Page 17 of Howling Love (Hunter’s Moon Ritual #1)

Gracie

My eyes felt heavy as the smoke curling around me thickened, sweet and sharp like overripe fruit. My brain blurred at the edges, my thoughts growing slow and sludgy. Was this normal for rituals?

“Breathe in the smoke. It will help you connect to Nyxarra.” Avenyx confirmed it: they wanted me drugged so I’d look willing.

Despite knowing their intention, I didn’t stop the smoke from invading my lungs as she began to chant softly. My eyes fell shut, and I could feel the arena growing more and more crowded, everyone coming to witness my unexpected death.

I just had to hope the children wouldn’t be brought to this. They didn’t deserve those nightmares. No one did.

Suddenly, underneath the haze of smoke, something sparked.

My ears rang. My chest warmed. My heavy eyes opened.

I sensed something different in the air, but my body was so lethargic I couldn’t move.

Managing to turn my head toward Avenyx, I noticed she had laid out a cloth on a small table in front of her, four knives gleaming on top.

Whatever had pulled my attention before was nothing compared to the sharp edges of steel that would soon tear open my flesh.

A tremble overtook me. I tried not to show my fear, but I couldn’t help the tears that welled in my eyes.

I couldn’t move. I could only experience as gazes fell on me from every direction.

What upset me more, though, was what I couldn’t feel.

Whatever had sparked that warmth in my chest a moment ago was gone, as if I’d imagined it.

It had reminded me so much of the three men I’d met at the conference, the reactions they’d evoked in both me and my wolf.

Maybe it was my brain’s way of coping—pulling forward a pleasant memory to distract me from the horror of the present.

I remembered how they’d felt when they touched me. Basir. Ravik. Thornar.

Their names played a soft, distracting song in my head—interrupted by the sudden crackling of the loudspeakers and the ceasing of the drums. It was nearly time.

Velina’s voice filled the air. “On this holy night of the Buck Moon, please welcome your esteemed Alpha, Ivan Rivers.”

The arena filled with cheers, a roar of applause that felt panicked. Everyone knew what would happen if they didn’t support Ivan’s need to be worshiped. He would rather set this arena on fire than suffer such an insult.

Ivan took the microphone. “Tonight we honor the Buck Moon, sacrificing one of our own in honor of our goddess.” I might have grimaced, if I’d been able to control my body.

One of our own? What a convenient time for him to decide I belonged.

Ivan had never sacrificed one of his men—only innocents stuck in his prison.

“Once every full moon, we cleanse these lands. We sacrifice the weak to make room for the strong.” Ivan’s voice was sharp, cruel, filled with loathing toward me.

“Tonight’s sacrifice shows all of us that even those given the greatest of chances will fail if they are weak.

So we remove the dirt, the trash plaguing our lands, to make room for the future. ”

He raged about control being preserved and bloodlines being pure, bleeding out the chaos. His words were a blade meant to degrade, but they barely touched me.

All I could focus on was the ceremonial cloth beneath Avenyx’s knives and the way the gods stared back.

Astaruun, the creator of life.

Nyxarra, the mother of shadows and moonlight.

Vorrakar, the father of illumination and sunlight.

Thaloryn, the father of depth and waves.

Sylvaern, the mother of growth and roots.

Yvelis, the god of transitions and bone.

There were two others, but they were only represented by wisps of smoke. No names. No faces. Just shadows where gods should’ve been. We were taught to worship The Eight, but no one ever talked about those two. Like they’d been erased. Or maybe hidden.

Some whispered that one was the god of creatures, wild and untamed. Others claimed they were gods of chaos, banished by Astaruun for something too dark to speak of.

I didn’t know what to believe. But staring at those empty spaces on the cloth, I couldn’t help but wonder…what did they do to be forgotten? Or worse—what if they hadn’t been forgotten at all?

“…and this is why we sacrifice to Nyxarra—to bring blessings to our territory!”

Ivan’s voice broke through my thoughts as the name Nyxarra vibrated the air around us.

Pain pulsed through my head as the smoke thickened, the scent of rot and ozone filling my nose.

My chest squeezed; I could barely breathe.

A wheeze came from my lips, but I couldn’t move.

Something was wrong . I may not have been a priestess of The Eight, but I could feel the corruption in the air. Nothing about this was natural.

Ivan’s voice became distorted in the background as the world turned gray, a shadow of the world that had existed seconds before.

I could see, past the high priestess, a sobbing woman on the ground.

She was clothed in black, and the tears that fell from her eyes shimmered like moonlight.

