Daughter of the Night: A Book of The Moon People Read online

  Contents

  License Notes

  Novels of The Moon People Saga

  Author's Note

  1 - Alpha Ulric

  2 - Sister and Brother

  3 - New Life

  4 - Seers From Afar

  5 - Isolation

  6 - The Night's Magic

  7 - Friendship

  8 - The Work of Warriors

  9 - New Enemies

  10 - Guile of the Fox

  11 - The Great Packs

  12 - Kotal's Bargain

  13 - Hope and Despair

  14 - The Broken Clan

  15 - Forsaken

  16 - Neman's Pack

  17 - Happy Years

  18 - Kotal's Calling

  19 - Adel's Return

  20 - Karel's Blade

  21 - Heroine

  Epilogue

  Afterword

  DAUGHTER OF THE NIGHT

  Claudia King

  Published by Claudia King at Smashwords

  Copyright © 2016 Claudia King

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Proceeds from sales directly help this author to continue doing what she loves, and to share it with you the reader!

  Novels of The Moon People Saga:

  The Alpha’s Concubine

  Daughter of the Moon

  Daughter of the Night

  Acknowledgements

  Many thanks to Julie (duongcovers.com) for her wonderful work in designing the cover art for this title, to Anna for her assistance with nitpicks and proofing, the lovely folks of KBoards for providing a wealth of knowledge, advice, and assistance in all-things authorly, along with everyone else who helped to encourage me over the course of this project!

  For newcomers to the series:

  Don’t you just hate it when a book series has a bunch of titles that aren’t numbered? With prequels, spin-offs, and mainline entries all jumbled together, with no indication of where you should start reading?

  Ahem.

  Well fear not, for as The Moon People Saga continues to expand I shall be adding some little reading lists here at the start of each book so that you’re not too lost with where to begin.

  Chronological reading order:

  1 - Daughter of the Night

  2 - The Alpha’s Concubine

  3 - Daughter of the Moon

  This reading order is suggested for those who wish to experience the story by following its chronological progression, with the first book taking place at the beginning of the timeline, and the last most recently.

  Author’s reading order:

  1 - The Alpha’s Concubine

  2 - Daughter of the Moon

  3 - Daughter of the Night

  This reading order is the one I personally recommend as the author, corresponding with the order in which the books were written. I feel that certain story elements, mysteries, and revelations are more compelling when the series is experienced in this way, and that the consistency of the writing style flows more naturally from one book to the next.

  —1—

  Alpha Ulric

  There were few things Alpha Ulric enjoyed more than watching his daughters play together. He did not know that just a few moments distant—just beyond the long grass and fragrant bushes that covered the southern plains—something approached that would herald an end to these days of happiness. But for now, he was content. Away from the rest of his pack, there was nothing to concern himself with but his two girls chasing after the white butterflies that bounced from flower to flower.

  A smile lit the alpha's strikingly handsome face as he tilted his neck back to feel the sun shining upon his skin. Yes, these were good days. His pack was growing great indeed, rich with new life and strong with many warriors. By the time of the next great gathering he would lead a clan powerful enough to defeat any enemy and secure any alliance he pleased. Truly, he was a man favoured by the spirits. Though his ice-blue eyes held a coldness that struck fear into followers and rivals alike, they did not reflect the warmth Ulric felt in his heart, for how could someone as blessed as he ever succumb to the kind of bitterness that plagued lesser men?

  Breathing in the fragrance of the summer grass, he rested back against the hillock to watch his daughters again. The elder of the two was nearly of the age to be considered a woman, but she still enjoyed sharing in the childish games of her younger sibling, and Ulric had not the heart to stop her. She was favoured by the spirits too, that one, as her mane of long black hair foretold. Children blessed with the wisdom of the night in their hair often rose to fulfil great destinies, and Ulric had no doubt that his elder daughter would follow in his footsteps. She showed great potential as a seer, learning the ways of healing and divination from her mother even faster and more astutely than apprentices twice her age.

  Ulric chuckled as the girl sternly instructed her younger sister to hold the butterfly she had caught more carefully. Already she was beginning to take charge of others, adopting her father's ability to command along with her mother's sincere wisdom. The younger girl smiled, tossing the white-winged insect into her sister's face with a giggle before dashing off through the grass. The pair chased one another for a while until the elder finally changed shape, clothing peeling away into a coat of fur as she adopted the form of her wolf and tackled her sister to the ground with a bark of delight.

  The younger girl grumbled in protest, ever jealous of her sibling's ability to call upon her inner wolf, but before long she was smiling again as she clambered upon her sister's back, ready to race up and down the plains faster than her own two legs would allow.

