The children were screaming. Kyne staggered for the door but it seemed to jerk to the side; she hit the doorway hard on the way out and kept running. It was night and pitch black under the trees. Her bare feet slapped down on dirt, grass, moldering leaves and stagnant puddles. She stumbled over the looping roots of the forest giants. She burst into the clearing and froze at what she saw.

Her father held the infant by its neck; he reached up to slam it upon the ground. Kyne did not pause. With a scream she leapt upon him biting and tearing. Her nails caught in his hair and broke on his face, digging deep into his flesh. The men shouted and tried to grab her flailing limbs. She fought wildly; taking grim satisfaction in the damage she did them. A nose crunched and a man grunted as her foot found a soft target. Finally they wrestled her to the ground.

She cursed them by their mother's womb and called the wrath of dark places upon their children and their wives. Three of them held her whilst her own father and older brother, Orden, slaughtered the yelping children. In the silence afterwards she slumped spent upon the ground, tears streaming down her face. Her uncle wrenched her to her knees as her father shook the tiny mangled corpse before her eyes.

"Bukri pups. That's all they are. The dam is dead and gone, curse her. Curse her for what she has done to you."

"It's done now," her uncle said. "The girl is ruined. Bukri-bitten, barren and mad."

She saw a flicker of the guilt in her father's eyes--he had taken her on the hunt ... read full excerpt from Ebb Moon ebook