Free The Children Of The Mist by Jenny Brigalow

But it was home.
    Once inside, he switched on the light and pulled the curtains shut. He headed for the tiny bathroom. He needed a shower. At the bathroom sink he paused and looked at himself in the mirror. He certainly needed a bit of tidying up. His hair was littered with leaves and what looked like bits of hide. Blood smeared his throat and spotted his shirt. The said shirt strained across his back and had split at the sleeve seams, his muscles straining through thegap. The black centres of his green eyes were dilated. Two black moons of darkness. At the base of his neck a pulse beat slowly.
    As he stood beneath the spray, the clean hot water seemed to wash away the werewolf. But he knew it was just an illusion. Away from the influence of the nearly full moon, his body began to slide back toward its normal equilibrium. He’d missed a dose of Wolf’s Bane before. By morning he’d be fine.
    By the time he put on clean clothes he looked pretty much like normal, except he fancied his eyes seemed darker and his body hair thicker. Perhaps it was just in his imagination.
    In the tiny lounge area he grabbed a bottle of water and flicked on the idiot box. But the images danced before his eyes unseen. He couldn’t concentrate. Was Morven still fast asleep in her bed? Was she alright? He picked up his phone and started to dial in her number. Halfway through the digits he stopped. Best not. If he was wrong, he’d look a right bloody idiot. Best let her be. Tomorrow would be soon enough. Hopefully he’d find his board and then casually pop in to say hi.
    Still restless, he switched off the TV and went to bed. He lay awake for hours, filled with anxiety. Filled with hope. Somehow, he couldn’t let go of the possibility that maybe tomorrow would be the right time. Morven would be just fine.
    She had to be.

Chapter 11
    Morven was scared. More than that. Petrified. Terrified. Horrified. In fact, there was no word to express the emotions that filled her. Her breath came in ragged bursts, and her heart beat in her chest like some kind of desperate caged bird. The air was full of smoke. A scream rent through the small town square. A dreadful sound that unhinged her completely.
    She stopped in her tracks, frozen with terror. ‘Oh God, let me go,’ she begged. ‘Please, please let me go. It wasn’t me, I swear it wasn’t me.’
    But the two armed men took no notice and dragged her across the cobbled stones of the town square. She stumbled and would have fallen if the men had not jerked viciously on the heavy chains that bound her. Again and again that terrible cry filled the air, anguished, agonised. It touched some place deep within Morven and she felt reason slip away. She went mad, attacking the two men with every atom of her being. In a frenzy, she kicked, gouged and tried to bite. They fought back, tearing her hair out at the roots, ripping what was left of her dress to shreds. Finally one of them lost patience and smashed her across the skull with his sword handle.
    Almost unconscious, Morven was half dragged, half carried toward the waiting crowd. The morbid mob hushed as she neared, and parted. The heat from the fire hit her then, and the smell made her gag. There was little left of the poor creature, consumed and blackened by the pyre. Someone jeered and spat. The spit landed on her bare arm. But she barely noticed, mesmerised by the sight of a tall wooden post buried in a carefully constructed bonfire.
    Her mind was strangely blank as they bound her. Even when the torch touched the brush and it burst into flame, her mind was empty. Detached, she watched the people gathered to welcome and witness her destruction. How she hated them. Hated their blind stupidity and ignorance. But then a finger of flame licked tentatively up her foot. Hotter and hotter. And the world became pain. And though she had sworn she wouldn’t, she shrieked. ‘I’m not Vampyre. I’m not