Broken Moon by Laken Cane

Chapter One

My breath whooshed from my lungs as I ran, and despite the cold, a layer of sweat covered my skin like the thin carpet of crunchy snow on the ground. The woods were still and barren, and the vast, dark sky seemed too low as the moon watched me with a mocking eye.

It was the first night of October and too early for snow, really, but it had come anyway. The full moon had come, as well, making the night one big miserable, endless trial.

At least for me.

I couldn’t outrun the moon. I felt its bright halo pulling at me, insisting I do what my nature—my very birth—had said I must do, and shift. But I could not. I couldn’t shift, and it was torture.

My old alpha had hobbled my wolf before he’d cast my mother and me out of the pack. My mother was punished for my father’s sins, and I was punished for attempting to kill the alpha. I’d been fourteen years old and full of grief and rage, and the daughter of the wolf who’d betrayed the pack.

He’d been sentenced to death, and they’d forced my mother and me to watch him die. My mother’s grief had been huge and as hard to watch as my father’s death. When the alpha had told her coldly he would banish her but that I, the innocent child, might stay, I had begged to differ.

He hadn’t threatened to keep me because he wanted to protect me. He threatened to keep me to terrify me. He didn’t want me there.

I had not yet found my shift when I’d gone at him with my baby claws and a grudge, and to his surprise—not mine, because I was so full of emotion and darkness that I was thinking of nothing but somehow ending the pain—I cut him. I cut his face in front of the pack. Me, a little nobody. I had drawn his blood.

He had not taken that well.

Before he threw me out, along with my mother, he’d hobbled me. “I’ll make sure wherever you go, you’ll be a harmless little pup when you get there.”

Which meant that when my shift came in after I reached the age of fifteen, I wouldn’t be able to accept it. I would suffer with the need to accept it, though. Oh, would I suffer.

Bastard.

I wasn’t a kid anymore. Over the past twelve years, I’d learned to deal with the pain. The moon called to me nearly every night, but I could handle it…

Until the full moon came.

When it swelled in the sky, huge and white, I could only run and hope to wear myself out while it followed me and tried to force me to do something the alpha had made impossible.

Shift.

Become my wolf.

I screamed, but it was more of a howl. I should find a way to get to the alpha, and I should kill him. Maybe then the chains that bound my wolf would be broken. But I could not get to him.

Not that he was far away. My mother and I had left the little town of Stonebridge, which was the Stone Moon Pack community, and we had gone straight into the big city of Jakeston—which was also Stone Moon Pack territory. The Gray Shadow Pack claimed it as well, with neither clan willing to give up and start over somewhere else.

The territory had unofficially and tentatively morphed into natural divisions over the decades, with the area of the county to the north belonging to the Gray Shadow Pack and the area to the south belonging to the Stone Moon Pack.

The city, however, had no such division and both packs claimed it. Which meant they fought over it—and quite viciously at times.

Someday, I would find a way back to my old alpha, and I would finish what I’d started when I’d been a kid. Some people absolutely should not rule.

Unfortunately, Adam Thorne, the man who should have protected, guided, and taught me, was one of those people.

I could feel my wolf. She clamored to get out, biting and clawing and roaring, and I thought she might manage, despite the alpha’s power, to burst free, turning me into bloody meat and scattered body parts as she finally lost her chains.

Poor wolf.

“Poor Kaitlyn,” I muttered.

I surged through the trees into a clearing that I knew was right on the edge of a decently steep ravine. I’d learned these woods well during my years of dealing with a punishing moon, and I also knew that when the ravine was finished with me, I’d have a few bruises, cuts, and maybe even a broken bone or two that would take a while to heal because my wolf was so restrained. Not human slow, but damn near.

I was in the middle of a small group of people before I even realized they were there, and I had two thoughts immediately. One, I should have scented the bastards, and two, they were all human, and they were about to cause a death.

Four people—two males, two females. One of the females was tied to a crude altar—a huge log they’d lined with ivy and dried leaves and…was that blood? Definitely blood.

Nowmy wolf smelled it—and them.

I saw eyes widen and mouths gape as the trio of assholes realized they were being rushed by a crazy person, but the girl on the altar never moved. She was aware—I smelled her fear and her blood, which coated the side of her face and matted her blonde hair—but she stayed quiet and calm as the events unfolded.

The ones who stood over her, though, they were not calm. First they were shocked, then afraid, and then, their fear turned to rage.

“Kait,” the restrained woman called. “It’s okay.”

