HUNTER

Hunter stepped from blinding daylight into suffocating night.

For a moment he thought he'd gotten himself killed. The water of the Moon Gate was black as ink, deeper than he was tall, and no matter how far he struck out his limbs all he met was cold, slithering nothing.

Then a splinter of moonlight wormed its way through the dark. Hunter's soul flared in response and shone through his pores, rendering the slimy rocks and frilled plants of the waterhole in eerie shades of grey. He propelled himself towards the embankment, hoping to climb, but his fingers slipped and sent up salty clouds of algae.

Hunter's last reserve of air slipped past his lips, bursting against a wavering ceiling too high for hope. Deflated, his lungs refused to buoy him up. Dense muscle dragged him down. Hunter started to panic, kicking and clawing, chest burning, heart palpitating. After all he'd been through, all he'd learned, to die like this...

Rubbery strands of lake weed wrapped around his wrists, pulling tight like manacles. He screamed, accidentally sucking in water, only to realise they were tugging him up instead of down. In a matter of seconds he breached the surface and shot through the air, face-first into the bank with a demeaning squelch. Mud sprayed between his fingers, almost blinding him as he vomited foul water onto a pair of curl-toed slippers.

"Charming." The voice was imperious. Mincing.

Hunter shuddered, then coughed, back arching with every spasm. One of those curled slippers tapped impatiently, and he found himself quite chagrined as he wiped his mouth and rose up on his knees.

To his surprise, it wasn't a woman in her prime confidently snapping at him, but a hag who looked as if she could barely remember it. Her face was uncannily like a knot of wood in an ancient tree, and her neck brought to mind the leathery turtles he sometimes caught when freshwater fishing.

Witch, his instincts screamed, and he recoiled without thinking, scrambling to his feet. She huddled in a patchwork cloak that did little to hide the stoop in her spine, but her eyes were sharp as a freshly minted blade, the same cold, eerie blue that tinged the parting clouds overhead. The light overhead faded as the clouds closed like a wound, but the spark in her eyes burned brighter for it.

"You're lucky I opened the way for you," the witch said, cocking her head like a bird of prey. Her nose was certainly close enough to a beak. "Or you would have been trapped under the surface and drowned."

Hunter shuddered again at the thought of dying in that in-between place, which he almost had. "I suppose I owe you my life," he said grudgingly.

"You think?"

Hunter almost flinched; her voice cracked like a whip. Shame rolled through him like a fresh wave of pain and he gathered his nerves, tired of being bullied. "Do you know who I am?" he asked, immediately loathing how whiny and haughty he sounded. He'd been going for an imperious tone. It came to Sebastian so effortlessly, damn it; like his brother was power, not simply possessed of it.

My father is Alpha of the Blood Moon Pack and the Night Goddess's Chosen Consort. My brother will rule the Kingdom of Eternal Night they are building together even now, and I —

... I am no-one, he realised abruptly, his confidence deflating.

She knew it, too. "You're a brat, is what you are."

The insult stiffened his spine, at least. Hunter rose to his full height, but while the witch shrank in size, her spirit was stout. A proud creature, he realised. I can appeal to that.

"I have a boon to ask," he said, adopting a more pleasant tone.

The Witch of the West snorted. "Do you, now?"

Hunter forced a smile. "Yes. I would greatly appreciate it if..."

But she'd already turned her back on him. The witch shuffled towards the dilapidated cottage on the bald cap of the hill, where the merciless thinning of the trees afforded little protection from the mist that now sprayed from the heavens. Hunter blinked as it collected on his skin, awaiting the refreshing balm of nature's kiss, only to swear when the black droplets started to burn. Acid.

He overtook the witch in a few short strides. "I can carry you," he offered, frowning at the blisters on her gnarled hands. For all the gory tales of her monstrous magic, she wasn't healing like he was.

"I can do it myself," she snapped, hobbling on.

"Fine," he ground out. Something about the miserable wretch set his teeth on edge. "But I'm not waiting here for you."

She harrumphed. "Fine."

