Free Wolf Moon Rising by Lara Parker

giant pearl. It pulsed with
    white fi re.
    Antoinette reached for the cigarette on the fl oor and lit it.
    She lifted her lips to Quentin’s and breathed smoke into his
    mouth. Slowly, he relaxed, lay back, and, as they spoke, even
    though Barnabas could not hear their words, he could see their
    conversation became more intimate. His vision blurring, Barn-
    abas looked away from the window. He could not bear to watch
    them, and again his hand clenched the handle of his cane as if it
    were a sword. He knew he would not be able to control his anger,
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    already unleashed once this eve ning, nor did he have any desire
    0—
    to suppress his lust. He could feel the moon beating down like a
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    Dark Shadows: Wolf Moon Rising
    searchlight, burning his skin. Hearing a faint moan, he turned
    to look again.
    Quentin was sitting hunched in front of the fi re, bent over
    and groaning. He grabbed at his stomach, and his eyes widened
    in surprise as his arms fl ew up and upset a crystal decanter that
    crashed to the fl oor. Antoinette cried out as he pushed her away
    and staggered to his feet.
    Quentin’s body tensed and grew ridged. His back arched
    and he howled in such agony the sound rattled the window-
    pane. He turned toward the window, his face contorted in a
    grimace, and Barnabas drew back, certain he had been observed,
    but Quentin’s view was focused on some inner turmoil. He con-
    vulsed in a doubled- over collapse, tensed again, then lurched
    through the door, growling like a wild animal, and fl ung himself
    across the porch, down the long colonnade of trees, and into the
    woods.
    Morbidly curious, Barnabas fl ew after the dark fi gure as it
    fl oundered through the snow, and he hovered just within the
    treetops. Quentin had stopped running and was now hunched
    in a clearing where the moon shone down like a pitiless beacon.
    Th
    ere he began an uncanny transformation.
    His chest exploded from his shirt and thrust a furred mass
    out from his body, and his bony arms morphed into spindly legs
    with paws spread with yellow claws. As his head grew massive, a
    snout protruded, and black lips drew back to expose slimy teeth
    and a bloody tongue. His eyes were bloodred as well, slanted,
    and ringed in black; his ears lay fl at on his broad head and gaseous clouds steamed from his jaws.
    With a sudden shuddering in his powerful limbs, the man-
    beast turned and bounded over the snow and into the dark.
    Before he was out of sight, he stopped and rose against the shin-
    ing orb, the silhouette of a wolf, and he threw back his head and
    uttered a howl into the night, a howl answered by its echo, then
    silence.
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    Shaken by a blast of guilt, Barnabas turned back to the Old
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    Lara Parker
    House. He was to blame! Quentin had been a man, a man lung-
    ing like an animal, a man— and then a wolf— a werewolf! Un-
    der the full moon, Quentin had changed into a beast. And he,
    Barnabas, was the cause. He had demolished the painting that
    protected the unfortunate man, and now a monster was loosed.
    “Quentin?” a hysterical voice came fl oating through the trees
    behind the Old House. “Quentin, where are you? Are you there?
    Quentin?”
    Antoinette was calling as she would a naughty child who
    had run off . She was following him into the woods, with no con-
    cept of the danger she was in. He could see her moving through
    the trees in her green robe, her face white in the moonlight, and
    her long tangled hair falling to her shoulders.
    Th
    e hunger that rose up in him was like a shock wave puls-
    ing through his body. She was coming to him, and he had only
    to take her in his arms. He moved like a phantom, his great
    cape fl oating over the snow, and when she saw him appear out
    of the mist, her hand fl ew to her mouth.
    “Barnabas—my God! You scared the shit of me!” Her coarse
    language took him by surprise. He