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Hunter's Moon - Blood Moon

Chapter Two

© Cederwyn Whitefurr

21stApril 2023

All Rights Reserved.

As always, comments are gratefully received on my works! I'd love to hear from my readers on what they think, so please, let me know! I'm also on Patreon - like what I write and would like to contribute from as little as $5 a month? Patreon.com/Cederwyn

I wish to present, the first chapter of a new, and hopefully enchanting tale. I present for your enjoyment...

Hunter's Moon - Blood Moon - Chapter Two

Cale fled, tears streaking down his muzzle, crashing blindly through the forest. Sharp broken branches ripped and tore at his pelt, his crimson blood spattering on he ground. Fear drove him, sank its claws into him and made him reckless and terrified. He'd never seen this side of Cassiopeia - never- even dreamed it lurked within her - now he'd been exposed, through a selfish, terrible act he'd done to his own sister...

Stumbling, Cale's front hoof snagged on a tree root and he crashed head over tail, the air exploding from his lungs and cracking his small antler nubs on a rock. Agony exploded within his mind - terrible, searing pain - almost driving him mad. Yet he rolled over, getting groggily to his cloven hooves and stumbling onward - the blood sheeting down his face burning his eyes and dripping off his chin.

*

Like a blood hound - Cassiopeia followed the trail - she needed neither her leathery nostrils nor her eyes - for the blood spatter and broken branches and shrubs were as visible to her as a highway in her mind. He'd made no effort to double back, to do as she'd taught him, splash through stream and even cross a river - everything - she'd taught him, seemed to have gone out the window.

Hunt him, kill him, tear his beating heart out and eat it raw! Come that dark voice of her inner Therian, growing powerful and strong as it fed on the rage within her. He broke his oath, his promise, his life is forfeit...

Cassiopeia put on more speed, the darkness within her fuelling her muscles and her anger.

"Cale!" Cassiopeia shrieked, her voice echoing off the trees and startling the animals and birds who exploded into the sky overhead. "I'm going to tear your fucking heart out..."

Cale heard Cassiopeia's angry scream, and he ducked under a fallen tree, his body soaked with sweat, muscles burning and he knew, instinctively, he couldn't run anymore - he curled up as small as he could make himself and awaited the end he knew was coming for him.

"Father..." Cale wept. "Please, forgive me - I could not help myself - I've betrayed my mother, broken my oath..."

Almost as if nature itself drew its breath, the forest grew forlorn and silent - a few turning leaves tumbling down to the forest floor.

"Cale - I'm coming for you..." Cassiopeia's voice reached the terrified young Buck's ears. "No more running, no more hiding - some out you betrayer - you coward- face what your foolishness has brought down upon you..._make_me find you...you'll suffer...terribly..."

That's not my mother - Cale's terrified internal voice filled his mind. My mother would never be so cruel...

"LAST WARNING!" Cassiopeia's voice cracked like the mid-summer thunder clap...so close, he could almost smell her scent.

Cale trembled, torn between his fear and the compulsion that tried to drive him out of hiding. A chill rippled down his back, and Cale trembled, feeling what he would swear, to his last days, was fingers and hooflets resting on his neck...but there wasn't anything there...

A snap of a twig made the terrified yearling cry out, then Cassiopeia zeroed in on him, crouching down, her forelegs bent, as her cruel, predatory gaze glared at him. Her lips curled back, exposing those terrible, razor sharp canines, the saliva that dribbled from her lower lip glistening.

"Get...out...here..." Come that voice - dark, vicious, slathering...

"Mother, please!" Cale wept, curling up tighter, as if he wanted to just vanish into thin air, his body shaking.

With a snarl, Cassiopeia wedged herself under the fallen tree, pressing her back against it and trying to force it upwards. He watched her legs straining, cloven hooves sinking into the rotting vegetation a she snarled and strained.

"This isn't you..." Cale squealed, his voice cracking with the raw emotion that seared through him. "My mother is kind, gentle and..."

He screamed as she sank her teeth into his ankle, dragging him out. Blood welled and the therian that had possessed Cassiopeia sucked hungrily, savouring the hot, coppery taste as it bit down, the ankle bones creaking and cracking.

"Mother, please..." Cale shrieked breathlessly. "Fight it... I'm your son..."

Biting down even harder, Cassiopeia's teeth scraped and cracked the leg bones sucking the blood like a tick. Each swallow made her grip harder, the Therian within her feasting hungrily.

"No more playing..." Cassiopeia growled, her voice muffled by his leg in her muzzle.

Cale felt his body growing cold, his heart pumping blood out the savaged leg, he couldn't even struggle anymore, before he saw Cassiopeia stand, blood dripping from her muzzle as she opened it wide, preparing to sink her fangs into his throat...

Emerald flashed, and _something_struck her like a falling tree, sending her rolling head over tail a good dozen feet away. With a feral snarl, Cassiopeia leapt back to her cloven hooves, shaking her head and stalking towards Cale.

"Want to play... I know what _you_are Fèidh..."

A voice, cold, powerful, yet filled with compassion and sadness, seemed to materialise out of the very air itself.

"ENOUGH!" It snapped.

Cassiopeia was visibly driven back by the _force_of the words.

"You're weak, Fèidh, You won't save him, he's mine- I'll make him wish for death and..."