I gaped. “Lucille?” The young victim was Lucille Shannon from my favorite bakery. The woman had a gift for creating food—baking, cooking, slapping together a sandwich—anything she made tasted like it was blessed by the gods. “What the—"

“It’s just a fucking girl,” one of the guys yelled. He was a tall skinny man who looked barely out of his teens, with long, dyed black hair and black clothes—they all wore black clothes, as though wearing black was a prereq for evil and badassery—relieved only by the gleam of silver jewelry and blades he probably had no idea how to use.

I stood not two yards away, breathing hard—I’d been running full out for a half a mile, at least—my body jerking beneath the pain of my hobbled shift, my mind dark. I smiled, somewhat eagerly, I was sure, and cracked my neck. Fighting was always better than running for getting a girl’s mind off her problems. “Just a woman,” I said. “And that’s going to be plenty enough to kick your skinny punk asses.”

They looked at each other, their black-rimmed eyes uncertain, more from the mystery of being invaded by a strange running woman than fear that I might actually be able to overpower and kill them all—but before they could open their mouths, something else happened.

Something much worse than a trio of young people in the middle of the woods performing some ritualistic sacrifice of a human girl…

Yes. Worse than that, even.

A demon came.

And just that quickly I realized exactly what they’d been doing, and I understood from their shrieks of shock and awe that they hadn’t thought it would work. They’d summoned a fucking demon. Worse, a powerful one. A demon boss.

“Shit,” I whispered. Oh well. Good thing I had the energy of an agonized wolf racing through my body. At least that lent me a little extra something.

The demon wasn’t massive, but he was tall. I was tall, at five feet ten inches, but this guy had at least eight inches on me. And he had a demon sword. A short one, more of a fancy dagger, really, but still.

I pulled my own blade from the sheath at my hip, but I knew that against a powerful demon, it wouldn’t do as much as it might against a lesser demon. Not nearly as much. Didn’t mean I wasn’t going to try, though.

“What do you want here?” I asked, as I gripped my knife and faced him.

“Want here?” he roared. “I want nothing here. I was summoned.” His voice was like glass and gravel, sharp and crunchy, filled with contempt and heat and death.

“Not by me,” I assured him. I nodded toward the now cowering trio without taking my stare from him. “They called you. Maybe concentrate on them and let me and my friend slip on out of here.”

“Oh no,” he growled. “I’ll kill you all and take the soul offered me.”

I hefted the knife. “Her soul was not theirs to offer. You won’t be taking it with you.” I glanced at the three assholes. “Theirs, however, are up for grabs.”

“Really?” one of the young men demanded. “Really?”

“Shut up,” I said. “You called this thing. You have no right to outrage, my friend.”

And finally, the girl tied to the makeshift altar began to cry. “God! Don’t let him take me,” she begged.

I didn’t know if she was talking to me or to actual God, but I answered her anyway. “Not planning on it, Lucille.” I didn’t add that with a big angry demon to fight, I might not have much of a choice. No sense being pessimistic.

The demon didn’t take the blade from the sheath at his side. I was sure he didn’t think he’d need it, even with a pain-wracked woman brandishing a blade of her own.

He opened his mouth, smiled, and released a red-tinged curl of smoke at the three human-sacrificing assholes. They simply stood there, frozen, and watched the smoke slowly advance until abruptly, it shaped itself into a screaming face and whizzed through the air, then changed into a red rope that began to snake around their bodies.

The trio broke suddenly and with a quiet scream from the lead guy, they turned to run. But it was too late to run. The demon left them there, caught in his circle of unbreakable smoke, and turned back to me.

“You’re going to make me fight you, aren’t you?” I asked. I didn’t think my voice wobbled. Much.

He leaned slightly and peered at me through narrow golden eyes. “Why the pain, little girl?”

I clenched my knife and my teeth. Nothing irked me more than some big strong man calling me a little girl. Fucker. “Maybe I like pain,” I growled.

He laughed and his voice encased my heart with ice. “I don’t think you like it very much. I don’t think that at all.”

“Doesn’t matter what you think,” I told him. “My pain is my own, and it has nothing to do with you. Let me take the girl home, demon. You have the three who summoned you. You don’t need her.”

“She has an innocent soul,” he murmured. “I can almost taste it. She was given to me, and I will take her. But I will let you stay in your world. I think you would cause me too much trouble in mine.”

I laughed. “You’re probably right. But I’ll be keeping the girl.”

The trio was now screaming in terror, their voices so distracting I was tempted to take my attention off the demon to look at them. I didn’t, though. There was something in his eyes, and I knew he was going to strike. I had to be ready when he did.

Despite what he’d said, he didn’t plan on letting me go. Demons were liars, tricksters, and sadistic tormentors. They were also extremely greedy.