  A grin spread across Ulric's face as he pulled himself upright and allowed his body to shift into the canine frame of his own wolf, a huge and savage beast by comparison to his elder daughter's, but the alpha could not have been gentler as he loped up behind the girls and pounced upon them. They fought back valiantly, pummelling their father into submission with a pair of feather-light fists against his side and a set of ticklish teeth tugging at his ear. He flopped to the ground and rolled over in a show of submission, then allowed the pair to ride on his back as he put his legs into the ground and showed them the exhilarating speed of a fully-grown adult wolf. It felt good to run, and it felt good to hear the laughter of his daughters in his ears. But before Ulric could turn around and carry them back home to the den as he had planned, something steadied his momentum and brought his paws to a cautious halt.

  His younger daughter yanked upon his scruff in protest, still giggling as she urged him to run on again, until a warning growl from Ulric silenced her. Something had stirred her father's attention, and the girls knew that the time for games and laughter had passed.

  The turning of the wind brought the scent of other wolves to the alpha's muzzle. Wolves, and blood. After lowering his hindquarters so that the girls could dismount, he rose up on two legs again, shielding his eyes from the sun as he scanned the horizon to the north. The scent had been familiar enough to confirm that it belonged to a band of his own hunters, but the crimson tang that accompanied it was not the blood of freshly killed prey.

  Ulric's expression darkened. Cutting a brown swathe through the sea of rippling grass, three wolves approached from the north. For a few moments one of the group appeared to be moving stran
gely, before his approach revealed the body of a man slumped over his back, writhing and wailing in pain.

  “Wait for me,” Ulric instructed his daughters, who acquiesced in silence, the elder wrapping her arms around the younger's shoulders as their father took the shape of his wolf again and hurried north to meet the group.

  The taste of blood grew thicker in the air. A man's blood. The scent of torn flesh and exposed organs. Though Ulric's kind could heal grievous injuries far more readily than their wolfless kin, they had to survive them first. And the scent filling Ulric's muzzle was ripe with the promise of death.

  The trio of hunters scuffled to a halt as their alpha rose up before them with a growl, reverting from the shape of his wolf and motioning for them to do the same. The pair flanking the bearer of the wounded man followed suit, their faces pale and slick with perspiration as two bare-chested men appeared to take the place of the beasts that had stood there a moment before.

  “Forgive us, Alpha,” the first of them panted, falling to his knees immediately as Ulric's cold eyes fell upon him. “We tried to fight, but they outnumbered us, we were cowards—”

  “Hold your tongue,” Ulric barked, stepping forward to look at the wounded man. He was young, barely even of age. A promising apprentice hunter named Carim. The colour was nearly gone from his skin, his whimpers of pain falling from ashen lips as he writhed upon his companion's back, slumped stomach-down over the wolf's spine.

  “Help me lift him off,” Ulric said.

  “We must get him back to the seers!”

  “Do you think he will live that long?” Ulric glared at the hunter, who promptly shrank back beneath his alpha's gaze and moved to help grip Carim's shoulders.

  The wounded man let loose a sickening scream as they eased him down in the grass, exposing the deep gashes of a wolf's claws that had opened up his belly. Fang marks dimpled his shin around a gruesome break that had pushed bone through flesh, and blood seeped from half a dozen more wounds littering his broken body. Ulric knew how to bind cuts and staunch bleeding, but the knowledge of how to save this man was beyond him.

  Turning back the way he had come, he cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled for his eldest daughter. Though the thought of exposing her to such brutal violence sickened him, he had no choice but to call upon the one person who might save Carim's life before the last of his essence bled away. Any remaining trace of Ulric's carefree pleasure evaporated as he saw the girl bounding toward him, now oblivious to the butterflies scattering from the grass as it crushed beneath her paws.

  Before she could reach the bloody scene, Ulric hurried forward to stop his daughter, kneeling down to take her by the shoulders as she reverted from the shape of her wolf.

  “My daughter,” he said, fixing her with a gaze that she would come to know well in the years that followed. The gaze not of a father, but an alpha. “What you see here will frighten you. I cannot tell you not to be afraid, but your fear must come second. Before you let it take hold of you, remember what matters most. Remember your pack.” He gripped her shoulders more firmly. “Today you must be a seer to your clan. Can you do that?”

  The girl's eyes were filled with fear, but she nodded.

  “Good. Carim is badly hurt. His wounds are deep, and he is dying. Tell us what you have learned of healing, and we shall do whatever we can to save him.”

  “But a seer's knowledge is not to be shared with the men,” the girl said.

  “That does not matter now. He will die if we do nothing to help him.”

  Another cry of pain from the maimed hunter sent a shiver up Ulric's back. Before his daughter could shy away, he stood up and steered her forward, leading her to the bloody scene by the shoulders.

  Be strong, my daughter, he silently implored. Her body was stiff, frozen in fear. Ulric was not privy to the lessons she had learned from the other seers, but he knew she had never been exposed to injuries of this kind before. He could only hope that she had the knowledge required to tend them, if not the experience.

  “We must put his leg right,” she said after a moment, her voice thin and quivering.

