Page 57 of Moon Chosen

“I won’t,” Nik assured Davis, though he couldn’t quite make himself joke and grin like the younger man. The whole damn fiasco was because Thaddeus had refused to listen and set the dogs on that old Scratcher. From that moment on the day had gone completely to shit.

There had been no reason for that Scratcher to die. Nik didn’t think he was being sullen or brooding—he certainly wasn’t as ill-tempered as Thaddeus—but he was having a tough time getting the image of the woman out of his mind. Her twisted neck had been horrible. She’d made him think of a battered and broken doll. But her injury wasn’t what was so branded into Nik’s mind. What he couldn’t stop seeing was the joy that had transformed her thick-featured face from ugly to strangely sweet when he’d bent over her. What he couldn’t stop hearing were her final words, spoken with such utter joy that the echo of it had reverberated through his mind as he fought beside Davis and Thaddeus to stop the fire from engulfing the forest.Galen! My Galen. I knew we would be together again.

What was she imagining as she lay there dying? What had her fading vision seen?

He hadn’t had time then to give it much consideration because directly after the woman had died the girl had appeared—the girl on fire.

Who was she?Whatwas she?

Nik had only seen two things before the fire had roared to life. One was the girl’s dirty, grief-twisted face. The second was her eyes. They had glowed amber, blazing across the distance between them, oddly frightening in their familiarity.

She had been a Scratcher. He’d been sure of that when her cries had pulled his attention from the dead woman. Her hair had been dark and matted—her skin the dirty, earthy color of all Scratchers.

But those eyes. Those glowing amber eyes had definitely not been Scratcher.

Her eyes were Tribe of the Trees, as was her command of fire.

No! What the hell is wrong with me? That couldn’t have been what I saw. Only the most powerful, carefully trained members of the Tribe ever attained the ability to channel sunlight into fire.

The girl was a Scratcher. The fire had to have been an accident. Hadn’t it? How was anything else even possible?

But the events of the day kept replaying again and again in Nik’s mind, each time ending with a blaze of amber and the roar of flame being birthed.

“Okay, now that we’re out of that mess, what the hell happened back there?” Davis interrupted the cacophony of questions that filled Nik’s mind.

Nik lifted his hands and dropped them with a shrug. He didn’t hide his confusion or frustration, but he was very careful as he chose his words. He’d already decided the less he said about what he might have seen to anyone except his father—the better. “Davis, like I told you and Thaddeus before, the Scratcher died and then I heard someone yelling. I looked up in time to see a Scratcher girl standing by the willow where the fire started. Then everything around her burst into flame, and she disappeared.”

Davis shook his head. “I know Scratchers aren’t smart. I mean, they’re great with crops and plants and such, but they need to be taken care of—protected really, especially from each other. Even so, I’ve never heard of them doing anything as stupid as setting fire to their own forest. Have you?”

“No. Never. That grove is obviously some kind of a gathering place for them. Seems likely that in the confusion an untended campfire must have—”

“They’re fucking animals,” Thaddeus interrupted, calling over his shoulder. “No, they’re worse than animals. Animals don’t destroy where they live. That’s what those Scratchers tried to do today.”

“What do you mean?” Nik asked.

“It’s obvious! They set a trap for us. They musta heard you blabbing about that stupid pup and knew we’d be back. They rigged a fire to try to fry us, not giving a shit about what it would destroy if it had gotten out of control.”

“I don’t know, Thaddeus. They’re really just big children. I don’t think they’re capable of that kind of planning, are they?” Davis said.

“Ask Nik. Last night he was chatting up a female Scratcher like she’s a real person.”

Nik scowled at Thaddeus, but in response to Davis’s surprised look said, “She was young and scared. I talked to her to calm her down on the way to the Farm.”

“You looked pretty chummy with her.”

“Thaddeus, you’re out of line. Last night I did what you told me to do—I took charge of the newest captive and stopped her crying. Nothing more. Nothing less.”

“Well, I can tell you that after today I’m not going into Scratcher territory without Warriors and Shepherds backing me up. That is unless our Sun Priest,your father, commands it. Then I won’t have any choice. Just like I didn’t have any choice today.” Thaddeus sent Nik a disgusted look.

“You smartass bastard, you had a choice today!” Nik’s temper finally broke and the words he’d kept swallowed and silent exploded from him. “You could havechosento stick to the plan. You were only supposed to track the pup. Instead that chip you carry around on your shoulder—the one that’s bigger than your canine—got in the way and youmade the wrong choice.Because of your choice there’s a dead female Scratcher—at least one. Because of your choice we had to spend the rest of the daylight hours containing a fire instead of what we were really supposed to be doing. Because of your choice my pup’s trail is one day colder and one day harder to track.”

Thaddeus stopped and faced Nik. “That’s roach shit and you know it.”

It was Nik’s turn to lace his words with disgust. “Why? Because of the big, bad Scratcher trap?” He laughed sarcastically. “That’ll make perfect sense to my father and the Hunters who have been tracking and capturing Scratchers through more winters than we can count and who havenever been trapped by them before.”

“Well we were trapped by them today!” Thaddeus shouted into Nik’s face.

“No! What happened today was a Scratcher died. A girl screamed. A campfire burned out of control. None of those things would have happened if you had just done what you’d been told to do, which is exactly what I’m going to report to our Sun Priest,my father.”