Eventide of the Bear (The Wild Hunt Legacy #3) Read Free Page A

Scarred.” Cedrick’s fingers traced a bite scar on his shoulder before his gaze dropped to Gary’s body.
    She hadn’t caused the fight, had she? But they’d killed each other…because of her. Emma shook her head again. No.
    The movement made the Cosantir look at her. Grief and fury rolled from him in icy waves. “I had no choice but to tolerate your mother.” His voice harshened. “You, though… I should have dealt with you before you cost us so much.”
    A few protests came from the shifters in the hallway—too few, too soft. The Cosantir ignored them, his gaze never leaving her. “Emma Cavanaugh, you are cast out from the Daonain, banished from us. Forever.”
    As despair filled her, she simply stood as he trawsfurred into his cat form. His paw rose. Claws slashed across her face.
    And she made no sound at all.

Chapter One
    ‡
    North Cascades Territory – dark of the moon
    B right stars filled the black sky, unchallenged by any rival light, because tonight was dark of the moon.
    The dank forest air was pungent with the fir and pine needles underfoot. The rain-slick mud on the trail clogged irritatingly in Emma’s paws. Her fur was matted, her nose wet. She gave a grumbling cough, and her ears flickered when a rabbit darted away. Too fast for her, unfortunately. Besides, her stomach was fairly full. The stream was full of trout, and fishing was one of her finer skills.
    Still… She clouted a rotting log and nosed out the scuttling inhabitants beneath. Mostly grubs. A few crunchy beetles. Only a fool turned down a light dessert. And she was no fool.
    Well, not about food.
    She stopped to listen to the humans in a wilderness campground. Their laughter and chatter rang through the trees, filling her heart with delight. Not her people, but oh, the sound of them was so wonderful. They, too, had been successful at the stream, and the chill mountain air carried the scent of fried fish.
    Her mouth watered. Cooked food. Her bear form preferred raw, but she remembered how good prepared food had tasted. These days, she rarely bothered.
    Reluctantly leaving behind the campground, Emma ambled toward her den in an uprooted tree hollow and thought wistfully of the cave in which she’d holed up last winter. Very few bear shifters ever hibernated, but she’d needed to escape the loneliness of the long, long nights. When spring finally arrived, she’d resumed wandering through the mountain range.
    Daonain often died after being banished. Now, she understood why. If she hadn’t been used to being lonely all her life, she’d have given up her first winter.
    How many times had she despaired over the last three years?
    She missed voices the most… Children’s giggles. The gardener’s low grumble at finding a weed. The maid’s humming as she dusted. Emma could survive without hot showers and cooked food, and books. She could sing to the pixies and tell stories to the undines in the streams, but she longed for voices the way a flower fairy craved rose blooms.
    Human campgrounds lured her close far too often.
    A foul stench on the wind made her paw at her affronted nose. By the Hunter, it smelled like a rotting carcass covered in moldering oranges. The fur on her back rose.
    Overhead, a pixie chittered and disappeared into its hole.
    Emma increased her gait to put distance between herself and…whatever that was.
    A scream came from behind her. Another. Then shrieks of pain and shouting filled the air. An animal snarled. A man bellowed. Something was attacking the campground. The humans.
    Emma hesitated and kept going. A bear couldn’t help them. And Daonain Law forbade any action that might reveal the shifters’ existence to humankind.
    “Mommy! Daddeeee!”
    The high-pitched shriek of a child turned Emma as if a leash was around her neck. Abandoning the path, she galloped straight through the underbrush and broke into a forest clearing.
    A fire in a stone pit cast flickering, red light across a nightmare. Two human