He trudged up the hill in a sulk, wrinkling his nose at the blackened mortar and stench of woodsmoke hanging about the masonry like a bad aura. The witch was using a moth-eaten curtain instead of a door, and the fabric crumbled in his hands as he pulled it aside, ducking his head to avoid hitting it on the frame.

The Witch of the West's domain was not what he'd expected. A fire had ripped its way through the house, gutting it of all her earthly possessions. The wooden support beams sagged dangerously against each other, pulling what was left of the thatched roof precariously into the centre pole. Rain puddled at his feet, turning the packed-earth floors to mud, and Hunter frowned at the steady drip, drip, drip of rain striking cast-iron pots laid about the place. The water was so dark it looked like blood as it gathered, and it even ate through the iron in some places.

The biggest leak was right over her sleeping platform, though the straw that must have softened the raised bed of stone had long since shrivelled up. Hunter was appalled to find the witch's sleeping furs on the floor by the hearth instead, though the coals were long dead, devoid of even the barest whisper of heat.

It only took a moment to decide what to do next. Hunter's cloak was dark and water repellent, so he shrugged it off and grabbed a hammer and some screws from the workbench in the corner, trying not to think too much about the odd assortment of trinkets she was working on as he climbed the sleeping platform. One rap at a time, he nailed down the edges of the cloak to the perimeter of the hole, squinting against the stinging drizzle.

When it was done, he pulled back and frowned. Water still squeezed through the gaps between the nails, even though he'd pulled the fabric as tight as possible. Wishing his magic was more tactful, he prodded the cloth with a finger and concentrated the tiniest amount of Grace in the tip, sweating from the effort. He could bring down scores of enemies, knock down waves of trees with a single flick of his power, but using the pressure of gravity to fuse cloth and wood together? It felt like trying to lift a damn mountain.

"What are you doing?"

Hunter scowled and refused to turn around. "What does it look like?"

"Like you're meddling with my things."

He stiffened. "Tell me, is it your eyesight or that black, shrivelled thing you call a heart that renders you incapable of recognising an act of kindness?"

"Get out of my bed, you scoundrel!" He turned when he realised she was hobbling menacingly towards him. Not me, he realised. She intends to sit down. "I wouldn't sleep with you in a million years."

Whatever insult he'd curried spoiled instantly on his tongue. Hunter flushed, blood searing his cheeks even more painfully than the rain, and he all but leapt off the bed and away from her. "I'm not... That's not what I—"

The Witch of the West took her sweet time sitting down, letting out a soft groan that dampened Hunter's frustration. It flared right back to life when her eyes cleared of pain and fixed on him again, malevolently bright.

"What do you want?" she asked bluntly, eyes narrowing on the imprint of lips against his forehead. "A maiden's heart? Eternal youth?"

Only one maiden came to mind, but Red — Oriana, he corrected himself — was perfectly content in the arms of his brother. Once, he might have considered anything that could turn the tide of her affections in his favour, but since their mate bond was severed, he'd developed an irritating conscience.

Found it, he corrected again. There was a time when doing the right thing came naturally to Hunter. Now it was an act of labour.

"I need a weapon," he said gruffly. "An ashwood weapon."

"Who do you want to kill with it?"

Who, not what. She was sharp enough to realise he was hunting a person.

Hunter hesitated. The Witch of the West had been in league with the Blood Moon Alpha for decades. It was her enchanted tools that allowed them to hack down the monstrous ashwood thorns bordering the Thornwood and turn them into the wall that now guarded Blood Moon Village. It was she whom Brollo spun nightmarish tales of at night to warn children to stay in their beds, go to sleep, and do what they were told.

He himself had been weaned on fear and awe of this woman. How would she punish him when he admitted to the treason he so desperately wanted to commit?

Then Hunter looked around, taking in the ruinous state of the house. The evidence of the fire was weeks old, but news of the destruction had never reached him. Rogan had to know about it, but it was clear nobody had been sent to help her rebuild.

"I'm going to kill my father," he said, hedging his bets. There was something about the witch that reminded him of himself. "And you're going to help me."