Huntbound (Moonfate Serial Book 2) by Sylvia Frost Page A

the same way he did around the dead body. He looks at me with the same cold professionalism, too. “And we’re beyond what you want at this point, too.”
     
    “Then w-where are we, Orion?” I bite my lip to stop the stutter.
     
    “At a place where I have to do what’s best.”
     
    His orbit is getting closer now, and I feel like he’s only giving our conversation half of his attention. The other half is focused entirely on me. My reactions. My body. Like he’s searching for weak points. “I will let nothing take you from me, not even yourself. Do you understand that?”
     
    I nod once, incapable of anything else.
     
    “Now.” He takes a deep breath, amazingly deep. I had no idea his lungs could expand that far. His chest almost doubles in size.
     
    When he does speak, his voice seems to have all the qualities of the forest, at once soothing like the soughing of wind through leaves, and ancient, like the twisted networks of roots, and the darkness of shadows in a place so far away from civilization the only light comes from the stars. “So, now, tell me, Artemis. Why did you run from me, why did you disobey me, and why are you so reluctant to tell me who you really are?”
     
    The power of his werecall speaks in my bones and blood, leaving no room for anything but absolute obedience. I open my mouth, or he opens my mouth. My body and my motions don’t feel like they belong to me. But this time the sensation is not a pleasant one. “I lost them.”
     
    My heart feels full of helium.
     
    “Who? Who did you lose?”
     
    “My parents. Werebeasts killed them. And I stayed in the tent.” The words leave my mouth so easily; I can’t believe that it took me so long to say them. I can’t even process the words. They seem like a random collection of syllables. “I couldn’t lose Lawrence too. He’s the only friend I’ve ever had who really knew me. All of me. The bad and the good, and he loved me anyway. I couldn’t let him die.”
     
    Nothing feels different after I release the words into the atmosphere. There’s nothing special about them. Nothing life-changing. No tears run down my cheeks.
     
    Nothing is different.
     
    Except for Orion.
     
    I don’t know what I expected. Sadness, understanding, like when he held me and kissed me at my house. Maybe I even expected him to try to fix me, to open his mouth and tell me to forget about my parents, to forget about all the pain werebeasts had caused me. The pain I had caused them.
     
    But none of that happens.
     
    Instead, he grasps my chin in his fingers and yanks it up so I’m looking at him. “Don’t lie to me.”
     
    His words have no less power this time, but I don’t fight them. I let them wash through me, and actually offer him a sad, knowing smile. “It’s the truth, Orion. I lost everything because of your kind.”
     
    “But that’s impossible.”
     
    A bitter laugh builds in my lungs, and I let it out. “I’ve learned over the years that nothing is impossible.”
     
    The sense of disconnection is fading, my limbs prickling with pins and needles, my heartbeat beginning to accelerate again. But even though I’m beginning to feel something, it’s not fear. It’s relief. God, it feels so good to be honest with him. With myself. About what I am. Who I am.
     
    The irony, I realize, is that it was this feeling, this ability to share my secrets, that made my friendship with Lawrence so important to me. I had thought that this strange feeling of kinship was something I could only have with Lawrence.
     
    Orion’s done nothing yet to fix the situation, and yet I already feel better. Not completely; I never will completely, but as I close my eyes and take in a shuddering breath I realize that I had never before named my grief.
     
    I had spent the last seven years mourning, and hadn’t been able to accept that fact. Accept my pain. Acknowledge it aloud.
     
    Until now.
     
    Orion lets go of my face, and I want him to return. I want