Huntbound (Moonfate Serial Book 2)

HUNT
BOUND

Moonfate Serial Part Two

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.

Edited by Carol Davis

Cover by Frost Designs

Acknowledgments:

Thanks go to many people, but especially to my lovely boyfriend and my incredible author friends, Tasha Black, Viola Rivard & V.M. Black. As well as a huge thank you to my last minute crack beta team, Maia Sepp, Sera Bright, and Joey! You guys saved the day.

Moonfate Serial

Moonbound
(September 28, 2014)
Huntbound
(October 31st, 2014)

Bloodbound (November 31st, 2014)
Heartbound (December 31st, 2014)

For more information on the Moonfate serial, sign up for my newsletter at
Sylviafrost.com

Table of 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 Sixteen

Chapter One

“Since werebeasts faded into extinction, they’ve turned from monsters into myths. And myths, like all stories, are nothing more than a mirror. Through them we understand ourselves.”

-
Beasts, Blood & Bonds
by Dr. Nina M. Strike

I wake up with my nose planted on a hard linoleum floor that reeks of chemicals. It’s cold against my cheek. No, freezing.

My house is gone. 

Groaning, I roll onto my side and take in the room.

Windowless white brick walls surround a twin bed made with military precision. The only personal touch in the space is a shabby paperback on a metal nightstand, the pages stained yellow.

My knees ache as I rise, and I have to rub my hands against my bare arms to keep my fingers from going numb. Jesus, it must be sub-zero in here, but that doesn’t make any sense. It’s May.

A sour, dry taste has taken root in my mouth, and my body still feels sluggish. It’s as if this is all a video I’m trying to stream over a bad Internet connection. Or I’ve been drugged.

Oh, shit. I’ve been kidnapped. Whoever took Lawrence must have come back and taken me too. My heart thrums in double time.

A downward glance reveals I’m still wearing my slightly damp black jeans and leather-trimmed long-sleeve shirt. At least whoever kidnapped me didn’t take them off.

My breath catches in my throat, but before I can devolve into a full-blown panic attack I notice something I missed on my first examination. On the far wall there is a door. An open door. One I’d swear wasn’t there a second ago.

I shake my head. I’m definitely drugged. What kind of kidnapper leaves such an easy way to escape? It’s this thought that keeps me from running to the exit.

Instead I fall onto the bed, needing to sit down. “Okay, okay, okay,” I mumble to myself. “What do you remember?”

Last night Orion North, a werewolf and my destined mate, invaded my dreams and then my reality when he found me in an alleyway after work. He was beautiful, domineering, and it was only by mixture of luck and will that I was able to walk away from him and not succumb to his seduction. However, fate would not be denied, and when I came home I found that my vampire best friend and roommate, Lawrence, had been kidnapped, and his lover, a werepufferfish, was dead in my living room.

I didn’t want to involve the Federal Bureau of Supernatural Investigation, so I caved and called Orion instead to ask for help. He agreed. I remember going out to the living room, seeing Cooper, the pufferfish. Dead. Familiar red pooled around his limbs. He didn’t smell. I remember thinking he — his body — should smell.

Another wave of nausea washes over me, and I grip the bed frame so hard its rusty granules dig into my hand. Even after the memory of Cooper’s dead body evaporates, the wrongness stays. It’s this place. It doesn’t feel real, somehow.

I take a deep breath, the cold air stinging my teeth.

I waited in the living room for an hour, and then two. But Orion didn’t come. So I headed to my bedroom, unable to stare at the dead body any longer, and too exhausted to think of anywhere else to go. I couldn’t leave, so I lay down on the bed, thinking I would just rest for a second.

Oh, God. I fell asleep. The reason none of this feels real is because it isn’t. This must be a dream.

When I look around for a second time, the walls have a new, imposing significance.

I would pinch myself, but I know that the vivid dreams I have — the ones caused by the crescent of white fur on the inside of my wrist, called a matemark — aren’t like normal nightmares. Here I can feel pain, and cold, and the only way to wake up is to live through the dream to its inevitable conclusion…or for my weremate to end it.

Except this can’t be a nightmare. I always dream of the same thing every night: my parents’ murder by werebeasts in the forest of Letchworth State Park.

The open door pulls my gaze. Matemark dreams aren’t like real life, where details are meaningless. If the door is open here, it means something’s going to come through it.

But what?

From the hallway I hear footsteps.

Damn. I have seconds, maybe, before whoever it is arrives, and there’s nowhere to hide. The springs moan as I hop off of the bed. Whatever’s coming, I’ll face it standing.