“Summoned like common trash,” he muttered, “by lowly humans.” He was genuinely offended. And finally, he drew his gleaming demon dagger.

I was good with a knife. I’d been training since I could hold the little rubber sword my father had given me when I was two years old. But against this demon with his demon blade, I wasn’t too confident in my abilities.

I channeled my wolf’s agony and turned it into rage. Sometimes I was fearless, always I was fierce. I didn’t have any other choices. Since birth, my life had been made of violence. It was all I knew.

And I didn’t shrink from it.

I didn’t wait for him to strike. I went for him, surprising him a little, which gave me an advantage, however slight. I sliced his upper arm and had time to see a silver light shining through the gaping edges before he moved with demon speed and got his revenge.

A fiery pain added itself to the agony I already felt, but instead of being eclipsed by the wolf moon, it multiplied. Impossibly, it multiplied.

I screamed and staggered against the unbearable torment as blood poured down my chest, but in the back of my mind was my father’s voice. “Suck it up, Princess. Use the pain and fight like a warrior.”

I stiffened my spine, shoved away the agony, and went after the demon. I’d fight him and either he would die, or I would. Those were the two possibilities.

“Strong wolf,” he roared. “You please me.”

“Fuck you,” I snarled, and with my anger and pain fueling me on, I fought the demon. I have to admit it was only sheer luck that let me take his blade from him.

Luck and a little help from the bound girl on the altar—Lucille opened her mouth and screamed. There was something in that scream that drew his immediate attention, and I stepped in and nearly severed his right hand from his arm. The blade fell, and I didn’t hesitate. I scooped it from the ground, leaped, and drove it into his black demon heart.

Maybe he wasn’t such a badass after all.

I didn’t gloat for long, though, because not even sticking a demon through his heart was going to keep him controlled for long. But as I took his blade and ran to the girl to cut the ropes that bound her, the demon roared, and he fell.

The sharp blade sliced through the ropes like butter, and I barely waited for them to part before I turned to watch the demon. Lucille surged from the log and threw her arms around my waist. She was a little thing, maybe five feet three inches tall, dark blonde hair, big blue eyes, pink cheeks and pale skin. How the hell had she ended up here? She should have been back in the city baking cakes and muffins.

There was little time to wonder as I watched the demon reach his end. I still didn’t know how I’d killed him until abruptly, my gaze caught on the deeply serrated demon blade and I saw my blood there, dripping, bubbling, moving.

My blood boiled into the demon blade, and I tucked the information away to study later. My blood alone hadn’t killed the demon, but combined with the blade, the blade forged in hell, it had apparently cooked up a lethal combination.

The demon gave one last roar and from his gaping maw burst a huge blast of fire and black smoke, and it came for what seemed like hours. Days. Something shifted inside me, and I swear the unending pain lessened. I felt the difference.

Then the demon’s body cracked, turned into something black and burnt, and fell upon the ground, a man-shaped pile of ash and embers. He died.

Supposedly, a cast out demon could never find another body to inhabit, not if he was out of his world and in his body when it happened. He’d be forced to wander my world forever, his power gone, his people gone, his hope gone.

Supposedly.

But for a breathless second, I felt something. My body broke out into gooseflesh, my heart stuttered to a halt, my brain froze. Electricity danced along my skull and I stiffened into a full body muscle contraction, a spasm that was as unbearable as it was brief. And then, it was just…gone. My usual pain roared back into the suddenly silent night, and I gripped the blade, alive. I was alive.

The black lasso holding the trio disappeared and they stared in shock, their screams silenced, unable to so much as move. They were caught somewhere between the demon’s world and their own, and though I didn’t know where they were, not really, I would have to bring them back. I couldn’t leave them trapped, despite my anger and disgust. The idiots had likely learned a lesson, and chances were slim they’d ever attempt to summon a demon again.

“That was…insane,” Lucille whispered. “That was unbelievable.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. I pushed her away from me, but gently, and slid the demon’s blade into the sheath on my hip. I’d get a new one for it, because I would wear it forever. It was mine now.

The girl stayed close to my back, as though she were afraid the demon would return. I could have reassured her, but my mind was full of other things.

Despite the full moon, my familiar pain seemed lessened after my encounter with the demon. “I might have to find a demon boss to fight every full moon,” I muttered, not entirely sure I was joking.

My blood on a demon blade had killed a powerful demon.

I was going to have to do some research and figure out what the hell had happened. What had changed. What it all meant.

Maybe having the wolf trapped inside me for so long had mutated me somehow. Or was I born different? First thing I’d do was ask my mother.

That was going to be fun.