Cresent Prophecy by Axelle Chandler (great reads TXT) 📕

“Is it much farther?” I asked, moaning when I felt icy water seep through my jeans.

Boone turned and came back to fetch me. I took his hand, and he hauled me up, not even cracking a smile at my clumsiness.

“We’ll be there soon,” he replied, his Irish accent sounding thicker than usual.

I nodded and tightened my grip on his hand. This was a difficult thing for me to face, but for Boone, it was so much more. Going back to the very spot he was attacked by one of the higher faes and where Aileen had been swallowed by the earth was painful, to say the least. For so long, he’d believed he was to blame for my mother’s death. He’d lived with it for a long time, and now a vision a tree had shown me had led him back. It was all a little wearing on the soul after everything we’d been through.

The vision the ancient hawthorn had shown me had staked the fires of hope so high that the heat was almost unbearable. To think my mother, Aileen, could still be alive and trapped under the earth was startling.

Protecting magic, fighting Carman…I couldn’t do it alone. As a shapeshifter, Boone was a creature of magic, but he wasn’t like me. To have another Crescent Witch beside me would be amazing, but for it to be the mother I never knew? That was epic.

Boone let my hand go and walked again, leading me through the forest. I studied the back of his head, taking in his messy black hair, the black and red checkered pattern of the shirt collar peeking out from underneath his jacket, and the way his legs pushed through the carpet of emerald ferns. It felt like we were in a funeral procession, not a possible rescue mission.

“Are you still worried about the wolf thing?” I asked, watching him carefully.

Only a day had passed since the ritual that had almost taken my life. The ritual that was supposed to break the curse locking Carman out of Ireland. In a moment of raw agony, Boone had done something neither of us knew he was capable of. He’d shifted into the shape of a wolf—a shape he’d never formed before—and broke through the magic keeping us apart like it was nothing at all.

He had been beautiful. His fur silver and his chest and paws snowy white, but the beast in him had full control. Seeing Boone like that had been terrifying, to say the least. The only thing that had brought him back had been a touch of Crescent magic.

“Of course, I’m worried about it,” he said over his shoulder. “I changed faster than I ever have before, I healed the cuts on your arms with my spit, and I broke through Lucy’s magical barrier…” At the mention of Lucy, he grimaced and glanced away.

Remembering the moment his wolf jaws had closed around her throat, I shivered, glad he wasn’t looking at me. I had been through something terrible that night, but so had he. I was dealing, but Boone… He wasn’t. Not really. He was good at pretending, but I could see right through him like a greasy paper bag.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that.”

“I know.” He shrugged. “I was a wolf before. So what?”

I sighed, knowing I wouldn’t get anything coherent out of him when he was in a mood. His amnesia was a sore point, literally.

Not wanting to give him a magically induced headache, I let it go.

We walked in silence, the mist clinging to the forest dulling all the usual sounds. I used to be afraid of being alone out here, not knowing who was lurking in the shadows, but since I’d discovered I was a Crescent Witch, the vastness of this place felt more like home with every passing day.

My power helped me hear the earth. The whispering of the wind, the bird songs, the rustling of tiny creatures in the underbrush, the unfurling of leaves, the sprouting of seeds. It was quite beautiful in a way. Nature was wild and untamable, and none of us were as alone as we were led to believe.

Ahead, Boone came to a halt, and I stopped beside him.

“Is this it?” I asked, peering into the clearing.

He nodded, his jaw tight. We must’ve passed the limit of Derrydun’s hawthorns some time ago. Here, we were exposed, but it didn’t seem like it mattered anymore. At least, not for Boone.

My gazed raked over the clearing. I didn’t get it. The ground was smooth. Slow growing moss had grown in between the dew-soaked grass, and a bird happily flitted through the branches overhead. There was no sign of twisted roots or anything else that might’ve disturbed the earth. Nothing at all.

It hadn’t even been a year. Far from it, actually. It stood to reason there would be something here. Some kind of sign there’d been a battle between a witch and a higher fae.

“There’s nothing here,” I said, edging around the clearing. “Nothing at all.”

“I don’t understand…” Boone walked into the center of the open space, looking around in shock. “It was here. I’m sure of it.” He pointed to a tree opposite to where I was standing. “Right there. That’s where she…” He knelt, placing his palms on the earth. “Skye, I…I don’t understand. I remember it like it happened yesterday. The look on her face…”

“Stop,” I whispered, my voice feeling louder than it should in the silent forest. “There are a lot of things I don’t understand about this world, but there’s one thing that’s pretty darn universal. Death.”

Boone glanced up at me, his almost-black eyes shining mysteriously. I couldn’t look at him, so I turned away.

“Skye, wait.”

I hesitated, hugging myself to keep warm.

“You’re not goin’ to try to sense anythin’? If you try, I’m sure you might find somethin’.”

He was so desperate to believe Aileen was still alive that it