with its empty spindly branches, and a murder coolly considering me, it looks only like a threat.

  I rap on the door, though I am certain Blaxton is not inside.

  “Blaxton,” I whisper, because on a night like this, a whisper is all I have. “Blaxton?” And I learn even a whisper can sound urgent and desperate.

  A howl, ravage and wild, cuts through my thoughts.

  My eyes clench and I clutch at my wound, blood seeping between my fingers. Nausea grows to my throat, and I breathe a measured breath to gather myself.

  Forget the pain, I urge myself. Forget Grandma’s pale and lifeless eyes. Forget…

  A scream slices through the air. The ravens scatter, black wings and feathers. This time they do not return—the murder taking place elsewhere. Another scream, and I spin around, and around again. The sound echoes across the valley and it’s hard to discern from which direction. And in that moment, with the kitchen knife still clutched in my hand, I wonder whether I should be running towards or away from the scream that cries out one last time.

  A gunshot.

  A thud.

  I need to breathe but fear grips my throat like cruel fingers.

  Footsteps stalk behind me. I have to dare myself to look around, but cannot.

  I have to rouse myself to raise the knife, but I do not.

  The footsteps near and I can neither distinguish if they belong to man nor beast.

  I count down from three, steel myself and spin towards my stalker.

  The knife clatters to the ground and I scream.

  4

  I back away and stumble over a log basket, sending firewood spilling across the veranda. The front door balances me, stopping me before I fall.

  “Blaxton?” I whimper, a sick sound even in my own troubled mind.

  He reaches for me, though he is nowhere near touching distance. I want him to stop. I need him to stop, right there, and not come any closer. But words stick in my throat and all I can do is shake my head under my red hooded cape.

  He is covered in blood, from head to toe, and he is not alone. Beside Blaxton stalks Woolsey, he too is blooded yet he smiles at me in a way that makes me back further against the wooden door already pressed hard against my back. And I can’t fathom my own thoughts because what I think cannot be true.

  Blaxton reaches the steps and his friend has the decency at least to wait below. Still, I feel cornered.

  “What… What?” I stutter, cursing myself for my incoherence. But I can’t piece the parts together.

  The paw prints turning to footprints. The howl. The scream. The gunshot and the blood.

  “Red?” he asks, and the softness of his voice makes me see, truly see, what is in front of me. White tracks stream down his blooded checks from his eyes. He’s crying. And I take his out stretched hands.

  “The old mare, Betsy,” he said, shaking his head. “The wolf, it got to her, she didn’t stand a chance—mauled her in seconds. I was there, I tried to fight it off and if it wasn’t for Woolsey suddenly turning up from nowhere when he did…”

  He turns to his friend who has yet to take his hungry eyes from me. I spare Woolsey a quick glance, and subconsciously my eyes trail to his side. There is no knife wound, no blood, and I chastise myself for thinking the impossible.

  Things slowly begin to make sense, pieces of the puzzle beginning to fit. The howls. The screams belonged to poor Betsy, the lovely old carthorse who was as soft as she was strong. But her strength would have been no match for a vicious attack. There are many types of strengths, after all.

  “The gunshot?” I ask, because I need to know to set my wandering mind back onto the correct path.

  “That was
me,” Woolsey says and I detect more than a hint of pride to his supercilious tone. “The mare was dying in agony. I shot her, and the wolf disappeared out of sight.”

  Blaxton nodded, agreeing with the tale that sets my chattering teeth on edge. Then his blood stained face morphs into a different expression. He notices my blood, my paler than pale complexion, the not rightness of my being here in the dark, in the snow, and his own thoughts of wolves and Betsy are overtaken. I can see it by the way his honey eyes melt.

  “What’s happened? What—” he grabs me into his warm body. “What happened to you?”

  And I want to tell him. I want to tell him everything. The fight. Grandma dead. My wound. The knife in the wolf’s side. The changing paw prints in the snow.

  But the bite mark pulls all of my thoughts into those puncture wounds, like my entire self is now centred around those four marks leaking crimson onto Blaxton’s pale, white hands. A startling contrast I have seen before when life was neither gruesome nor painful.

  The pain grips me, pulls me, yanks me from my body and mind. I drop, feeling the scattered logs digging awkwardly into my body as I tumble deeper.

  “Red?” I hear Blaxton call but his voice sounds so far away.

  “What the hell?” I hear Woolsey, a tone full of anger that also fades away. Their heated voices dissolve into background muffled sounds—then silence.

  And for me, my mind goes as blank as the snow-filled landscape. There is nothing but a void, and I tumble down its gaping hole.

  Interlude – White Hot