Black Moon Draw Read online

  As with every land he conquered, the perpetual gray fogs of Black Moon Draw had begun to roll across and cover the skies. It was his legacy and curse never to see the sun over his kingdom. He had long since stopped seeking magic solutions to the fog, for no witch or sorcerer yet had been able to break the curse on his family line. He grew accustomed to being shrouded in shadows. On nights like this, he found the light of stars and moon to be excessively bright without the gray fog to dampen their shine.

  “A great battle won, and she does not eat,” his second reported, standing with a wooden plate in hand. The nightly stew went untouched on her trencher.

  “He can’t tell me what it is,” the witch said, eyeing the lumps of meat covered in gravy.

  “What does it matter?” the Shadow Knight growled.

  “Mayhap this is more of her food magic,” his second said. With a dark, quick sense of humor, his master-at-arms kept his spirits up on the days when the fog threatened to sink them.

  “’Tis a good one,” the Shadow Knight replied with a wry smile. “Mayhap she will cast a spell so none of us will need to eat and we can move faster across the battlefield.”

  The wolf-headed man chuckled.

  “Fetch the box.” The Shadow Knight motioned his head towards his tent, where he kept a secret store of edible delicacies.

  His second obeyed, and his eyes went to the battle-witch.

  She was pale, her voluptuous body trembling despite the thick cloak she wore. She watched him with haunted eyes, her discomfort plain. She did not like his boar’s head. He wore it as much for the way it enhanced his senses as because it scared men in battle. It was an extension of him, like the sword at his back. He reached up and removed the boar’s head, sensing she was in shock.

  What did he do with a battle-witch that did not want to go to battle? She was too valuable to release from his service. He could not risk other kingdoms taking her, in case her magic manifested later. But he also had little time to train her and hope she became powerful enough to help him.

  Why had his dreams and the legend of the curse claimed she was the last of the great battle-witches, the one who would guarantee his victory across all lands that were supposed to be his?

  They gazed at each other, the witch looking at him in a combination of fear and resentment, while he debated what to do.

  “M’lord,” his second returned with the box.

  The Shadow Knight accepted it. “Go.” Aware no one among his men would dare disturb him, he knelt beside the battle-witch.

  She shrank away.

  “Eat.” He held it out to her.

  With an expression of dread upon her pretty features, she took it and opened it. Her frown softened. She reached in and withdrew one of the sweet cakes made in White Tree Sound. The Red Knight sent a steady supply for his sisters. They were flat and round, decorated with dried fruit and drizzled with honey. Sweet cakes had won his battle today; maybe they would help her accept her world faster.

  “Thank you,” she murmured, withdrawing one. She handed the box back.

  “I cannot have you starve,” he said. “An army can ill-afford to waste food, but if the nectar of queens is all you will eat, I will have it brought.”

  She sighed and nibbled on the sweet cake. “I’m sorry. This is new to me.”

  “So ‘tis.”

  They studied one another. Pink rose in her cheeks and she turned her gaze towards the fire. Situations were rare where he hesitated to act. This woman was different. Worse than a page new to battle, she had no understanding of war, the kingdoms, his world, and he had no real experience guiding him with where to start.

  “You won a battle. How are you not happy?” he asked finally, bewildered by the tears she shed this day.

  “I don’t like hurting people,” she whispered, troubled. “How many men did you kill today?”

  “Less than usual,” he mused. “You slowed me down.”

  “Barbaric.” She shivered. “What happens to the ones who remain?”

  “They are given a choice of serving me, slavery, or death.”

  “What do most choose?”

  “Depends on the kingdom. There have been whole armies that chose death.”

  “How awful.”

  “Necessary.”

  She lowered her gaze to the fire. “Because you have to save the rest of their kingdoms.”

  “Finally you understand aught.”

