A Cursed Moon: A Weird Girls Novella (A Penguin Special from Signet Eclipse) Read Online Free PDF

to shut my trap or squeal like a little bee-atch. In the end, my loud mouth won. Hell, it usually did. “I hate to admit it, but that wolf does love you. I know I’ve told you before, but you need to believe it, kid.”
    I wandered to the edge of the deck, unable to bear her reaction. As it was that bittersweet scent of her sadness belted my schnoz like a sucker punch. I pitched the pebble past where her property ended, swearing beneath my breath. The small round pebble soared over the cluster of bulky pines, up the steep incline, and into the forest. I heard it land a few seconds later, its dive to the ground muffled by the thick bed of pine needles carpeting the forest floor.
    Celia leaned against the weathered rail next to me, her voice strained. “Maybe he does, but he’ll be married soon—and it won’t be to me.”
    I wrapped my arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. She leaned against me, despite how muddy the
shift
had left me. Celia was always cool about forgiving me. Maybe she realized I wasn’t such an ass-wipe after all . . . and that I’d do anything for her and her sisters. “Come out with me tonight. You could use a good laugh.”
    She lifted her head. “Are you going to a comedy club or something?”
    “Not exactly.” I chuckled again. “Dan’s convinced he can get laid without me. I’m betting he can’t.”
    She rubbed her brow. “Oh, no. Poor Danny. For the love of all things holy, what did you bet him?”
    “I—” An unearthly cold hit my spine like a frozen spike and my head whipped in the direction of the forest. The sour stench of rot and torture burned through my nose and rolled my stomach. I snarled and shoved Celia behind me. There, at the edge of her lawn, inched a spirit dressed in a sheer flowing gown of red.
    Her long black hair drifted around her like bands of seaweed in water. Her coal black eyes sparkled despite the lack of moonlight where she watched us. She smiled with jagged teeth. “Have you seen my children?” she asked in an eerie cry that seemed to echo from all directions.
    “Holy
shit
.”
    It was my only response before I attacked.

Chapter Three
    “Bren,
don’t
!”
    I ignored Celia and leapt off the deck, landing in my six-hundred-pound timber wolf form. The spirit’s high-pitched cackle raised the brown fur on my back in perfect “come and get me” mode. She disappeared through the evergreens just as my jaws opened to bite.
    Normally my fangs wouldn’t have done jack shit against a spirit, but this one had taken a physical form. Good for me, bad—
seriously
bad
—for her. Her long sheer gown swirled like flickering flames behind her as she sprinted around the firs in a dizzying blur. Damn it, she was fast. I hauled serious tail to keep up, using the blood red color of her gown to lure me to her like a goddamn bull.
    “Where are my children . . . help me find my children.”
    Her shrilled voice mocked and taunted me, disorienting my senses as it echoed from all directions. So I ignored everything but my sight and used my speed to propel me closer to her evil, decaying ass.
    My paws thundered over the thick vegetation and masses of crumbling bark. We’d barreled halfway up the mountain when I pounced. The force of my weight slammed her thin figure across the earth, digging a small trench into the soil. My claws held her down while I dug my fangs through her skull. Gray matter spilled like chunks of rotten cauliflower. She screamed with rage and pain. I had her. I totally had her.
    Too bad that’s when her children decided to show up.
    And let me tell you, they were ugly little bastards.
    Two boys donning rags of slithering insects broke through the trees and thick ferns. Their clawed little fingers stretched out, batting the air as they hissed with long black tongues. Their eyeless sockets fixed on me.
“Mama. Mama,”
they blubbered in low, throaty voices to the beat of “red rum.”
    They launched onto my back, biting with sharp