  The men looked to Ulric for confirmation, and he gave them a nod that held more confidence than his heart possessed.

  “Do as my daughter says.”

  The group knelt around their wounded companion, listening to the girl's hesitant instructions as she told them where to put their hands, when to push, and when to pull. In the back of Ulric's mind he was already burning with the need to know what had happened. Who dared attack his hunters, and to whom must he now direct his retribution? This went beyond a boisterous challenge between warriors, and it could not go unanswered.

  Two of the men had to hold Carim down as Ulric and the other pushed his shin bone back into place, drawing another horrific cry from the man that trailed off into silence as his eyes glazed over and unconsciousness claimed him.

  “His pain was too great,” one of the hunters said in a voice that was just as sickly as his pallid complexion.

  “I know,” Ulric's daughter replied. “I hoped it would be. It is the only way to make him still for what is to come.” Once the urgency of the situation had taken over, the girl's fear had dissipated, giving way to the kind of sturdy focus that always seemed to take hold of talented seers in such moments of need.

  Though his trepidation was great, Ulric could not help but watch with pride as his girl, soon to be a woman, took charge of the four men and instructed them in the task of saving their fallen companion's life. Making use of the hunting supplies that had dropped from the wolves' backs when they changed shape, she washed Carim's wounds clean and explored them with her fingers, then stripped down animal sinew into thin strands and did her best to stitch the gashes closed using a fragment of sharp bone as a needle.

  By the time she had finished, the girl's hands and clothing were soaked red with blood, streaks of it lingering upon her brow where she had wiped her sweat away. It felt like half the afternoon had passed in tense silence as the men watched her work, but despite Carim's lidded eyes and deathly pallor, his chest continued to rise and fall until his wounds were dressed and his leg bound up tight.

  “We must not move him,” Ulric's daughter said, wiping her hands on the grass. “Not until he has started to heal.”

  The alpha nodded to one of his men. “Go to the den and fetch my mate. Bring Carim's sisters too, with food and water, and wood for a fire. If he is to live then we must tend him out here.”

  When the hunter had departed Ulric put his hands on his daughter's shoulders again and turned her to face him. Gone was the girlish whimsy that had filled her sparkling blue eyes just a short while earlier. She was sincere and determined, her fear overcome. Barely a woman, and yet already Ulric could sense the fire of a den mother burning within her. Such a daughter. Such a blessing.

  The alpha's pained smile creased his face, filled with such pride that it was all he could do not to embrace her in front of his followers. “You are every bit the seer your mother is, Uriel. One day the leaders of every clan will know your name as the daughter of Alpha Ulric.”

  Uriel's eyes fell in a show of humility, her cheeks colouring at her father's praise. A rustling of grass betrayed a third pair of eyes watching them, and Ulric glanced over to see his younger daughter peering out anxiously from the undergrowth. He wondered just how long she had been there watching.

  “I told you to stay back, Adel,” the alpha said. “You must learn obedience like your sister if you wish to become a great woman like her.” He gave the smaller girl a stern look, though his heart longed for nothing more than to sweep both his daughters into a hug. Adel peered back at him with a frown, as she often did after being reprimanded.

  A sigh fell from Ulric's lips. One perfect child, and one who still struggled to grasp the most basic tenets of respect for her alpha. Perhaps it was time he began treating her less as a daughter and more a member of his clan. Though she might never match her sister's talents, at the very l
east he hoped Adel could learn something from Uriel.

  “Take your sister and go clean your clothing,” he instructed his eldest. “The river is just east of here. Go on. I will call for you if Carim wakes.”

  He rose to his feet and watched his girls go, sad to have lost the rest of his afternoon with them. It was rare an alpha had little else to do but enjoy the company of his kin, and it might be many days before he had the chance to do so again.

  “Uriel is growing into a fine young woman,” one of the hunters said.

  “So she is. By the year's end I must find a suitable mate for her,” Ulric replied.

  “Any of the young men would be honoured to join with the alpha's daughter. Perhaps even a man of status from another pack? You could invite great allies to your side at next year's gathering if you sought a mate for your daughter from outside the clan.”

  Ulric shook his head. “No. She deserves a man she cares for, from among her own kind.” He glanced to Carim, still pale, though almost peaceful now as he slumbered. “I can think of one young hunter who should be very grateful to her.”

  “If he ever wakes.”

  Ulric's expression darkened. “If he does not, those responsible will lose two of their own in return. Tell me how this happened.”

  The two remaining hunters looked to one another uncomfortably, their shame evident on their faces.

  “Warriors of Alpha Kotal's clan. We hunt with them sometimes, when we are far to the north near their territory.”

  “These ones were impatient,” the other man said. “We share everything we kill, half to each pack. But this time there were more of them than us, so they demanded we take less.”

  Ulric ran a hand through his hair, clenching his teeth in anger. “And you fought them for this?”