Moon-Kissed (Within the Darkness #1) - Amelia Hutchins Page 0,2

turned, staring at my best friend, who frowned.

“What the hell just happened?” he asked in confusion, his brows drawing together to crease his forehead.

I glared at the people rushing into their cottages, hiding from the night and the plague of darkness, creeping over the mountains toward the castle. I’d done this. I’d craved the ability to touch, taste, and indulge in everything that I’d missed out on when I’d lost my mate.

I’d pay the price. The first thing I had to do was locate where the Sacred Library was hidden and destroy the Book of Life. Afterward, I’d figure out another way that didn’t include my mate reading from a book that would end her life.

“The endless night has begun.” I smiled, staring out over the darkening skies. “Our kingdom will survive it, but others won’t. It’s a gift from my mother. It’s what she craved when she killed my father and ensured that I would never have my mate. My mother thinks she can prevent me from living a life with my true mate as she unleashes her plague and the creatures that live within her darkness. She has underestimated my determination to get what I want.”

Chapter One

Present Day, Alexandria

Carefully, I studied the quiet town below. My lips curled into an uneasy frown as I watched the spread of darkness. Torches burned brightly, yet no sign of life had appeared. We’d been on the cliff for over an hour, standing silently while watching the town for any proof of life. No sounds of merriment came from the usually jovial tavern in the middle of the tiny village, frequented by travelers making their way through the two kingdoms. We’d been in this town a hundred times before and never had the darkness spread through the passes to bathe it in its murderous grasp.

My eyes zeroed in on something that blew across the street, and my heart sank deep into my stomach, tears swimming in my eyes. What I thought to be paper was the husks of the inhabitants of the village. When darkness consumed the light of the living, it spat out a withered husk that looked like leather. Swallowing past the bile as several husks were strewn across the path leading through town, I exhaled.

My team of moon-touched warriors was tasked with retracing the steps of another group who hadn’t checked in or returned in months. My brother, Landon, had been among the party of warriors who had gone to investigate the clues regarding the Sacred Library’s whereabouts. If they discovered it, they’d failed to send word back or to return to the Kingdom of Light.

The Sacred Library was lost when the darkness had first appeared in the world, consuming everything it touched. Soon after, creatures started evolving and receiving powers. The darker the world got, the stronger the Moon Clan’s powers grew, and we began to age into immortality. But so, too, did the Kingdom of Night and the monsters that crawled out from the shadows of the spreading darkness, feasting on those who held inner light.

The Temple of the Moon Goddess had glowed with energy, beckoning those who held her powers into it, and a new era had begun, forming the Order of the Moon. The Order trained and employed an elite group of warriors with powers fed to them by the moon herself.

Each warrior with me had been plucked from their homes at a young age and trained for battle. Most were happy to be chosen, considering the power they held was a blessing. To be selected and taken from your home, guaranteed your family’s protection from the Kingdom of Night and the plague of darkness. Others, like us, found it a curse to be taken from their families and sent off to fight a battle that we’d neither wanted nor craved.

There wasn’t a choice if the moon called you, and no one fought to end the selection process. Most of us were chosen so young that we didn’t remember our homeland or the families we’d left behind. I’d had Landon, but we were brother and sister; both called to serve the moon. Our family was also one that had always serviced. I’d grown up inside the temple and had begun training before I could fully form sentences.

Lately, the Order was keeping secrets, and with the moon sickness passing through the lands, it was growing harder to trust them. The sickness only seemed to affect the moon-touched creatures. It was spreading like wildfire through the Order,