Sol and lune book one, p.1
Sol & Lune: Book One, page 1
SOL & LUNE
BOOK ONE
KATHRYN MOON
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
This is a Reverse Harem Paranormal Romance and is not suited for those under the age of 18.
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Copyright @ 2019 Kathryn Moon
Sol & Lune: Book One
First publication: June 7th, 2019
Cover art by Covers By Combs
Editing by Sara Box
Formatting by Kathryn Moon
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work, in whole or in part, in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.
Published by Kathryn Moon
ohkathrynmoon@gmail.com
Kathrynmoon.com
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Alicia, I knew the second this book began, it belonged to you. You are a source of inspiration and joy and I love you.
CONTENTS
I. The General’s Bed
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
II. The Healer’s Pleasure
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
III. The Soldier’s Desire
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
IV. The Prisoner of Oshain
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Epilogue
Afterword
Also by Kathryn Moon
Acknowledgments
About the Author
PART I
THE GENERAL’S BED
1
Lumen picked the hem of her apron up and wiped the sweat from her brow, smearing the earth from the fields further into her skin. Horse hooves clapped up the road behind her, but the onions were nearly picked and fall could turn to winter any night now. In her experience, a horse running at that pace never carried good news and losing a harvest to a frost wouldn’t make that better.
"Lady Fenn!"
She wrestled the last three heads of onion up from the earth, dropping them into the wheelbarrow, and turned to see Oliver Spragg racing up the dusty road that lined the field. She wiped the sweat from her neck and chest and dropped the apron as he tugged on the reins, thighs gripping hard to the tired old ribs of the horse.
"Who won?" she asked him, but the answer was written in the lines at the corners of his eyes, the way his mouth clenched as he stared back at her.
Stalor’s army gained more miles of Oshain land in the war. Green hills, dense woods, and rich farmland trampled beneath the boots of soldiers who’d been fighting battles of territory for the past two decades. Her head spun and she thought she might faint, wished she could blame it on a day’s worth of harvesting instead of the terror that lurked in her heart.
"Westbrook and his men are nearly arrived,” he said. He shifted to dismount and Lumen shook her head, pushing strands of white blonde hair out of her eyes, feeling the fever of being out in the sun too long lingering in her cheeks.
"Go to the tenants, tell them to stay inside. I’ll meet the General at the Manor," she said, gathering her breath.
"Lady Fenn," Oliver murmured, but his fist was already tightening around the reins.
"Go," she repeated, keeping her eyes off Oliver’s left shoulder, where his sleeve was knotted off before the elbow he’d lost in battle.
He kicked the horse back into motion and Lumen spared herself a second to watch him. Handsome, quiet Oliver, a man she would never have seen or spoken to if not for the war taking her father, her brothers, and all the local men old enough to serve. The setting sun glowed golden over his shoulders, a dark trail of sweat against the spine of his shirt. She caught herself before her staring could be called mooning, not that there was anyone out to spy on her these days, and turned away.
She frowned down at the wheelbarrow full of onions. She didn’t like the thought of appearing at the Manor at the same moment as the Stone General and his men, covered in field dust and hefting farm work. But without the onions there would be very little to serve tonight that wouldn’t be needed later in the winter months.
The enemy is coming to claim my home and I am worrying over onions, Lumen thought. She wrapped her tired fingers around the handles and heaved, pushing home. Her heart began to thump in her chest, blood rushing in her ears.
Word had come from the Mallen estate in spring. Westbrook and his men were not kind to the estates they claimed. Lady Myra Mallen had seen Westbrook eyeing her eldest daughter and, thinking it might curry some favor for the family, sent the young woman into his bedchamber within a week of the army’s arrival. From what Lumen could gather from whispers, Imogen Mallen had been passed around Westbrook and his soldiers like a jug of ale before her mother finally took her and her sisters off to the convents.
Lumen could leave for the convent now. Drop the wheelbarrow in the road. Forget the onions. Forget the Manor. The tenants.
Except the only tenants left were too old or infirm to leave on their own. And Oliver Spragg. They’d all end up dead if she left.
She took a shortcut through the field up to the back of the Manor, stomach turning and mind determined. She would stay on the estate as her mother had bid her. The land belonged to her mother’s mother and all the women before them. It was alright for her brothers to go and die in the war. Lumen must stay and die on the estate. Preferably on her knees in the chapel.
