Page 1 of Broken Moon

Chapter One

My breath whooshed from mylungs as I ran, and despite the cold, a layer of sweat covered my skin like thethin carpet of crunchy snow on the ground. The woods were still and barren, andthe vast, dark sky seemed too low as the moon watched me with a mocking eye.

It was the first night ofOctober and too early for snow, really, but it had come anyway. The full moonhad come, as well, making the night one big miserable, endless trial.

At least for me.

I couldn’t outrun the moon. Ifelt its bright halo pulling at me, insisting I do what my nature—my verybirth—had said I must do, and shift. But I could not. I couldn’t shift, and itwas torture.

My old alpha had hobbled mywolf before he’d cast my mother and me out of the pack. My mother was punishedfor my father’s sins, and I was punished for attempting to kill the alpha. I’dbeen fourteen years old and full of grief and rage, and the daughter of thewolf who’d betrayed the pack.

He’d been sentenced to death,and they’d forced my mother and me to watch him die. My mother’s grief had beenhuge and as hard to watch as my father’s death. When the alpha had told hercoldly he would banish her but that I, the innocent child, might stay, I hadbegged to differ.

He hadn’t threatened to keep mebecause he wanted to protect me. He threatened to keep me to terrify me. Hedidn’t want me there.

I had not yet found my shiftwhen I’d gone at him with my baby claws and a grudge, and to his surprise—notmine, because I was so full of emotion and darkness that I was thinking of nothingbut somehow ending the pain—I cut him. I cut his face in front of the pack. Me,a little nobody. I had drawn his blood.

He had not taken that well.

Before he threw me out, alongwith my mother, he’d hobbled me. “I’ll make sure wherever you go, you’ll bea harmless little pup when you get there.”

Which meant that when my shiftcame in after I reached the age of fifteen, I wouldn’t be able to accept it. Iwould suffer with theneedto accept it, though. Oh, would I suffer.

Bastard.

I wasn’t a kid anymore. Overthe past twelve years, I’d learned to deal with the pain. The moon called to menearly every night, but I could handle it…

Until the full moon came.

When it swelled in the sky,huge and white, I could only run and hope to wear myself out while it followedme and tried to force me to do something the alpha had made impossible.

Shift.

Become my wolf.

I screamed, but it was more ofa howl. I should find a way to get to the alpha, and I should kill him. Maybethen the chains that bound my wolf would be broken. But I could not get to him.

Not that he was far away. Mymother and I had left the little town of Stonebridge, which was the Stone MoonPack community, and we had gone straight into the big city of Jakeston—whichwas also Stone Moon Pack territory. The Gray Shadow Pack claimed it as well,with neither clan willing to give up and start over somewhere else.

The territory had unofficiallyand tentatively morphed into natural divisions over the decades, with the areaof the county to the north belonging to the Gray Shadow Pack and the area tothe south belonging to the Stone Moon Pack.

The city, however, had no suchdivision and both packs claimed it. Which meant they fought over it—and quiteviciously at times.

Someday, I would find a wayback to my old alpha, and I would finish what I’d started when I’d been a kid.Some people absolutely should not rule.

Unfortunately, Adam Thorne, theman who should have protected, guided, and taught me, was one of those people.

I could feel my wolf. Sheclamored to get out, biting and clawing and roaring, and I thought she mightmanage, despite the alpha’s power, to burst free, turning me into bloody meatand scattered body parts as she finally lost her chains.

Poor wolf.

“Poor Kaitlyn,” I muttered.

I surged through the trees intoa clearing that I knew was right on the edge of a decently steep ravine. I’dlearned these woods well during my years of dealing with a punishing moon, andI also knew that when the ravine was finished with me, I’d have a few bruises,cuts, and maybe even a broken bone or two that would take a while to healbecause my wolf was so restrained. Not human slow, but damn near.

I was in the middle of a smallgroup of people before I even realized they were there, and I had two thoughtsimmediately. One, I should have scented the bastards, and two, they were allhuman, and they were about to cause a death.

Four people—two males, twofemales. One of the females was tied to a crude altar—a huge log they’d linedwith ivy and dried leaves and…was that blood? Definitely blood.