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.

Save for a splinter of light. Silver as the slice of moon struggling to shine through a faint gap in the clouds overhead. Hunter's soul flared in response, rendering the slimy rocks and frilled plants of the waterhole in eerie shades of grey. He propelled himself towards the embankment, fingers slipping and sending up salty clouds of algae. The last of the air in his lungs slipped past his lips, bursting against a 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, then 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 a lungful of water, only to realise they were tugging him up instead of down. In a matter of seconds he was breaching the surface and shooting through the air, landing heavily on the squelchy bank. His hands slapped the mud and it sprayed between his fingers, almost blinding him as he vomited foul water onto a pair of curl-toed slippers.

"Charming," came an imperious, mincing voice.

Hunter coughed, back arching with every spasm as he crawled up onto his knees. To his surprise, it wasn't a woman in her prime confidently snapping at him, but a woman well past it. The crone that glared down at him had a face like a knot of wood in an ancient tree, gnarled and misshapen, with a neck that sagged like the skin of a newborn pup. She huddled in a woollen 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.

She saw him looking and her mouth puckered. A smirk, he realised abruptly.

"You're lucky I opened the way for you," she 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 at the thought of dying in that in-between place, which he almost had. "I suppose I owe you my life," he said grudgingly, climbing gingerly to his feet.

"You think?"

Hunter almost flinched; her voice cracked like a whip.

Who are you to bully me? he thought abruptly, gathering his nerves. "Do you know who I am?"

I'm practically a prince. 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.

Presuming Sebastian didn't bring it down in a glorious act of defiance, of course.

The witch shrank beneath Hunter as he rose to his full height — though not in spirit. Hatred crackled in her hellish eyes, like the heart of a star that burned so hot it turned cold.

"I have a boon to ask," he said, mirroring her imperious tone. It came to Sebastian so effortlessly, damn it; like his brother was power, not simply possessed of it.

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

Hunter crossed his arms. "Yes. I need..."

But she'd already turned her back on him and was shuffling away, towards a dilapidated cottage on the bald cap of the hill. The trees thinned out mercilessly, affording the shambled ruins little protection from the fine mist spraying down 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.

He overtook the witch in a few short strides. "I can carry you," he offered, frowning at the blisters forming on her gnarled hands. For all her the gory tales of her monstrous magic, she wasn't healing from the acid rain, 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 started to crumble 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 and leaving only a stone skeleton behind. The wooden support beams sagged dangerously against each other, pulling what was left of the thatched roof precariously into the centre pole, making it look like the inside of a tent. Rain puddled at his feet, turning the packed-earth floors to mud, and Hunter frowned at the steady drip, drip, drip of rain falling through holes in the roof and striking the cast-iron pots laid out below. The water was so dark it looked like blood as it gathered.

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.

No wonder she was so cranky.

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 iron tool box by the hearth, climbing up onto the bed. 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 was still leaking 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, concentrating the tiniest amount of Grace in the tip. 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 made him break out into a sweat.

A voice struck his back, flaying his concentration. "What are you doing?"

Hunter narrowed his eyes, turning to face the old woman. "What does it look like?"

"Like you're meddling with my things."

He stiffened with righteous anger. "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," she snapped, hobbling towards it. 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 raised bed and away from her.

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 want a weapon," he said, jutting his chin. "An ashwood weapon."

"For whom?" she asked, missing nothing.

He 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 reshape them, building the wall that now guarded their village. She was the one 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 this destruction had only just reached his ears. It was certainly clear that nobody had been sent to help in the aftermath.

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