“Hearts Entwined: The Shadow's Claim"

Prologue

Prologue

Shadows of Moonshadow

A town never quite felt right was Moonshadow. Fog enveloped the city like phantom fingers, hiding secrets no one ventured to find as it thickened the air. A dark forest encircled the village; its tall, gnarled trees murmured old stories that would chill your spine. The sun appeared to avoid Moonshadow as well, leaving it in a constant state of darkness whereby shadows danced and the night crept in too quickly.

In Moonshadow, people understood the guidelines: Never venture into the forest past nightfall. Talk not of the past. Above all, never, ever trust a stranger.

Rules, however, have a way of being violated.

The village was cursed years ago; nobody knew exactly when or why. Some claimed it was the result of a woman living in the forest, a witch cursed the town following lover betrayal. Others murmured that the curse sprang from something even deeper, something ancient buried under the town for millennia.

Not freely, either, anyone discussed the vanishings. People would suddenly vanish, as though caught in the mist. Some said the curse claimed them, taken by the jungle. Others reported fleeing the atrocities of Moonshadow. Deep down, though, everyone understood the truth: you were gone permanently once you left.

Twenty Years From Now...

Like every other night in Moonshadow, it was cold, wet, and shockingly quiet. The only sound was the rustling of leaves as the wind carried discomfort across the woodland. The buildings stood black, their windows like hollow eyes watching and waiting; the streets of the town were vacant.

A young woman called Seraphina sat by the window inside one of those homes, her hands shaking as she held a battered book to her bosom. Her long black hair hung over her shoulders, and she stared wide and terrified toward the trees. She couldn't help it even though she knew she shouldn't be watching. She had seen with her own eyes; something was out there.

Different from the other girls in town, Seraphina had always been. She was quieter, more inquisitive, often posing questions nobody else wanted to address. She knew when something was awry; she had a sense of things. And tonight everything seemed off.

For weeks her father, Mr. Hawthorn, a man with a severe face and keen eyes, had been acting strangely. Late at night he would leave the home and come back just before dawn, his hands burned and his clothes coated with filth. Once, down the meandering alleys and into the woodland, Seraphina had followed him and seen him meet other men—men she knew from the town. They were mumbling phrases that chilled her spine while excavating something deep in the ground.

But it was what happened later that really troubled Seraphina. Her father had turned to her with cold, hollow eyes and instructed her to head home and forget what she had witnessed. But in what way could she? She burned the picture of what they had buried, the sound of the ground being shoveled back into order into her head.

Seraphina decided something that evening. She would find the truth at all the expenses. She would uncover the mysteries that had cursed Moonshadow by digging back through the past and learning what her father and the others had buried.

She never had the chance though.

Seraphina vanished the evening before she meant to enter the wilderness. Her mother discovered Seraphina gone, her window open and the curtains flapping in the breeze. Days of searching the forest and dragging the river, the locals find her nowhere. She seemed to have dropped out of thin air.

The curse got stronger once Seraphina vanished. More people vanished; the village grew even more remote; the fog grew thicker, the shadows darker. Though none ventured to say them openly, the whispers got louder. Everyone knew the past was better left buried; the woodland was no longer secure.

But the past has a way of resurfacing to harass you.

Today... Present Day

Though she knew she shouldn't, Astrid had always been pulled to Moonshadow. She felt as though she belonged there, something about the place that called her. Given her whole life of running from the past, it was strange.

Astrid was a striking woman with jet-black hair and piercing violet eyes, but her wrists revealed the true story. They served as a reminder of a life she had barely avoided, one in which a man professed to be her destined mate had controlled, manipulated, and almost destroyed her.

When Astrid at last got free, she ran to Moonshadow, hoping to vanish and find solace in a place nobody knew her in. But she understood that serenity was not what Moonshadow presented as she stood on the margins, staring at the fog enveloping the trees like a loving hug.

Astrid sensed eyes staring at her from behind closed curtains as she strolled over the deserted streets of the town. The houses were still, their windows black, yet she could sense the people of the town whispering on the breeze.

She came to the brink of the woodland, the trees standing like quiet sentinels above her. The ground was soft under her feet and the air smelled of pine and moist earth. She shivered up her spine as she entered the shadows. Something had been waiting for her in the darkness for a long time.

Still, Astrid was not new to darkness. She had lived in it, breathed it, and today she was ready to confront it. Though she didn't yet completely know it, she had come to Moonshadow for a purpose. She knew only that she was supposed to be here, that the town had been beckoning her, and that her fate rested in the mysteries hidden far within the forest.

The fog increased as she descended into the forest, encircling her like a veil. The trees appeared to close in, their limbs like skeleton fingers. Though her heart pounded, Astrid kept ahead, propelled by an inexplicable energy.

She stumbled suddenly into a clearing, the ground covered in broken branches and dead leaves. An ancient, decaying stone well covered in moss and vines dominated the middle of the clearing. Astrid shivered at its sight, as though the well were watching her and waiting for her to approach.

Her feet moving on their own will, she stepped forward then another. She saw something glinting in the moonlight as she got closer to the well: a little, silver necklace half-buried in the ground. She stooped to pick it up, and suddenly she felt sick as her fingers wrapped around the frigid metal.

The globe surrounding her whirled, the trees blending into shadows. Trying to calm herself, she gripped the pendant tightly, but the vertigo got worse. She fell into darkness then, without abruptly, the ground gave way under her feet.

Although Astrid screamed across the wilderness, nobody could hear it. She dropped; the chilly, damp walls of the well closed in on her until she went into the bottom. Though she hardly noticed it, pain tore across her body. She could only see the blackness; all she could feel was the cold; all she could hear was quiet, forceful, and getting louder whispering.

"Astrid," Her scream of terror came from the deep, almost growl of the voice. You shouldn't have visited here.

She tried to move, but her body froze under the direction of an unseen power. Her mind drowned in the stronger voices, erasing her ideas.

"Astrid," the voice said, nearer now. "You cannot run from your fate."

Her hand held a pendant that warmed from the metal heating until it scorched her skin. She screamed out, dropped it, but the agony got worse. The pendant seemed to be dragging her farther into the gloom, extracting something from her.

Then she saw it—a pair of brilliant red eyes looking at her from the darkness. They were frigid, uncaring, and driven by a thirst that chilled her blood flow.

"Astride..." Right now, the voice was inside her, resonating through her head. You are with me.

Astrid pushed herself to move with a last, frantic attempt. Ignoring the agony, she hurried to her feet. Though she knew she had to get away from those eyes, from that voice, from the blackness closing in around her, she had no idea where she was going or how she would escape.

But the darkness trailed her, the whispers dragging her back, no matter how fast she fled. She also knew, running, that there was no escape—growingly horrifying. Searching for tranquility, she had arrived at Moonshadow only to discover the start of a dream.

And Astrid knew one thing for sure as the darkness closed in around her: whatever was hunting her wouldn't allow her to flee.

Not tonight.