The footsteps stop.

From the hallway comes a voice that I know as well as my own, even though I only heard it for the first time yesterday.

“I will see you tomorrow for the changing, Father.”

Orion?

Except he sounds wrong. Not the pitch of his voice, which is just as deep as ever, but the tone. It’s so formal, so restrained. Caged.

I grab the bed frame again for balance and wince at the pricklingly cold metal.

“Artemis.”

A man who is both Orion and not Orion looms in the doorway. He’s got the same tangled blonde hair, broad shoulders and rough, square jaw, but his eyes are different. Instead of flickering like an aurora, they remain a static, glacial blue as they pierce me.

I gape at him. “Orion?”

In one single motion he pushes the door closed behind him and enters the room. “How long have you been here?”

“I don’t know.” I back up against the bed. “I don’t even know who
you
are.” I gesture to him vaguely. “You look so” —
cruel, human, sad —
“different,” I whisper.

“Being here has that effect on me.” His lips twist into a sour smile, and he gives me one more probing gaze before he prowls right toward me.

“But where is here?” I stumble back toward the bed, the springs squeaking as they suddenly take my weight. “This is a dream, isn’t it? It’s not real.”

He doesn’t answer, just takes another step toward me. And another. He doesn’t even spare a glance to the space around him. It’s like he’s been here a thousand times before.

“W-what are you doing?” The chattering of my teeth makes it hard to get the words out. As does the fact that Orion’s close enough now that I can see the dark determination sparkling in his navy blue eyes.

“Does it matter where we are?” He stops only an inch away from me, his eyes raking over my body, claiming every curve in a single perusal. “All that matters is getting out.”

A fingernail of cold scrapes up my spine as I press my back up against the wall. “And how are we going to do that? This isn’t my nightmare. If it was, it would’ve ended the moment I saw you, wouldn’t it? That’s how it worked the last time.”

“But it’s not working that way this time, is it, Little Mate?” He leans forward onto the bed. I know he must be heavier than me, he’s certainly larger, but somehow with his grace he manages to move onto it without the springs squeaking. “You walking away from me in the alleyway must have damaged the bond. So we’ll have to try to strengthen it if we want to dissolve the dream.”

“Strengthen it how?” My stomach flips with his nearness. There’s nowhere to go. I swallow and try to scoot toward the other end of the bed, but Orion’s hands come down on either side of me with inexorable slowness.

“Like this, Artemis,” he says.

And then his lips are on mine.

He tastes different in the dream. Sweeter, stronger, and so blessedly warm. For the warmth alone I lean into the kiss instinctively, my numb lips springing to life under his subtle ministrations. I close my eyes, needing more of him, grateful for the way rational thought flees when his tongue teases the edges of my lower lip.

When he touches me I don’t have to worry about anything. Not Lawrence. Not my parents. Not the dream. It all fades away.

But only for a moment. All too soon the cold starts to press in on either side of us and my lungs tighten from the lack of oxygen. I can’t let myself forget. Not about my parents, or Lawrence, or anything. I can’t let the desire already pooling in my stomach take over.

Just as I manage to tame my longing, his lips retreat from mine. For a moment I stay, leaning forward, waiting for him to return. Then my eyes flutter open, I look around and I realize it didn’t work. My heart starts to thrum again, but this time not from excitement. We’re still here.

Damn it.

Orion grimaces. I’m so close to him that I can see the microspasms the corner of his mouth makes and the way his beautiful, cold blue eyes twitch. “That should’ve worked.” He runs one large hand through his tangled blond hair.

“We’ll have to try something else,” I say, taking advantage of his momentary distraction to edge toward the nightstand. At first I’m just trying to get away from Orion, but then I see the shabby paperback just lying there, the only possible clue in this antiseptic hellhole.

Picking it up, I glance at the title:
The Tempest
. Ironic. Here’s a play about dreams inside of a dream. The edges of the pages ripple underneath my fingertips as I rifle through them. I pause at a random scene in the fifth act and read the first line at the top of the page.

“‘This thing of darkness I acknowledge as mine,’” I mouth. The line is spoken by the werebeast wizard Prospero.

“Prospero was a bastard.” Orion’s minty breath ghosts against my neck.

I flinch as a needle of desire laces through me.

“A well spoken one, at least,” I mumble distractedly, trying not to let the heady and strange combination of Orion’s closeness overwhelm me. “But what does it mean?”

“Plumbing the depths of Shakespeare won’t help us. Nor will it help us find your friend.” He plucks the book from my numb, pink hands, but it’s too late.