Fire Moon by Miss CrazyPlantLady (phonics reading books .TXT) 📖

instantly soaking his shirt. Collapsing as Bain cursed and dragged him out of the firing range, "They have fucking arrows?" he was yelling and whispering all at once.

I could only nod. I watched Urith's limp body, the blood seeping through the fabric of his shirt. I was frozen. He can't be dead, the moon wouldn't dare take Quinn's mate away from us, from her and I would have to tell Quinn. My heart ached at the thought. Broke at the look that would be on her face.

"Is he—" I felt myself say.

"It only hit his shoulder; he'll be fine" Bain interrupted me. Saying it to himself more than to me.

The air around us felt heavy and smelt of moisture, sticking to my throat as I breathed. Scanning the dark forest around us. The darkness so thick it left us blind. I couldn't see anything. I didn't know where they were coming from. Panic rose up my spine and fear started to bleed into my flesh.

"Eden" Bain tried to get my attention. He was clinging to Urith's lifeless body and his hands now soaked.

I wasn't listening to him. My ears picked up movement on our left, they were slow and deliberately stepping heavy.

"Eden!" it was more like a warning this time, "I have to shift."

"Do it!" I shouted as a figure came through the trees.

My blood thinned as my dark eyes met the emeralds of Alexei. I felt my chest hollow out, a sob leaving my body as more of his men came from our right and I could hear Bain fighting them.

Not him. Please not Alexei.

My eyes met the Oracle's who was now pinned to the ground, face down and a giant red wolf at his neck. Not given enough time to shift.

I will not let this happened to my friends. I stood and my flames came to me. Climbing up my arms and threatening to cover my entire body.

"Let him go!" my voice demanded. Sounding foreign and strange.

The wolf looked at me then. His golden eyes glistening as they took in my flames. He retracted his teeth and took a step away from Bain. 

My head snapped to the left with a brutal blow as another one of Alexei's henchmen landed a heavy kick against my face. This one in human form. I collapsed to the ground, ignoring the blistering pain as my eyes met Alexei's.

He was shouting something at his sidekick, the words muffled through the searing heat that covered my face. I felt the thick wetness of my blood and I could hear the Oracle yelling out my name.

Alexei looked disappointed when he finally looked at me, he reached down and fingered my now bloodied cheek, "You shouldn't have left the house."

I opened my mouth to speak but I couldn't hear my words with the ringing in my ears so loud.

I frowned up at him, he only shouted at his henchmen again and pulled me up with his cold hands on my burning skin.

His eyebrows were in a heavy frown, the skin in between his brows turning white with tension and only then did he look down at me. He shook his head before all my hearing came back at once. Roaring to life, I pushed him away with the force I was taught and even though he only jerked back the tiniest amount, it was enough for me to run back to Bain.

"I said let him go!" I screamed as I rammed the large red wolf that clung to the Oracle again, I summoned all my strength in that one blow.

Relief flooded my veins as the wolf stumbled. It wasn't enough to release Bain but the wolf turned its attention to me. Glowing eyes drinking me in, analysing my face and I knew it would kill me from the look in its eyes.

He ripped open the Oracle's neck within two seconds. His large sharp teeth, craving through skin like it was nothing but butter. I watched as Bain's eyes went dull, lifeless and I screamed. My cry seared the lining of my throat.

The other henchmen took the opportunity and shoved me to the ground, trapping me between him and the earth. His thick hairy arm curling around my neck, cutting my oxygen and I could hear Alexei shouting. My vision blurred and the noise vanished and then nothing. Darkness swallowed me.

My dreams were a deadly mixture of Mara, Urith, Wren and Bain. All blending into one person. Bleeding into my dreams and haunting them. Urith's blood soaked shirt. Mara's decapitated head. Bain's lifeless body. Wren's fearful eyes.

My body woke first. I kept my eyes closed, trying to feel my surroundings and all I could hear was my own heart reverberating in my ears. My head resting on a thin pillow, I could only smell soil and rust. There was no sound around me, only a slight clunking of something on metal.

"You can open your eyes now" a voice whispered from across where I was.

It was deep and warm but I couldn't decide if it was female or male, it almost sounded like Quinn. Smooth and even. Except this one was deeper than Quinn's.

I sat up with a gasp. Where is everyone else?

My eyes blinded by the sudden light. I squinted around the room, looking for Urith, for the Oracle but my eyes fell upon the woman sitting across from me.

Her skin the colour of mahogany, rich and glistening. Her eyes were their own honey pots, she watched me with them and she smiled sweetly, "It's been a while since I've had a roommate."

I frowned, drinking in my surroundings and I was in a cell. A claustrophobic four-walled cell. The floor was smoothed over mud, the walls textured with the stone they used to make them and the bed that I laid in was so thin I could feel the ground through it.

