The House Of Gaian

little sister who adored her. Rhyann, who had proudly come into her room one day to show her the triangle caps she’d made out of scraps of material and sewed together with clumsy, childish stitches so that she could have pointy ears, too. Rhyann who, the first time Selena had inadvertently changed into her other form, had carried her terrified, furry sister home—and then stayed with Selena for all the hours it had taken their parents to calm her down enough to find the key inside herself that changed her back into a child. And it was Rhyann, when needs seemed to tangle her up until she wasn’t sure anymore who she was, who would always tell her fiercely, “You’re a witch. You’re always a witch, one of the Mother’s Daughters.”
    Always, forever a witch. A rare and powerful witch, who could wield the power of the Mother’s branches—earth, air, water, and fire—in equal measure. There were many in the Mother’s Hills who were gifted with all four branches, but most of them had one primary branch and a lesser ability with the other three. But for her, all four were primary and flowed from her as easily as she breathed. In that, she and Rhyann were true sisters.
    But she was also a Lady of the Moon, something she hadn’t known until eight years ago. The Crone who had taught her and Rhyann some of the oldest magic known to the House of Gaian had recognized that part of her. The old woman had refused to say how she knew what she did about the Fae—and the Ladies of the Moon and the Lady of the Moon in particular—but that knowledge helped Selena understand the part of herself that had felt like a stranger living inside her skin.
    Now that part of her heritage was rising, calling, commanding her to answer. So she would follow the call to the place where the other Ladies of the Moon would gather, and she would stand as a challenger to find out if she was strong enough to ascend and become the Lady of the Moon—and the Huntress.
    She stood up, stepped away from the dressing table, and shifted into her other form. Then she put her front paws on the stool in order to look into the mirror again.
    Shadow hound. A deadly predator the Ladies of the Moon used for their Wild Hunts.
    Selena shifted again, stared into the mirror, her hands braced on the stool.
    Two shadow hound bitches racing through moon-bathed woods, racing toward a common enemy.
    Who was the second bitch? Was one of the Sleep Sisters just playing with her, haunting her with dreams to weaken her for the challenge ahead, or was this a gift from the Lady of Dreams herself, showing her an ally against a common foe? She would need an ally, especially if she won this challenge. Who was the second bitch?
    Cold again, despite the warm summer night, Selena blew out the candle and returned to bed to huddle under the covers.
    A shadowy male figure standing in the center of a high, wide circle of female corpses.
    Yes, she needed an ally, because tonight, in that circle of corpses, she’d seen her mother—and Rhyann.

 

     
     

Chapter 3

 

     
     

     
    waning moon
     
    Breanna grumbled as she gathered up her bow and quiver of arrows from the corner of her wardrobe.
    She continued to grumble as she walked the corridors of her family’s manor house to reach the kitchen door.
    The trouble with men was that they saw the world in a way that was too rational to be wrong ... but also just wasn’t quite right. And a man who was a baron as well as an older brother was the most stubborn, ornery creature in the world—especially when his argument that she should know how to handle weapons was supported by a Fae Lord who was the Lord of the Hawks.
    “The featherheads,” Breanna muttered as she opened the kitchen door and stood on the threshold. She looked down at Idjit, who was laying to one side of the doorway, busily gnawing on a soup bone Glynis, their housekeeper, must have given him. “They’re both featherheads, even if only one of them has the ability to change into a form with actual feathers. And where are they? Tell me that. They’re both so keen for me to interrupt my day, and then they don’t even show up. They’re probably off doing important man things—like molting in the case of the Fae featherhead. Or doing whatever barons do as an excuse for being late to an appointment they made .”
    The small black dog rolled his eyes, waved his tail, and kept gnawing on the soup bone.
    “You’re no help,” Breanna said sourly. “Of course