Read Moonlight: The Big Bad Wolf (Black Swan 4) for Free Online Page B

says "wild" like a lone wolf on a full moon night. The combination of the snow and the white birch bark made his dark fur stand out on moonlit nights like that one.
    Maybe it wasn't the weather. Maybe it was him, heat coming from the inside. Stalkson wasn't big on introspection. It had no practical application that he could see, and a thing that lacked practical application was, as his father used to say, useless as tits on a boar hog. The leader of one of the thirteen remaining tribes of werewolves had no time or use for introspection, especially not with something as catastrophic as extinction looming.
    The thought of the extinction of the wolf people under his care was weighing him down. Sometimes it even made him feel short of breath. His mind was in such turmoil as he ran along that he almost missed the movement, but his peripheral vision was sharp and his reflexes were quick. He froze with one paw lifted in the graceful pose of a bird dog on point. Just ahead was a twelve point buck, weighing in at about four hundred pounds.
    Stalkson realized he was upwind. The big boy must have smelled wolf and been startled out of his nocturnal cover.
    For just a second, just one crazy second, Stalkson felt an impulse urge him to attempt pulling the great horned monster down alone. Just a little surge of adrenaline... In his youth he might have tried it. And might have barely limped his stupid, young self home, too.
    No. He wasn't going to challenge the other magnificent male, no matter how appealing the idea seemed. They stared at each other barely breathing, neither blinking nor moving a muscle. Stalkson knew the big elk would never turn his back on him. As predator on the scene, he was the one who would have to break the stalemate.
    Deciding to make it quick and painless, he wheeled on his haunches and ran in the opposite direction for a few yards before slowing his pace to resume an easy trot. All too soon his thoughts drifted back to the ever present troubles.
    These days his mind was always crowded with problems. And maybe fear. Fear of what could be coming if they didn't solve the problem.
    He thought about the carefree days of his youth when there was beauty and balance in the world. The tribe was blessed with a new crop of pups every spring, half male, half female. The birth of a male pup was a joyful occasion because there was no question that he would find a mate when his time came.
    Stalkson stopped long enough to look at the moonlit landscape. Beautiful. Still beautiful. But the balance was gone. Not just in the diminishing number of females, but also in the signs of spoilage. The part of his personality that was wolf would wax poetic with some romantic inanity, like "evil on the wind".
    He wished it was. It would be easier to engage in spiritual battle than fight the ravages of technology fallout. Twilights were too pink and orange. It would be a watercolor dream if it didn't mean the choking air pollution from Los Angeles to Beijing had started to drift and hang in the air over the natural refuges set aside by Teddy Roosevelt and others. There was no such thing as natural refuge from bad air.
    His ears pricked when he heard a distant howl on the wind. He would have sniggered if wolf lips worked that way. If only humans knew how bad they were at attempting to mimic animal language, he supposed they would stop trying. He turned and headed in the direction of the fake howl. Might as well investigate.
    BlueClaw tossed a dry branch on the fire and waited. He felt a pair of eyes on him and looked in the direction of the sensation just in time to see a dark wolf emerge from the darker forest and shift into a man mid-stride. He smiled. "Brother Wolf. I thought you might be out and about on this fine moonlit night."
    "ShuShu." Stalkson squatted down by the fire. The night might feel warm to fur, but it was chill to bare skin. The sensitive nerve endings of his balls reacted to the brush of dry grass beneath him. "You