Hunter's Woman

Hunter’s Woman

By

Kaitlyn O’Connor

( c ) copyright by Kaitlyn O’Connor, 2015

Cover Art by Jenny Dixon

Amazon Edition

New Concepts Publishing

Lake Park, GA 31636

www.newconceptspublishing.com

This is a work of fiction.  All characters, events, and places are of the author’s imagination and not to be confused with fact.  Any resemblance to living persons or events is merely coincidence.

Author Note:  A Glossary of alien terms appears at the end of the story for your convenience/ reference. 

Prologue

Aslyn didn’t remember Earth.  She’d been an infant when they’d fled that dying world to settle on a new world—the world her people thought of as New Earth that the natives called Petrac. 

They hadn’t come as conquerors, unfortunately.  Despite the advantages of their technology, mankind had fallen on hard times.  To survive as a species, they’d been forced to scatter across the universe in search of new homes. They’d had little time to prepare for departure and little left by way of supplies to keep body and soul together when they’d finally found a habitable world.  Thus it was only a small group that had stumbled upon this fertile, promising island in the great sea of stars—a world already inhabited—and they had decided their best hope for survival was to attempt to become assimilated into the alien community.

To hide who and what they were and their origins.

And so they had sailed into alien ports in their strange ships and claimed only to be ‘foreigns’ from a land across the sea.

The irony was that ‘New Earth’ was very like old Earth—as in ancient Earth—much like Earth during what was called the medieval period—except different, of course, because the natives weren’t human. 

They looked human, but they weren’t.

And that was never more apparent than when the twin moons of Petrac rose together at their fullest ….

Chapter One

The persistent, escalating commotion in the courtyard finally roused Aslyn from sleep.  Alarm should have jolted her awake, should have galvanized her into immediate action.  At any other time, her mind would instantly have responded to the sounds that could mean nothing but danger.  Instead, a heaviness pervaded her senses, as if she’d drank too much wine or the potent beverage the natives referred to as maidal. 

Her sluggish mind connected with that thought, meandering along it until she recalled the celebration the night before.  Her father had announced her betrothal to Wilhem of Leitsey Marr, a native of Petrac they were anxious to ally themselves with since his family was a powerful one and could help to cement relations between Earthers and the natives.

Not that the natives
knew
they were aliens from another world, but they certainly knew they weren’t native to
their
realm! And there was, perhaps, pardonable resentment that the Earthers had come from another land and, in less than a decade, had become powerful, wealthy ‘lords’ in their adoptive land.

She had been reasonably satisfied with her father’s decision.  She’d known for some time that she—all of the young colonists—would be expected to mate-bond with the natives if they showed interest in such a connection.  He was an older man, nearing thirty, but not so old that she felt repelled by his age, and he had attained some note as a warrior—a skill very much in his favor in a world as violent as Petrac.  He was not hard on the eyes, either, for which she was grateful. 

Twenty six
did
seem a little old to a fifteen year old girl, particularly since she’d hoped to make a match nearer her own age, but she was certain she hadn’t imbibed more than she should have—either from excessive delight, or anxiety.

The direction of her thoughts finally roused her sufficiently that she pushed herself upright and looked around.  The tower room was dark still, barely lighter than it had been when she’d doused the lamps and climbed into her bed the night before.  The sun couldn’t have risen.

Why then did it seem the entire keep was aroused and moving about as if they were well into the new day’s activities?

As she was striving to puzzle through that odd set of circumstances, she realized she was covered in a chilled, sticky wetness.  She looked down at herself then and a new wave of confusion swept over her.

She was nude.  What had happened to her gown?  More importantly, what was the substance she was coated with?

Her hands, indeed her entire body, was splotched with the sticky residue.  She held out her hands, peering at them in the dim light.  Slowly, her eyes focused.  Slowly the dark patches attained a rusty hue.

Blood.

Her heart lurched painfully in her chest.  Stumbling from the bed, she staggered toward the mirror that was perched on her dressing table. 

Streaks of the same sticky substance smeared her forehead and cheeks.  It was concentrated, however, around her mouth and throat.  Instinctively, her hand went to her throat.

The blood wasn’t hers, she discovered.  She had no injury. 

She stared at her hands, her arms, looked down at her body in dawning horror, trying to grapple with possibilities.  

How could she be soaked in blood when she wasn’t injured?

Some nameless fear seized her and she stumbled to the wash stand.  Dashing water from the ewer into the basin, she began scrubbing herself frantically.  She had to get rid of it.  She had to remove the evidence….

She broke off the thought, paused in her task.  The evidence of what? 

She couldn’t grasp it.  She couldn’t seem to move beyond the need to bathe.  Dismissing the questions for the moment, she concentrated on cleansing herself.  When she’d finished, she stared down at the filmy water in revulsion, realizing she couldn’t leave the bloody water for the maids to find.  That would defeat the point of bathing entirely!  Lifting the basin, she stumbled awkwardly with her heavy burden to the window then set it down on the floor to unfasten the window and push it open. 