  “I understand everything,” she replied, bristling. “I’m not an idiot.” Her cheeks flushed. “What I don’t get is why you can’t try a different approach. You have a noble cause. Surely –”

  He held up a hand. “I shall not humor this discussion again,” he said sharply. “Do you think a thousand years of Shadow Knights did not try every other way possible to prevent what comes?”

  “A thousand years is so long. How do you know a peace summit won’t work?”

  “I have nine days to do what my predecessors did not. ‘Tis too late for peace.”

  She rested her cheek on her knee, studying him. “What happens after they all submit? The curse breaks?”

  “I go to the castle of my forefathers and confront the magic within.”

  “Then it’s over?”

  “Not quite. Three knights have gone before me into the castle and either gone mad from the curse or disappeared. I must fight one last battle for my kingdom. ‘Tis the greatest of all the battles.”

  “It sounds so noble yet so . . .” she trailed off, clearly disturbed by all he told her.

  “If you are not here to be a battle-witch, why are you here?” he asked with some agitation, at a loss as to how she was supposed to help him win a war.

  “I don’t know,” she replied. “I think I’m supposed to help someone do something important.”

  “A Shadow Knight reclaim his kingdom and break the curse over him, mayhap?”

  She lifted an eyebrow, her expression turning skeptical. “Reclaim your kingdom? Is that what you call slaughtering everyone in it?”

  “Is there no war in your land?”

  “Not really, no.”

  “My world is naught but war.”

  “I see that.”

  “No, you do not.”

  She frowned. “I spent the day at battle with you and helped you win. I think I get the point.”

  “You fail to understand the purpose behind it.”

  “I do understand!” The battle-witch stood and shook out her shoulders, antsy. “I don’t know what to do about it. I don’t know why I’m supposed to help you or how this thing works sometimes and not others.” She patted the Heart around her neck.

  He had never tried to share the news with his betrothed, who held no stake in whether his armies flourished or failed. If he tried, he knew she would listen and accept without question, the way every man in his army did his commands. The battle-witch wanted naught to do with him or his world and was fighting him every step of the way, even after he had told her one of his greatest secrets.

  “This isn’t real anyway. In a few days, I’ll be home.”

  “I have never heard aught so outlandish,” the Shadow Knight replied.

  “Wait, what? What part did you hear me say out loud?”

  “You speak nonsense at times, witch.” He shook his head gravely.

  He had begun to think her mad and this seemed to prove it. He reined in his anger. By the look on her face, his eyes were changing to gray, the color of battle, lust, and anger. It acted as a warning to all who faced him. After a brief hesitation, she approached him.

  Firelight brightened her features, which were becoming prettier every time he noticed them. With a mind always on his next battle, he rarely glanced twice at a woman’s face. Normally, he was interested in what was between her legs more than how she looked. A battle-witch could not be touched the way a normal woman could, hence his restraint around her. In spite of the knowledge that a witch’s kiss caused a man’s parts to fall off, he took a moment to genuinely observe
her.

  “I’m serious. What part did you hear me say?” she asked.

  Oval face, feminine features, large eyes with thick eyelashes, and a slender neck. His battle-witch was far younger than any other witch ever to serve him, and beautiful in an earthy, natural way as opposed to his betrothed’s cool, chiseled beauty. She seemed too interested in his response to her mad question to heed the warning of his eyes turning colors.

  His own men never grew this close to him for that reason.

  “That you believe this not to be real,” he answered finally.

  “But it’s not real! You’re not real. Those men who died today – they’re not real either!” There was a note of hysteria in her voice, one he recognized from earlier.

  “What madness has claimed you?” he questioned. “Are you suffering from a curse?”

  “No, of course not. This is all . . . fake.” She waved her hand towards the encampment. “This, too.” This time, she waved at the sky.

  He snatched her arms, his restraint sizzling. “Enough.”

  She jerked.

  “Am I not real?” he demanded.

  The witch tried to pull away, but he held her in place before him, moving closer to her appealing, feminine shape with its large breasts, tucked waist, and the rounded hips, while keeping her where she was.

