Free Unleash The Moon (The Preternaturals Book 6) by Zoe Winters Page A

later. These marks
would scar.
    She felt the tears start up again. The wolf stirred
in the corner of his cell. He’d had his drugged meat a few hours
ago, and the sleep was wearing off. He shifted back to his human
form and turned away from her to put on the new clothes they’d
brought him. Sydney got to go for a shower right after waking up.
She assumed the wolf went in the mornings while she was dead for
the day.
    She couldn’t even bring herself to find him
attractive anymore. Physically he was still as perfect as ever, but
when he’d nearly made her cry in the exercise yard it had cured her
of any fleeting crush. What was it with her and wolves? When she
was a kid she used to spend every moment until she had to go to
sleep with Noah.
    Noah. Now the tears did fall. It wasn’t as if she
thought about him all the time anymore, but lately, seeing the wolf
in the next cube every day was too hard. It brought back too many
memories. She hadn’t been allowed to play with him for a while
before he disappeared. She didn’t know why her father and Noah’s
dad had started their feud, but the result was that they couldn’t
play together anymore.
    She’d cried in her room for weeks after that, but it
was nothing compared to the night she’d overheard that he’d gone
missing. It wasn’t until that night that she’d known she’d never
see him again. She’d refused to leave her room for a month after
that.
    The wolf in the cube next to hers
glared at her, then stared expectantly at the door waiting for
exercise time. He seemed extra amped up tonight. It had to be the
moon. She feared she wouldn’t survive out there with the moon full
and everyone shifting. There were only a couple of other vampires
in this group, and they were unlikely to protect her from any
threats out there. They’d probably been waiting for an excuse to
join in on the killing.
    “ Number 5857B,
Please prepare to exit your cell for daily exercise,” the happy
robot voice said. Sydney knew some of the messages were
pre-recorded, but sometimes when the voice spoke it still sounded
robotic, but sentient. She wondered if it was artificial
intelligence or if someone typed into the machine what it should
say.
    It wasn’t as if she exercised out there. She mainly
just tried to stay out of everyone else’s way until it was time to
come back inside. The glass door slid open.
    “ Please follow
the glowing arrows to the exercise yard, and remember to play nice
with your friends.”
    She was pushed aside by several therians racing to
get outside under the full moon, so she was the last out. She
missed the frenzied shifting. By the time she reached the yard it
was like a zoo. Cheetahs, panthers, wolves, bears. There wasn’t
yard big enough for the insanity.
    Sydney looked up. The moon was red. Aunt Greta once
told her about the blood moon and how powerfully strong it was for
therians. Great. Just what she didn’t need.
    She tried to disappear next to a nearby wall as the
shapeshifters ran and started fights and burned excess energy under
the moon. A wolf leaped at her, but a second wolf body slammed him
away from her and started to snarl and snap at him. The wolf that
had come at her was bleeding now and slunk off to lick his
wounds.
    The smell of therian blood got to the other two
vampires and they joined in the fray to try to get a taste of the
blood being spilled left and right in the fighting. The blood was
getting to Sydney, too, but she knew if she listened to that urge
she wouldn’t come out of it alive. The other vampires could hold
their own out there.
    The robotic voice chirped happily over the loud
speakers. “I think that’s enough excitement for today, please make
your way back to the building.”
    It was extremely short for an exercise period, and
Sydney knew why. The blood moon had been more than they’d
anticipated. There were more guards than last night, but it still
wasn’t enough to contain it all.
    As they moved back inside away
from