Page 111 of A Hunter for Luna

I glared at her, pouring all my hatred into my eyes. I wouldn't dignify her idiocy with a response. She was wrong. My child wasn't a thing, a mere sacrifice, but a tiny, precious life.

I dragged my gaze away from Vala's face.

Shouting and struggles announced Benedetto’s arrival, carried as I’d been, but successful in hurting some of the creatures, even pinned arms and legs. A gesture from Moonshifter left him rigid and silent as they chained him to the far wall.

My heart lurched against my ribs. His shirt was torn and stained with blood, his black hair disheveled, his face and body cruised. But his eyes... When they met mine, they blazed with such love and fury that it stole my breath.

A circle of magic surrounded Benedetto, tracing runes that arced in a half circle to join the wall where he was chained. Both the circle and Benedetto's shackles glowed with a sick purple light. Pure magic, strong enough to hold even the strongest. I could feel the thrum of the spell from across the room, a wall of force caging my husband's power. They'd left his sword belt and blade on him, as if to mock his helplessness.

"Luna!" Benedetto's shout cracked with desperation. He lunged against the chains, muscles straining. The magic flickered but held.

Vala turned to him, a disapproving frown on her lips. "Still you struggle? How foolish. You must know you've lost. All the pieces are in place."

Her voice went to pure frost. "And if you plan to die, well... I'm sure with the proper persuasion, your Francesco could put a child in her for us. The bloodline must continue, after all. So put that thought out of your head."

I gagged, gorge rising in my throat. The image Vala's words conjured was so horrific, so cruel, that I couldn't breathe. UsingFrancesco like that, after all he'd suffered... And Benedetto, forced to imagine it... It was a nightmare made manifest.

It was a cruel threat made by a woman who knew her son.

Benedetto roared his rage, but I heard the edge of despair beneath the fury. Vala had trapped us utterly. If I fought, they'd hurt him until I shattered. And if he died... I couldn't even contemplate it. The violation, the brutality, the grief, it would destroy me as surely as any magic.

Vala knew it too. It was written in every line of her determined face. She had me. Had us. There was no escape, no clever gambit that could win free. Unless...

A thought stirred in the back of my mind, fragile as a soap bubble, the remnants of a dream hidden until this moment. The spell. I could disrupt it, with the child... It would be almost impossible, with the magical restraints on me. And so, so dangerous, with the amount of power Vala and Moonshifter were pulling through me and the child. But what choice did I have? Cooperating doomed everything and everyone I loved.

Our eyes met across the room. I tried to put everything I felt into that look. All my love, my fear, my regret. And my determination. One way or another, I would not let Vala win this. Even if it cost my life.

Benedetto's gaze held mine, and I knew he understood. His chin dipped, just slightly, and I saw the same resolve settle over him. Live or die, we would face this together. No matter what.

If nothing else, we’d have the afterlife. In true Dimare fashion.

The chamber fell suddenly, utterly silent, save for the thump of my own pulse in my ears. For a moment, everything stood still.Then Moonshifter stepped forward to the edge of the circle, his embroidered robes rustling. He raised his hands, and the runes around me flared to burning life.

The sorcerer's voice rose, echoing from the stone walls, a guttural chant in a language that conjured its meaning to your mind, even if the words heard meant nothing.

The syllables twisted and writhed, as if fighting the very air. Moonshifter's hands moved in patterns that seared themselves into my vision, impossibly intricate and dizzyingly wrong.

With a chill, I recognized the spell. The gestures, the cadence of the chant... Sofia had taught them to Rose.

Though she refused to let Rose attempt it. A ritual to transport us to the godplane.

The air pressure dropped until my ears popped and I gasped for breath. Above the circle, reality shimmered and bent, like water about to boil. Distortion spiraled out from the heart of the spell, and a warp opened in the center of the vortex, a hole that was not a hole, leading everywhere and nowhere at all. The temperature plummeted until I could see my breath. Power crackled along my limbs, dancing over my skin in razor-edged sparks.

"Yes," Vala murmured. Her face shone with stern purpose in the eldritch light. "This will be done soon. The power of the dark moon enhanced by the ritual will fracture the wards on the Lord of Nightmare’s power and tap into the energy of the godplane."

She raised her arms as if in welcome. "We will ascend beyond mortality. Become the new gods this world so desperately needs."

The words battered me like fists. Blood roared in my ears, and I sagged in the chains, shaking uncontrollably.

The spell rose in me, and I twisted my magic, creating it subtly, as my grandmother had taught me.

Connection. I linked my magic with the wisp that was my babe’s.

Deep in my abdomen, a sharp, rending pain lanced through me, doubling me over. But it wasn't the child trying to tear free, as I'd first feared. No, this was a psychic pain, a burst of distress and fury pouring from the life cradled in my womb.

Through the pain, I felt a fierce swell of protectiveness, of determination. This precious mote of life, my son or daughter, was crying out to me, begging me to save us both from the horrors to come.

It was a bond deep as blood, strong as life, forged in our magic. I closed my eyes, trying desperately to send soothing thoughts to the little one inside me, even as another bolt of shared agony made me gasp.

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