Her wrists were bound in shackles, just like mine.

The earth shifted underneath us, rattling the arena, and her gaze snapped up, her features painted in panic as a shadow eclipsed her. I could feel her terror. I could sense the malice radiating from the shadow. The power it wielded to imprison her was immense.

Only once the shadow had passed did relief color the woman’s face. But then her sobs continued, making my chest ache with her pain. I tried to move off the altar to get to her, and when she looked up again, silver tears stained her face. Not wrathful. Just…devastated.

“This is not my will,” she whispered. Then again, louder. Until the world cracked at the seams. “This is not my will!”

Her scream blew out my eardrums and threw me from the hallucination as I felt hot blood leak down my jaw. My eyes snapped open to see Avenyx driving a knife down toward my chest.

In that second, everything changed.

Pain lashed across my torso and a scream ripped from my throat, my back arching off the marble that exploded with a blaze of heat.

Somewhere, something detonated. The sound of an explosion, much like that night at the farm, rang through the air.

Avenyx was thrown backward, the knife clattering to the marble altar.

A wall of smoke and dark magic rose up around me, bursting from the altar and slamming everything and everyone in its path to the ground. I screamed as power surged through me like lightning, and that voice—the cry of the sobbing woman—seemed to imprint itself on my very soul.

The ritual had been stopped—broken—and it had left a mark.

“The west wall has been destroyed!”

I heard the words distantly as savage growls and howls filled the air. I managed to push myself up, barely able to see two feet in front of me. But what I did see was pure chaos.

Gunfire cracked, causing my ears to pulse in pain, and I could taste blood.

People screamed as they threw themselves out of the stands to escape the force crashing through the west wall.

Black uniforms carrying guns swept inside, and above us, helicopter lights shone down on the center of the compound.

My wolf slammed up into my chest, propelling us forward and off the marble—the painted chains that had laid heavily on our skin no longer holding us captive.

I crawled away from it, trying to heed her plea to take my chance—to escape.

I stumbled to my feet, legs weak and shaking, my gaze fixed on the exit that had been blown open.

“No, you don’t, girl.” Ivan’s hand wrapped in my hair and pulled me back hard. I cried out, and before he could drag me further, he was intercepted, tackled by one of the largest wolves I’d ever seen. The wolf was white, almost like snow, with gold eyes and massive teeth snapping at Ivan’s neck.

“No!” When a shot rang out, hitting the ground near the wolf, I surged forward, trying to protect it. Luckily, in that moment, the wolf darted away and sprinted toward me. My eyes welled with tears as I wrapped my arms around my savior.

I recognized its power, but everything was so hazy I couldn’t fully piece together who they were. When another wolf joined us—a sleek, onyx-colored one—I breathed a sigh of relief. A feeling of protection bloomed in me. We had to get out, though. We couldn’t dodge Ivan’s men forever.

“ Lux mea .” Ravik’s voice cut through everything else as I found him crouched in front of me, his gaze filled with so much depth…so much affection.

I didn’t hold back. Throwing myself into his arms, he stood, and I could see both wolves clearing the way forward. Was it possible that those were Basir and Thornar? I tried to breathe through the pain wrecking my body as tears began to streak down my face.

“Were you shot? Did she get you with that damn knife?” Ravik demanded, panic and urgency layered in his voice.

“It’s the ritual. It didn’t finish, and I had this vision…” My eyes grew heavy as I felt something roll over me.

It was primordial. It tasted like blood on my tongue, and a dark power, much like the one that had exploded from the altar, began to push out of my chest. Seizing in Ravik’s arms, black smoke poured from my mouth, a thick cloud surrounding the four of us.

Echoes of chants and the sensation of hands skimming my skin made me shake in fear.

In front of me appeared a face—not Ravik or either of the wolves—but her .

The woman. The goddess. Nyxarra. Drumbeats swelled until my ears ached from the pressure, and she reached forward, pressing a finger to the center of my chest.

My world exploded in searing pain as power lashed through me.

A tight connection snapped into place between me and my rescuers, raw and ancient. Not just mates. Not just magic. Something so much more…something divine.

Ravik stumbled from the force of it, clasping me tighter to his chest as the other two shifted back on either side of us.

“Fuck!” Thornar’s voice was raw and filled with pain, but it was drowned out by Nyxarra.

“You’ve freed me, child of shadows and moonlight.”

Those words blanketed me in darkness, the sounds of battle disappearing—and before I could say another word, the Vast collapsed over me.