  “Are my hands not on you?” He certainly felt her skin, saw her chest rise and fall with each breath, watched the wisps of her hair bounce in the night breeze. He had never noticed this of his betrothed or the many women he took to his bed, never felt compelled to understand what any woman thought and why.

  The Shadow Knight drew her against him. It was natural for his hips to press to hers, for him to gaze down into the eyes the colors of the shallow sea.

  “Yes,” she said more quietly.

  “Then how am I not real?”

  “You’re just . . . not. You can’t be.”

  “Maybe the world you came from is the one that is not real.”

  She gasped. Alarm and fear spun through her eyes, her breathing erratic.

  “You had not thought of that,” he assessed. He held her gaze and lifted one hand to touch her face. “You feel my hands on you. When I cut you, did you not feel pain and bleed?”

  No answer.

  “What do they call you where you are from?” he asked.

  Her wide eyes were starting to tear up. He shook her gently to keep her focused.

  “I don’t want to tell you now,” she whispered.

  “Why?”

  “Because this isn’t possible!”

  “What is your name, witch?” he hissed, patience thinning.

  “Naia.”

  Startled, he almost laughed. “’Twas the name of a great queen long ago.” Any doubt he had about her destiny being there disappeared. His anger settled, but he was unable to determine why the gods sent her to him without training her first.

  Naia. His amusement faded. She bore the name of the last great warrior queen, the only battle-witch in the history of the realm to become a queen, whose immense secrets were passed through the generations. The warrior-queen foretold the arrival of another like her, bearing her name, appearing in Black Moon Draw in time to save his people from great disaster.

  Darkly, he admitted that this same witch was the one to place the curse on his family that he sought to break.

  His battle-witch’s eyes were wide, her body trembling once again.

  “How can you be named after a great queen and claim this is not real? Nay, witch, your world is the one that is not real,” he said firmly. “At least, not now. Maybe when you left it, it was. But you are here now, and this – I – am real.”

  She shook her head, dropping her gaze to his chest. “It can’t be.” Her protest was softer, scared.

  He was unaccustomed to dealing with such vulnerability from women or men. As much as he did not want to admit the truth in the face of his conflict with Brown Sun Lake, his battle-witch was nowhere near being prepared for war. Denial was part of it, but her gentleness was more dangerous. She was a lamb lost among a field of wolves, a woman unlike any he had met in his travels. She was certainly not of his realm, where the fight for survival hardened the hearts of children before the age of ten. He began to believe she was telling the truth, however outlandish, about not being of his world. Her smooth golden skin had certainly never known the whip of the slave traders from the edge of the world, and the tears she shed for his enemies were too far out of place.

  He did not have forever to wait for her to be ready for an enemy like Brown Sun Lake. Why did he feel more of a connection to a witch that was not a witch than he had shared with the other witches? What would it take for her magic to work consistently, and in a way that helped him, rather than slowed him down?

  There had to be a way to convince her she belonged and to use her magic, before it was too late to save his people.

  He titled her chin up to see her comely features fully in the moonlight. Her nose was red and there were tears on her cheeks.

  “Battle-witches do not cry,” he said.

  “I’m a tree-witch,” she replied stubbornly.

  “Now a tree-witch is not real.”

  “You-”

  “Quiet.” For once, she heeded the note of warning in his tone. He considered her, aroused by the softness of her skin and her direct gaze. “Naia.”

  “Yes. Better than witch. Why don’t you use names here?” she asked.

  “If a sorcerer or witch knows a man’s name, he can put a curse on the man,” he replied, revealing half the truth about the custom. The other half he did not think her ready for, not after she had unknowingly given her name to him. The custom was not as binding on a witch or sorcerer, but he took no chances by revealing the truth.

  “Oh. So no one here knows your name?” she asked.

  “They do not.”

  “You have no family or friends?”