Cassiopeia screamed in agony, as something savagely struck her across the muzzle, dropping her to her knees.

"Think me weak, Therian? This is your son, you birthed him, nursed him, raised_him... You would eat your own? Are you so lost Cassiopeia? I know your heart young Doe - you're stronger than this, now rise up and_fight the darkness within you."

"NO!" Cassiopeia snarled, then stood and shook herself from ears to hooves. "That doe is weak! Her anger fuels me, gives me strength - that insolent Buck - you know_he broke his oath - he will die...cruelly and horribly, _I will not permit you to interfere..."

With a quiet sigh, the air flared a brilliant green, before a spectral red deer materialised out of the either, standing defiantly between Cassiopeia and the bleeding out Cale.

With his eyes half-lidded, the Fèidh stag flicked an ear, then for a millisecond, he looked back at Cale.

"Draw upon that which exists in your blood, you have it within you to heal yourself..."

"I..." Cale choked, his body trembling. "I'm so...cold..."

Sensing it had the chance, the Therian launched itself at the Red Deer, only to suddenly scream as it was bodily slammed to the ground, razor sharp tined antlers pinning it to the forest floor.

"Cale,now!" Snapped the Stag, glaring side eyed at the almost unconscious young Buck.

Cale whimpered, panting and soaked with sweat, before he reached down deep inside himself, the emerald flames flickering - before his Fèidh magicks sealed the mortal wound - bones knitting back together, arteries sealing, muscles spreading down and finally, fur covering the wound - like nothing had ever happened. Exhausted, Cole trembled and unconscious swept him away into darkness. Turning his attention back to the Therian he held pinned to the ground, the Stag snorted through his nostrils, his hot breath visibly rippling the fur.

"I expected as much, from the likes of you - " Snarled the Stag, his eyes narrowing even further, as his antlers began to gleam a brilliant emerald - the unnatural fire spreading from the root to the very tips of the tines.

"Let me go!" Cassiopeia shrieked, struggling, but the tines began to sink into the fur, like they were burning it. "I'll tear your entrails out and..."

With a sigh, the stag quivered, the emerald fire vanishing as he leaned forwards, applying more pressure and pinning the snarling doe beneath his antlers so she could barely breathe.

"Cassiopeia_, daughter of Blackfang, hear me and obey, so named are you, by your true name and lineage, I demand your presence_!" He snarled. "So true named are you..."

Visibly, the Therian shuddered and went limp, before its eyes shifted from the dark, soulless obsidian black to her beautiful brown ones.

"Kill me..." Cassiopeia pleaded. "Please, just..."

"I will not kill you Cassiopeia," Spoke the Stag quietly. "I will not, you are the mother of my fawn, you birthed him, nursed him and loved him - where is that love you had for him?"

"He...he broke - " Cassiopeia wept, her tears sluicing through the blood on her muzzle, leaving pale tracks. "He promised never too breed - he took from her..."

"Be silent - " Spoke the stag, instantly silencing her. "I know what he done Cassiopeia, truly, my own heart breaks, it does! That which was taken, even the likes of I, can not return... Cale made a mistake - a terrible, mistake - are you yourself, innocent of heart and spirit? How can you yourself, judge, when your own heart was once as black as coal?"

"I..." Cassiopeia pleaded. "That was different..."

"Different? Why? Because you were consumed by that_thing within you? How many Cassiopeia, how _many_begged cried and pleaded for mercy? One? A dozen...hundreds? _HOW MANY!"

His words lashing her like a spiritual whip, Cassiopeia could only cry out and endure - effortlessly, the stag tore down her defences, each and every human she and her father had taken - tortured- and worse - came and went, faster and faster, like a flutter of cards.

"Nnngh," Cassiopeia squealed. "No, please, no more..."

"Well?" He roared, the very ground and trees quaking in his anger. "Yet you will not forgive your own son? How dare you, how dare you deny him that which you can not bring yourself to face? Hear me and obey, Cassiopeia! For I will not tell you again. Forgive Cale, and forgive yourself..."

Cassiopeia wept, her eyes closed, yet she _still_seen this magnificent stag standing in her mind, holding her to the ground, his antler tines now wet with blood as he dug them deeper.

"I'm...sorry- " Cassiopeia screamed piercingly. "I forgive you Cale, for you are young and your instincts consumed you - "

Still, the stag dug his tines deeper, a good two inches into the now bleeding Cassiopeia's body.

"_Cassie..."_He whispered, spectral tears sliding down his cheeks then dripping off his nose to chill her fur and flesh when they splashed down.

"I...please, help me - " Cassie begged, truly begged, for the first time in her life.

"I can not give you that which you will not freely give to me - " He told her.

"How... all those - " Cassiopeia wailed, her spirit breaking as the pain tore into her body from his sharp tines. "They..."

Again, he pushed down, feeling her flesh and fur parting, blood soaking antler and her body.

"Now, Cassie - " He suddenly snarled, dominant, strong, powerful - everything she was not...

"I...I - " Cassie shrieked in agony and heart-wrenching terror. "I seek forgiveness for my terrible crimes..."

Without warning, his tines slid from her body and he lifted his head towards the sky, before he looked forlorn and heartbroken, then bowed his head and touched his antlers to her body - the emerald fire flaring as he used his Fèidh magicks one last time...

TO BE CONTINUED...