The Manor house was sprawling and spindling, surrounding a circular courtyard at the heart of the structure and a wing that branched off into a narrow hall, leading to the Lunar chapel at the back of the building. She reached the kitchen doors first, heaving open the hatch to the cellar and dumping the onions in with a grimace. It would have to do for the moment and hopefully the cats were keeping the mice in line.
She left the barrow by the door and dashed inside to the sink, fingers tangling in the knot of her apron. It hadn’t kept her clean, the cuffs of her dress were stained with sweat and dirt, as was her hem, but it kept the worst of the mess off the front of her. She pumped water into the sink and grabbed the bristle brush, scrubbing her hands red and raw and digging the bristles under her nails. She splashed cool water over her face and frowned when it ran in muddy rivulets back down into her palms.
Maybe it would be best if she didn’t look her finest.
Somewhere, far off, the sound of horse hooves approached. The echo built through the empty Manor until it resembled distant thunder. Lumen had never minded storms, even as a child. It was easier to pretend what was coming was a nice, sturdy raincloud—to whet the crops’ thirst and make harvesting a muddy business—than to know it was her doom riding in.
She filled the largest pitcher with fresh water and stacked the most cups she could carry onto a tray before leaving the kitchen. She crossed hallways and passed the corridor to the dining room, taking herself out to the courtyard. There was a mirror hanging in the hall by the doorway and she stopped at the sight of herself. Her nose and cheeks were burnt red from sun after a summer’s worth of work, but she’d be nearly moon white again once winter set in. One eyebrow was darkened from floss blonde to brown by mud. She set the pitcher on the table in front of the mirror and rubbed the mud away, skin peeling and stinging.
Her face was featureless in the dark, pale and shadowed, strange gray eyes set too wide apart, blonde hair tangled and dusted with earth. My silly little moon, her mother’s voice rang in her head.
"Mother Lune, protect me," she whispered at her reflection. Except she was not Mother Lune and she could not grant such wishes.
The horses were arriving, men’s voices shouting. Lumen picked up her pitcher and crossed the wide, round courtyard, birds calling warnings from the rooftops. She could see them through the windows as she reached the grand front hall, filling up the drive with horses, carts, men on foot. She left the water and cups on the entry table, men’s laughter tearing through the silence of the house as she opened the front doors. Their voices quieted as she stood on the steps.
She knew at once which one was him, the General. The uniform might have been enough—that shocking
His eyes ran over the length of her, an amused twitch of his brow as he saw the filthy hem of her skirt.
"Go and fetch your lady," he said to her, and at the sound of his voice—dark and grim—Lumen understood why he was called the Stone General. "We’re coming in either way. If she’s hiding we’ll find her and that won’t be any better than greeting us at the door as her station demands."
Go and run out the back and then let them search the house and find no one. Lumen swallowed down the thought. They would ransack the chapel and sell all her family possessions and that would be the true end of her family.
"I am the lady of the house," Lumen said, refusing to shrink although her heart punished her with pounding twice as fast.
The men behind Westbrook shifted, exchanged snickers and glances, and anxiety spiked in Lumen’s chest. She had contradicted him.
"Lady Fenn was meant to be some daft old Lunar," he answered her, eyes narrowing on the mud splatters on her simple dress. "They told us in Mallen."
Lumen’s mouth hung foolishly open for a moment, wondering how to answer that respectfully, to both him and her own mother. "Then you were lied to. Lady Alana Fenn was my mother. She is dead, sir."
"And your staff?"
"Gone." Dead or left.
"Who’s been tending your damn fields then?" he asked, leaning forward in his saddle, dark brow tangled together.
"I have. And… those left of the tenants who are able."
He frowned at her. She was already a disappointment and she didn’t know if this was a good or bad thing. For a moment, some wild bout of imagination struck her and she thought they might just…leave her be.
Westbrook turned to look at his army and the men in the yard were watching her and not him.
"Well, you have company now," Westbrook said and it was not her imagination that his tone turned darker with the words. "How many can you house?"
Her heart sank to the ground. "A… a dozen, maybe." There were rooms enough but it would stretch the food thin to serve that many.