  “Family, no. This notion of friends is not our way. I am the knight, the lord, the master to every man and woman in my kingdom.”

  She nodded, though she appeared bewildered as well. He almost asked what her world was like if not ruled by knights but stopped himself, not wanting to strengthen her connection to a place that did not exist any longer. His own confusion ran deep; he had not known other worlds existed before her.

  “Can I be a knight?” she asked, calming.

  He laughed. “You cannot hold a sword. How would you be a knight?”

  She sighed. “I don’t understand why there’s so much death.”

  “Battle is for a purpose. Each death must be necessary. If it is not, it is cruel.”

  “I think killing anyone is cruel.”

  Each life taken, each kingdom conquered – he regretted none of it, because there was a much greater evil he fought. “You do not fully understand my purpose,” he said.

  “There can be no reason great enough for what I saw. And yet, I understand why you did it. I don’t know what to think about it.”

  With some regret, he realized he might not have the aid of the battle-witch in his final days of battle. He would still fight until the very last breath in his body, with or without her help.

  Her trembling had ceased, but the shimmer of vulnerability remained. It was unusually appealing, the unguarded way she looked at him with her heart in her eyes and her plump lips parted.

  “’Tis a shame you are a battle-witch,” he murmured, eyes on her mouth.

  “Why? Because you can’t sell me like a horse?” she retorted.

  He liked her spirit as well and only wished it was directed towards his enemies. She was often fearless with him, or at least, she was unusually candid. On the battlefield, she was terrified of everything. It was another contradiction about her he found intriguing, if vexing.

  “To sell you would be profitable,” he agreed. “To take you to my bed would no doubt give me more pleasure this night and may convince you of how real I am.”

  She stared at h
im. “But you’re betrothed!”

  “Not to bond you, witch, just to taste you.” He trailed the pad of his thumb along her lower lip as he spoke, eyes on hers.

  He waited for her reaction, not able to predict the otherworldly witch the way he did even his greatest enemies.

  She knocked the hand holding her chin away and then yanked out of his grip.

  He released her. They both knew he did not have to, if he chose otherwise. But he preferred her anger to her vulnerability, an emotion that unsettled him.

  “If you even think about deflowering me or whatever you call it here, remember that your man parts will fall off!” she told him.

  “You would be worth it.”

  Flustered, she mumbled something and whirled away, tripped over her feet and then broke into a run. She clearly felt the tension that was between them, a dangerous attraction that he had to prevent from turning into more, if he was to have a real battle-witch. Her reaction was enough to tell him he had stumbled upon a potentially effective way to control her.

  Fortunately, he preferred the victory the battle-witch might still grant to the feel of her body beneath him.

  Her squire, hidden in the shadows, raced after her into the darkness.

  It was unusual to taunt a battle-witch this way, even for a man who acknowledged no laws he had not made himself. The Shadow Knight’s eyes went from her fleeing form to the sky. He spent a long moment in thought, unable to take his mind away from the battle-witch or the impending danger of the era’s end.

  A yelp tore his attention away. His instincts took over. He was running before he had time to register what happened. Sword in hand, he crested a nearby hill at full speed and then stopped, taking in the situation. His battle-witch, however horrible at battle, had stumbled upon aught she was supposed to find to protect his men: a trap set by his enemies.

  Her squire had managed to avoid it, but the witch was stuck in the middle, her feet sank into the ground while critters with shells that reflected the moonlight scuttled up her body.

  She was panicking, flinging them and knocking them off, her uncertain squire wringing his hands helplessly nearby.

  Assured it was not another attack, the Shadow Knight sheathed the weapon at his back and strode down the hill. He motioned the squire away and surveyed the creatures. They were already eating through her clothing in spots. Purple magic glowed around her faintly, the way it had earlier in the day when she defeated Green Dawn Cave. Her power was un-channeled, undisciplined, spinning off into the night instead of defending her the way it should.