Marked by the Moon Read Free Page A

between dusk and dawn—except that first time. Then it doesn’t matter—day or night, full moon or dark, new wolves become. They had no choice.
    Suddenly the room vanished, and Alex ran through a dense forest. Warm sun cast dappled shadows through the branches. The cool air seemed to sparkle. The scent of pine surrounded her.
    She burst from the trees onto a rolling plain. Here and there patches of snow shone electric white against just-sprung grass threaded with purple wildflowers. In the distance loomed piles of ice that appeared as high as a mountain.
    A sense of freedom, of utter joy filled her. She wanted to run across this land forever. It was…
    Home.
    Except Alex had no home. She’d been born in Nebraska—not many mountains there, ice or any other. They were a little short on forests, too. And she hadn’t lived in one place for longer than a month since she was five.
    She caught the scent of warm blood, of tasty meat, and turned tail—she had one—to return to the forest. Something flashed up ahead, crashing through the brush in terror.
    Wham!
    Alex fell back into her body, still lying on the cot in the horrendously hot, horribly small room. She wasn’t any closer to being released, but from the way her skin felt, too small to contain her, she was much closer to being inhuman.
    â€œCollective consciousness,” she muttered. “God.”
    Once a victim is infected, the lycanthropy virus changes him from human to beast. He begins to remember thingsthat have happened to others—the thrill of the chase, the love of the kill, the taste of the blood.
    â€œIt’s coming,” Alex said in a voice that no longer resembled her own. Deeper, garbled, she’d heard the sound before.
    From the mouths of the soon-to-be-furry.
    The pain became more of an itch, a need to burst forth. Alex tried to fight that need but couldn’t. Her dark jeans and black blouse tore with a rending screech; her boots seemed to explode as her feet turned to paws.
    Her nose ached; her teeth were too big for her mouth. Then suddenly that mouth became part of the nose, and those teeth felt just right.
    The bonds restraining her popped. She writhed, contorted, snarled, moaned, and when she at last rolled to the floor, she was no longer human but a wolf.
    Alex stared at her paws, covered with fur the same shade as her hair; she didn’t need a mirror to see that her own green eyes stared out of an animal’s face.
    The world expanded—sounds sharp as the blade of a knife, smells so intense her mouth watered with desire; she could see every mote of dust tumbling through the air like snowflakes of silver and gold.
    Hunger blazed, a pounding pulse in her head. If she didn’t eat soon, if she didn’t kill something, she thought she might go mad.
    Then she saw him—there on the floor, trussed up and still. What was his name?
    Oh, yeah. Brunch.
    Alex took one step forward, and the door crashed open. The silhouette of a man spread across the floor. She skittered back, startled, growling, then lifted her snout and sniffed. Recognition flickered, just out of reach. She knew him, yet still the hair on her neck lifted as the growl deepened to a snarl.
    The urge to attack warred with the clawing hunger in her belly. Her head swung back and forth between the two men as her human intelligence weighed the possibilities.
    The bound one could wait; he wasn’t going anywhere. Once she took down the newcomer, there’d be twice as much to eat and a lot less to fear.
    Her muscles bunched, and she leaped. Before her body began the downward arc that would send her sailing directly into the man in the doorway, a sharp pain bloomed in her chest. Her limbs felt weighted with sand but strangely her mind cleared, and as she tumbled to the ground, she remembered who he was.
    Edward .
    Now she was definitely dead.

Chapter 2
    When Alex came around, she was no longer a wolf but a woman. Naked,