"Where am I?" I demanded, my head screaming in pain at the volume of my voice and I reached up to feel the now sticky wound that remained on my cheek.

The stranger stood, not moving any closer due to the thick chain around her wrist and she noticed me gawk at it. A laugh escaped her, "I wish I could tell you this was a good place and you were safe" she gestured her head to the left, "but I'm afraid, I'd be lying."

I followed her gesture and my breath left my lungs as I took in Urith's limp, colour-less body, he was in the next cell over, we shared a wall and my bones screamed in protest as I moved to him. I barely reached him and my fingers touched his cold ones, "Urith?" my voice was begging for his response.

Don't be dead. Don't be dead. Don't be dead.

A soft and low groan escaped from him, "I'm—I'm alive."

8

 

POISON.

It was a poisoned arrow.

I could smell it. I could see the slick thickness of something toxic and sinister.

My shoulder ached as I stretched my arm through the bars of my cell and into Urith's. I grasped the arrow still piercing his shoulder, the blood now dried to a brown-red and I gripped it, "Are you sure?"

Our brown eyes met and he groaned, "Pull—pull it—out!"

I wrapped my fingers around the thin stick and yanked it from his flesh. I flinched as another groan ripped from Urith, I watched as he vomited instantly after and his body went limp again.

"What's happening to him?" I demanded, turning to the stranger who continued to watch us from her corner.

She gave me a sad smile, "They're Foxglove arrows."

My confusion clear on my face, "What does that mean?"

Her dark curled hair was matted, I noticed and she continued offering her sad smile, "It's real name is digitalis purpurea, they coat all their weapons with it and overdoses are deadly" her chains rattled as she pushed her curls from her face, "He has three days and there's nothing you can do."

"Hey!" I shouted down the corridor, "Hey, we need help!" my voice was panicked and booming.

"Yes, sweet Eden?" it was Alexei who answered my cries.

He had a small fragile women next to him. Her aged, thin body made him look larger and dangerous.

I felt my mouth go up in a snarl, "You dirty traitor, of course it was you!"

His emerald orbs watched my face and annoyance grew on his own, "You know nothing about me, Changeling."

He huffed the last word. Trying to insult me and I hated that it worked. August was right the entire time. I growled in response, "I'd pick being a Changeling over being a backstabber any damn day."

His hand flew through the bars and gripped the fabric of my shirt, pulling me hard against the cold metal, "I swear to the moon that I will..."

"Mr Velasquez, we came to heal her" the senile lady croaked, "Not harm her more."

I blinked, remembering Urith, "No, heal him" I gestured to Urith, who was now convulsing on the ground and I thought of begging. I would beg from him to be healed. I would kneel to anyone I had to.

You do not kneel. You do not beg.

My eyes meeting the elder's eyes. They were the same colour of Alice's and framed with aged skin, "I cannot help him, there is no cure."

She was lying and I knew it. My eyes darkened, "Help. Him."

I watched her head drop slightly and she turned to Alexei, who hadn't stopped watching me and he grunted his response, "I'm not wasting my healer on a Sigma."

My glare was deadly sharp and I ripped his grip off my shirt. I glanced down at the arrow in my hand and I glanced back up at him, his eyes following me and I almost thought he'd realise but he just rose an eyebrow in question. Daring me to throw it at him and if I didn't have other plans for it, I would have.

"Fine, then I do not wish to be healed" I rose my chin and returned to my thin bed. The funny thing about Healer-hounds, is they can only heal someone if that someone accepts it. The fragile woman can't heal me even if they burst into the cell because I have refused and therefore my body wouldn't absorb the heal.

"Fine" Alexei laughed in disbelief, "Rather watch you suffer."

"Fine" I shrugged. His emeralds glowed with irritation and he turned, strolling down the corridor.

I eyed the arrow in my hand and I knew exactly what I was going to do with this.

"Are you really a Changeling?" asked the chained stranger.

I felt myself jerk in surprise. Her existence completely slipping my mind and I nodded, "Yeah and by the looks of it, a cursed one."

A soft chuckle from her lips and she looked back at Urith, her lips turning into a grim line "If I wasn't tied up, I could help him."

I frowned, "How?"

"I'm a Healer like Lolita" her voice lower, almost like it was a secret.

"Is that why they chained you?" I asked.

A slight nod and her shoulder rose in a shrug, "I was born on a full moon..."

"A Curer" I interrupted, already knowing.

A Curer-wolf is a Healer-hound born on a full moon. A Curer were the strongest of the Healer kinds. They could mend bones, cure lifelong diseases, treat mental illnesses and there were