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swished it from side to side before she turned and ran. The group of males followed, their big paws thumping the shoreline as they chased her. If she stayed on the beach, they would Run With the Moon © 2006 Lucy Monroe - 6
    be on her in minutes. As fast as she was, a were who was used to hunting would be faster. But she was no untrained femwolf, easily caught. She was fast and she might be one of the shyest of her clan's women, but she was also smart.
    She would make them prove their worthiness before she would let them fight for her. She veered into the forest, using trees and shrubs as obstacles in their paths.
    She was smaller and lighter, she could run trails the huge werewolves could not. She was careful to do so, forcing them to take circuitous routes to follow her, slowing them down while testing both their strength and determination.
    That special scent followed her as if she was always downwind of it, though that could not be so. She'd never smelled it before and yet it was intimately familiar. It spurred her on to run faster, farther...to take bigger risks to prove her own worth as a femwolf. As one to be sought. She wanted that scent... needed it ...but only if the wolf who carried it could prove his worth.
    Would he keep up with her? Would he fight the other wolves for the chance to mate her? Would he win?
    Her human heart rebelled at any other outcome and renewed fear mixed with the other emotions coursing through her sleek canine body. Feelings that clouded her ability to reason. Panicked, though she wasn't sure why, Run With the Moon © 2006 Lucy Monroe - 7
    she ran faster. Her human mind knew the reaction made no sense, not if she craved the scent, but her wolf said she should run from that which frightened her. Both were feeling too many new emotions to think clearly on anything.
    Her legs carried her over the uneven ground at blurring speed, the trees she passed beneath nothing more than vague shapes in the moonlit night. The forest was unfamiliar and part of her knew that running without direction was dangerous. Still, she ran. She didn't know where she was going, or even if she was running in the direction she'd been told to stay away from. She simply ran and ran and ran.
    The wolves following howled. One howl sounded above the others and it felt like a command for her to stop, but she did not heed it. The unknown before her was no more terrifying than the unknown following behind her.
    She was panting, but her body did not slow. She narrowly avoided hitting a tree and yelped, faltering in her smooth stride for a mere second.

    Run With the Moon © 2006 Lucy Monroe - 8
    Suddenly, a powerful body hit her side and she went rolling, yelping as she went head over tail, landing in a dazed heap on her side.
    The big wolf that had tumbled her barked and growled at her in unmistakable censure. Susannah was a shy woman and even shyer wolf, but she was a femwolf running in heat for the first time and instincts older than time had her scrambling to her feet and snarling.
    Don't yell at me!
    He snarled back, snapping at her flank, as if directing her away from the direction she'd been running. It was only as he did so that she smelled an unmistakable odor Run With the Moon © 2006 Lucy Monroe - 9
    that she would have scented much earlier if she had not been engaged in mindless flight.
    Humans .
    Her ears flattened and her tail tucked as her heart beat so fast and loud she could barely hear the other sounds of the night. But it was unmistakably a hunting party's camp. And if the wolf's behavior meant anything, the party was not his clan. Or if they were, they weren't of the privileged few that knew weres lived among them.
    He nudged her with his big snout, but even knowing they were in danger, she could not submit. Not yet.
    This time his feral snarl was low and full of menace.
    She shivered, but held her ground.
    Without warning, he rolled her again, this time pouncing so his huge wolf's body held her down. Two big