Blood on the Moon - serialised EXCLUSIVE for Steemit! - 28

Blood On The Moon Cover

Amazon link

My third novel was finished and published in time for Halloween 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)

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Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14, Part 15, Part 16, Part 17, Part 18, Part 19, Part 20, Part 21, Part 22, Part 23, Part 24, Part 25, Part 26, Part 27,

Ch1 Jessica (Rabbit) has entered the Lion’s Den – Wolf’s Den – of her own accord and is neck-deep in her greatest desire (Be careful what you wish for).

Ch2 Red is speaking to a Wolf she knew from long ago and has been astonished once by his revelation.

Ch3 Jessica is in over her head, no other human in sight and is bouncing from one encounter to the next - including in the dream-state.

Ch4 Jessica has an interview with the 'Big Boss', finds out she has a mentor - not Paul, and is the cause for disquiet among the Werewolves. All fun and games - at least she knows that if anyone goes against the orders and takes her as prey, they will be seriously reprimanded...

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“That’s a fantastic thought, Lord Grey and it’s dangerous and exciting too. I hope I’m included in the project.” Selene said and caught up to Lord Grey just before he went into his office.

“Of course you are, Selene. You have the task of tutoring the rabbit and turning her into a Wolf. It will be a hard journey but if you don’t give up, the rewards will be phenomenal.”

He said out-loud, but he added two words onto the statement inside his head: ‘For me’.

Lord Grey was always on the look-out for new conscripts to his cause. He didn’t care what gender they were, or whether they were honest, as long as they understood that to betray him was to put a self-inflicted death-warrant on their head, but his attitude towards Jessica had changed when he realised that she could see his inner Wolf. It made him curious and he wondered how and even why she could see his Wolf form when he was in human form, so he decided to find out.

After a lot of research, he discovered that Jessica was probably a Throwback and at least a few generations ago, one of her ancestors had most likely been born to a Hume female with a Wolf father.

The Hunters of Wolves from centuries before were such Throwbacks and were engaged extensively by Kings and Warrior Barons when the Wolf Army they had employed in some war or another was no longer needed.

Their battle won; the victor then decided that a Wolf Army was far too dangerous to keep around because it would take just one disagreement with the wrong Wolf and they could be set against him rather than fighting for him and the power that he had gained would again be lost to him.

So Hunters were employed to find and kill Wolves. Because of one Wolf-turned-traitor, Humes learned the secrets of Wolf’s weaknesses and then silver and other noxious substances were employed in their eradication.

Source

Of course superstition played a hand in helping the purge of the Wolves for people lived in fear of the dark and evil forces that they knew little about and whilst women were killed as witches for owning a cat ‘familiar’ and living a secluded existence, so too were Wolves put to death. The fact that the women were more than probably innocent (if slightly eccentric) had nothing to do with their deaths, people lived by their fears and anything they feared, they killed.

The Hunters of Wolf were very skilled men and had the added advantage of being able to sense a ‘Werewolf’ because their own inner Wolf was the compass and they used it perhaps unknowingly.

The trade was passed down from generation to generation but instead of growing stronger, the skill grew weaker because the Wolfness was diluted as each generation was born to Hume parents. Until a member of one Hunter family married into another Hunter family when the Wolfness would be re-concentrated – sometimes with disastrous results where the child was born as a monstrosity that had to be killed at birth if it did not die by Mother Nature’s hand first.

As Hunters killed off the Wolves, their trade became obsolete and forgotten.

England was cleared of wolves by the Middle Ages, therefore it was far more difficult for a ‘Werewolf’ to hide and so for the most part, Wolf society left England’s shores after the War of the Roses and didn’t return until the next war called them back, by which time they had organised themselves and formulated a plan.

Lord Grey was pleased that nothing much had changed in human nature over the centuries and the age-old fears of discovery and annihilation were still strong in the minds of the ruling classes in Wolf society. They were wary of integration and didn’t allow many Humes that survived being bitten to continue as Wolf – the ones that were not successful in their appeal to remain full Wolf were executed by the Sentinels – another reason for the masses of Wolf to hate their ‘police force’.

Lord Grey did all the research for himself because he didn’t want the knowledge in any other’s hands.

He could remember some of it and only needed a refresher on the information but it brought back plenty of knowledge and memories – some of which added fuel to the hatred he had for the Sentinel Exemplar.

Then when he also recalled something that one of his advisors had reminded him of a long time ago, he realised that he could manipulate a prophecy and so he dug deeper.

Falco had mentioned that his own mentor’s good friend was a Sentinel, a Wolf that policed the Wolf Society so that Throwbacks and other threats to the First Laws were not broken and that Wolfkind was safe and secure in the knowledge that Humes would forever believe that ‘Werewolves’ were a creature of imagination and past superstition.

First Laws were set centuries before in order to ensure that Wolf did not hunt Wolf and any that killed another was hunted by the Sentinels and unless they were found innocent of the charge of killing another without good reason, they were put to death.

The Sentinels were a rare breed of Wolf; they were absolute loners and had no structure or rules as such.

Hated because they were faithful only to the Lycaeon, they had the unconditional right to kill any other Wolf with impunity, and until the Prophesised One had come along, had no leader. If Lord Grey could create another Prophesised One, then he could lay claim to the title of Sentinel Exemplar and do away with the thorn that had been deep in his side for more than five hundred years.

Lord Grey plotted and planned and the plans revolved around his ultimate goal to humiliate and eradicate the Sentinel Exemplar – a Wolf he knew as Hazel.