Westbrook raised an eyebrow at her. "Make it two." He turned to the men behind him, calling out orders. "Finley, pick your patients. Jones, tell the others to make camp."
"But, sir-" It was an enormous man in the front seat of a cart with a face that looked like it needed immediate attention and hair cut so close and unevenly he might as well have cut it himself with a broadsword.
"Send them to camp, Jones!" Westbrook barked, and then with a swift ease he jumped down from his horse, passing the reins over to a towering man with long fingers paired and wrapped in bandages. The General walked in slow, crooked steps up the stairs until his face was level with hers, lips curling and dark eyes gleaming. "We are so grateful for the hospitality, Lady Fenn."
The chapel was locked and Lumen ignored the request for the key, watching as men carried in stretchers of the injured soldiers. She pressed her lips shut as Westbrook plucked a few silver ornaments off the mantle and tossed them to a young boy who chased his heels.
"Sell these for the most you can get for them. Casks of ale…some animals. Ask Healer Brink for his list."
Lumen didn’t know the worth of the trinkets, they were old and tarnished, but she held her tongue and kept her chin to her chest until some request was made of her.
"Show me the best of the rooms with eastern light."
It was her room, but that hardly seemed to matter. Within weeks the house likely wouldn’t even belong to her. If she was still in it. If she was still alive.
He stood by the foot of the bed, staring out the windows onto the squash patch. Her bed was unmade, the sheepskin kicked back from when she’d woken at dawn. She liked the eastern light too, it was the only thing that dragged her out of bed in the morning. The narrow bed frame pushed to the wall, the red polish of the wood worn away in some places and the canopy caked with dust. He made the small room smell like horses and metal and sweat.
“This is yours,” he said, staring at the dent she’d left in the mattress that morning.
“Yes, sir.”
“Small for the lady of the house.”
“My mother’s was grander but it’s on the north end.”
“You didn’t take it?”
Lumen’s mouth parted, words dying on her tongue as he stared at her. “It- it was hers.”
He grunted and Lumen thought that was the end of it. She spotted her nightdress on a chair by the door and realized she would have to find somewhere else to sleep that night.
"It would have been better if you had family here," he said suddenly, just as she was sneaking to the door. He turned and Lumen froze as his eyes studied her. "Even a little lad of a brother might have been able to speak up for you."
"I was the youngest. As far as I know I’m the only one of my siblings left," she said, tucking her night dress behind her back and hiding it there.
Westbrook frowned at her, deep lines across his forehead. She didn’t mean to skid backwards, pressing herself to the door, but he came toward her with such a furious expression on his face that she acted out of instinct, wincing as her head thunked against the wood.
He grasped her face in blood encrusted fingertips and tipped her chin to the side, eyes studying her like a flank of meat. "You have a funny look about you," he said. "You remind me of…" the moon, she thought, "…a fish," he concluded with a sneer, hand gesturing up to her wide-set eyes.
Lumen’s eyes widened, staring at him out of the corners. He reminded her of some enormous snarling black cat but that didn’t have quite the same effect as calling someone a fish so she kept it to herself.
"But you’re well-formed and they haven’t seen soft flesh in some weeks," he said, finger tapping on her cheek. "Lady Fenn, I’m afraid I have to offer you some choices. You can come to this bed tonight and please me, and you’ll only have one man gasping on your neck at night. If that doesn’t suit, you can try and run from here. When my men find you what happens next will be none of my concern. Or I suppose you can lock yourself in some cellar, but I don’t like your odds there either. Jones is a determined fuck and his mother was a whore so he won’t touch them for company. But you? You’re just his type."
He pressed in close, the metal plating of armor scraping against her dress, digging into her breasts and soft stomach. He was just tall enough that his lips came to her forehead, not that he set them there. His hands pressed to her belly, fingers splayed out over her ribs and Lumen held her breath, eyes fixed to his chin. Then he reached behind her, snatching the night dress out of her grip and tossing it back to the bed, as if she’d already made up her mind.
"You won’t need that."
He left her in the room, skin burning where he’d set his hands. Her cheeks were hot and she couldn’t force her eyes to the bed, a distorted vision of them together there racing through her head, details too foggy and nerves too frayed to make sense of how she felt. Only that the heat began to spread beneath her skin, rushing into her veins and turning her muscles weak.
