Dawn Thompson by Blood Moon

her path, skirted her approach, and staggered toward the alcove, leaving a spotted trail of blood behind on the gray stone floor. Her eyes were riveted to it.
    “Run, I say!” he demanded, his voice echoing through the dank lower chamber. “What I have just done will notdeter me for long.” He turned and made a quick lunge toward her. “Go quickly! Lock your chamber door and do not open it until the sun is high!
Go
!”
    Tears blurred his image. Snatching up her candle, Cassandra lit it from his and fled up the crudely hewn stairs. His bestial howls echoed in her ears.
    Had he frightened her? Jon prayed so. Blood was leaking from his forearm, so he snaked his handkerchief from his waistcoat pocket and bound it tightly. The self-inflicted wound would only slake his hunger temporarily, while pain canceled his desire. Once the shock subsided, the feeding frenzy would come upon him again—surely a hundred times stronger since he had disturbed his blood flow without satisfying his feeding lust.
    He began to pace the length of the room. Could she have reached her chamber yet? Would she do as he bade her and lock her door? He could smell her blood. It was all around him—in him—the maddening scent ghosting through his nostrils until he could bear no more. Every instinct in him demanded he follow and beat upon her chamber door until she admitted him. She would—he knew she would. He’d held that sweet flesh in his arms. She wanted him just as he wanted her.
    Barely two hours remained before dawn. He would never stand it. The feeding frenzy was too strong. Besides, if he didn’t feed now, when the sun rose he would be twice as lethargic for not having slaked his thirst. There was only one thing he could do; he stripped off his breeches and drawers, then his boots, waistcoat, and shirt, and bolted naked up the staircase, through the door, and out of the house into the star-studded darkness. Another howl spilled from his throat as he sprang intothe air and came to earth in a shimmering streak of silver-tipped black fur and sinew, running on all fours, his jowls plastered with foam.
    No, he would never make it to the village on two feet in time to feed and return to the Abbey before dawn, and there was no time to struggle with his frenzied horse, but the dire wolf could easily travel the distance and then some, with plenty of time to spare. In a mad stupor of mindless oblivion, he howled again, and then he raced down the tor toward the cluster of thatched-roof cottages west of the kirk at the bottom of the hill.
    The bloodcurdling howl brought Cassandra to the window. Below, in the light of the low-sliding moon, the dire wolf came into view. Fresh tears welled in her eyes. She had sent Jon prowling the night for a victim to feed upon. He would find some lightskirt working the seamy side of the village, he would all but drain her dry. Then Cassandra would be safe . . . for now. He would drag himself back to his alcove in the bowels of Whitebriar Abbey and sleep until dawn if all went well; in the dark until nightfall if it didn’t. But why? How? How was this possible? Not knowing was the worst of it.
    This didn’t seem real—none of it seemed real, and yet it was. What made it so bizarre was that they were trying to maintain some semblance of a normal life in the midst of the dark evil that had come upon them.
“You’ve been compromised.
” His words echoed across her mind. What foolishness. Her reputation didn’t even signify now, and yet . . . some semblance of propriety knitted the whole together. Without that ingrained shred of sensibility, there would be madness. It was passing strange.
    Cassandra turned away from the window with a shudder;a squealing sound in the corner of her bedchamber directed her attention there. Candlelight picked out the hunched gray form of the rat that had eluded her earlier. She smelled its blood. Yes! It was one and the same. She would resist the urge to shapeshift this time, now that she