Below, chaos reigned.  People were dashing hither and yon; women screamed;
kirkins
—their riding beasts—reared as her father’s guard fought to bring them under control; the hunting
grogs
from the kennel bayed as if they had the scent of death in their nostrils.

Aslyn grasped the bowl and tossed the contents from the window.

She’d barely done so when her door exploded inward with a force that slammed the wooden portal back against the stone wall with a sharp crack of splintering wood.

“Lady Aslyn!  Oh!  Thank the Goddess Hirath you are here and unharmed!”

Aslyn stared at her nurse wide eyed, feeling the color in her cheeks fluctuate with guilt and fear.  “Where else would I be at this hour?”

The nurse burst into wails.  “My lady!  My lady!  I don’t know how to tell you this terrible thing!”

A wave of dizziness washed over Aslyn as a different fear seized her.  “My father?” she asked faintly.

“No, no!  My poor child!  I did not mean to frighten you for your father’s safety!  And your mother gone these many years! I know how dear he is to you.  I should have thought!  I should have realized….”

Aslyn strode toward the woman, grasped her shoulders, and gave her a shake.  “Cease your babbling and tell me!  You are frightening me to death!  What has happened?”

“Your betrothed!  Lord Wilhem, my lady!  He has been found ….”  The nurse broke off, clutching her chest, gasping. 

“For mercy’s sake, tell me.  Do not leave me to wonder what ill has befallen us.  I shall go mad!  Has he attacked us?  Has he fallen ill?  What?”

The nurse clutched her, her fingers curled like claws, digging in to Aslyn’s flesh painfully.  “It’s horrible.  I shall carry the image to my grave.  Some beast fell upon him last eve and … and it must have been a wild beast, or …. Mayhap one of the
mogi
!  No
man
could have done to him what was done.  I would not have recognized him but for the ring he wears.  His face was torn away, his body ripped apart, his entrails scattered, as if a pack of wild beasts had fallen upon him and fought over his remains.”

There had been a time when Aslyn would simply have dismissed any suggestion that the culprit, the monster, that had done this thing was
mogi
.  She had believed—
all
of the Earthers had believed—that they were nothing more than superstition, myths, the sort of ‘monsters’ ancient earthlings had frightened themselves with. Alien or not, it didn’t seem the least bit logical or possible that
any
creature could have the capability of morphing into another creature entirely and back again—almost in the blink of an eye!

But Aslyn, at least, knew the tales weren’t purely myth.

She felt the strength abruptly leave her knees.  She wilted to the floor, her thoughts chaotic.

One thought pounded through her mind over and over, however.  The blood—she had been covered in blood and she had no idea how she had come to be covered in blood.

She very much feared, however, that she might remember.

Chapter Two

The dream was the same as it had always been, so far back into her memory that she couldn’t remember when it had first crept into her sleeping mind to frighten her.  She was a young child.  She knew this somehow, though she had no idea of how old she was … small enough to hide under the benches in the great hall and creep away unnoticed … less than five, she was certain.  She was afraid and triumphant at the same time.  She’d escaped nurse’s watchful eye.  She’d managed to slip through the garden and out the postern gate.  

Someone had left the gate ajar and the outside world beckoned.  Her sense of happy adventure had lasted until she realized she was lost.  When had the meadow given way to wooded lands?  She couldn’t seem to remember anything except that she had chased a
tribit
, round and round, enjoying the pursuit and far more interested in running than in actually catching the poor creature.

She heard voices calling to her.  They were fearful, angry.  There were many voices, as if everyone from the keep had come to look for her.  The idea frightened her almost as much as the fact that she was lost.  She didn’t want to be punished.  Instead of answering them, she ran and hid.  As she crouched beneath the tangle of brush, however, darkness began creeping through the leaves of the trees, closing around her. 

Finally, her fear of the dark woods had overcome her fear of punishment.  She’d crawled from hiding, begun to run toward the voices that still called her name, though their anger had given way to their own fears.  Even as she ran, however, heard the voices become louder, closer—she realized that something was running behind her, giving chase as she had pursued the
tribit
before.  Quite suddenly, it had bounded from the brush and pounced upon her, knocking her to the ground.  Its sharp teeth bared in a snarl as it curled its upper lip back.  Its golden eyes gleamed in the light of the twin full moons that had just risen above the tree tops.

It bore no resemblance to a man—not even a native of Petrac—nor, in fact, any beast that she was familiar with.

And yet there was the tattered remains of what might once have been a shirt tangled around its shoulders ….

Instinctively, she threw up her hands in an effort to protect herself when it snarled at her.  Pain flooded through her as she felt the beast’s teeth slice into her flesh.  She screamed in terror and kept on screaming as the pain filled her shocked mind.

Aslyn woke, still caught in the grips of her nightmare, still struggling to scream.

As it slowly faded, she realized she was cold, so cold her teeth were chattering.  Dazed, her mind still sluggish, it took her some moments to assimilate where she was.

With the dread of recognition, her gaze finally focused upon her hands, curled inward toward her palm, almost like claws.  They were bloody.  She needed no mirror to tell her that her face and neck were covered with blood and bits of flesh, as well.  She’d morphed in the night, fed upon … some hapless prey.  The time of the change was upon her.