Blood on the Moon - serialised EXCLUSIVE for Steemit! - 108

Blood On The Moon Cover

Amazon link

My third novel was finished and published in time for Halloween 2016 and I had a launch at Waterstone's at Sheffield.

The full book cover, done by the wonderful, talented, brilliant Paul Mudie

Other Images from Pixabay or Google (Free Usage)

To read from the beginning: Here

Then change the number in the address bar from 1 to 2 (https://steemit.com/writing/@michelle.gent/blood-on-the-moon-serialised-exclusive-for-steemit-2) and so on for the next episodes.

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“Anton!” A loud and clear voice rang out from the tree line and Anton recognised the voice.

He smiled without humour as the Wolf approached.

“Jakob.” Anton said and nodded a wary greeting.

Jakob held out his hand for Anton to take and they clasped wrists in the ancient greeting. Jakob jerked Anton’s arm
and pulled him into his embrace as though they were long-lost brothers.

“You weren’t certain then; I saw it in your eyes!” Jakob said with a laugh crinkling around his mouth.

“No, I was not certain. I hoped, but I was not certain. I did not wish to face you and your pack this day!”

Anton and Jakob moved through the crowds of Wolves and they parted their ranks to allow them to pass.

For the moment, Red was happy to allow Anton to take command because it wasn’t just her Sentinels that were present for battle.

Her Sentinels were far and away outnumbered by Wolves that had been summoned from the annals of time, it seemed to her.

She felt a little insignificant at that moment and though she knew her time would come, she watched and she waited and wondered how the hell all these Wolves had got to this point at this time.

“Red! Come on!” Anton shouted and she trotted to catch up with him.

They crossed the dual carriageway in their masses but only once did Red look behind her to see just how many there were.

She was amazed, they were still appearing from the tree line and making their way down to the car parks and then up to the road and the tree-lined cart lane.

It was growing dark as they got to the top of the lane where Selene had turned right to go to the Hall but the Wolves continued on.

Red could hear noises of car horns as drivers grew impatient at waiting for the masses of people to pass, but wait they would or know the consequences.

The Wolves that had arrived were not those that had managed to integrate into Hume society.

These Wolves wouldn’t pass for anything but feral in the cold light of day and were usually uncomfortable in the company of Humes unless, of course, the Humes in question were about to join them for dinner.

Anton, Red and Jakob exited the trees at the brow of a hill that overlooked the view of the valley from a higher vantage point than did the house below.

They stopped to look and Anton said one word. “Oh.”

The fields of crops would be worthless because they had been trampled by many thousands of feet and for one dreamlike moment, Red was transported back to the beginning of her Wolf life, to the battlefield of Bloor Heath.

For the second time in less than an hour, she felt small and insignificant in the face of the Wolves, ranging between Ancients and Whelps, that spread out across the landscape before her.

The three Wolves descended the slope towards the waiting crowds.

Red couldn’t help the feeling in her stomach as adrenalin was produced. It made her limbs tremble and a delicious shiver ran the length of her spine and even down her legs to her shins, it was so intense.

Red heard muttering in the crowd getting louder and she could see that the focus of the Wolves before her had shifted to the Wolves emerging behind her at the trees that they had just left.

As those Wolves that had crossed the road a few minutes earlier caught up and spread out behind the three. More Clan Leaders that she had not yet greeted arrived to stand behind her, Anton and Jakob.

She didn’t turn around but nodded as a few spoke her name to assure her, whether she needed it or not.

She smiled as she recognised individual voices, especially if they said, “Hazel,” because those were the Wolves that she could count on.

They were ones that she had known for centuries and she knew that if they stood with her, win or lose, the payment in blood and lives for the other side would be extreme.

The Wolves were still coming down the slope and crowding around them, extending their perimeter in a constant flow and soon Jakob, Anton and Red were lost in a protective sea of Wolves.

She could feel the tension, it made her even more excited and she could feel her Wolfness flowing through her veins.

Her legs were no longer trembling and she had the indescribable, irresistible urge to howl but before she did, the cacophony of another Wolf, less strong-willed than she was, lifted his head and howled at the almost-full moon and others joined him.

Red was within a hair’s breadth of joining too until a hand on her arm brought her back to the here and now and she regained her composure, straightened her spine and was back, not just in serious mode, but in Sentinel Exemplar mode.