New Short Story Release: Earth and Lunar Dreaming, a science-fiction short story

The stand-alone edition of the science-fiction short story, Earth and Lunar Dreaming, released TODAY, and is now available for purchase. It can be found individually at any of the platforms on this Books2Read link, and it can be found as one of the stories in: A Collection of Shifters.

For those of you wondering what it's all about. Well...

The Short Version:

What's a wolf to do when a kid in strife demands his help, and kidnaps his laptop to ensure it? 

The Longer Version:

A werewolf on the moon.

A kit that wants to be a human girl.

A vigilante corporation with interstellar reach.

And dreams of an Earth return.

When Chitin decides to protect a young shapeshifter, he takes on more than he knows.

Can he negotiate an ending that will see her stay free, and help him build his dream of returning to a renewed Earth?

How It Begins:

The halls of the moon were bustling with people—usually, but Chitin chose to roam the ones that everyone else avoided. He liked the relative quiet and the dimmed lighting, and he knew he had nothing to fear. In human form, he was too big for most to attack, and he was yet to meet anyone who would stand and face him when he became a wolf.

Of course, if he became a wolf, it was usually so he could run and hide, vanishing through a grate into the walls of Lunar One to emerge dressed as a workman through a maintenance hatch elsewhere. He was not the only one to frequent the tunnels—or the only one to have claimed a corner in the disused warren that had once housed the refugees of Earth.

That had been many moons ago, and Chitin curled his lip at the unintended pun. Many, many moons. His people had a home on one of the outer worlds, now, a place with forests to roam in, one for which their claim had been honored. But Chitin did not feel as though he belonged there. He did not feel as though he belonged anywhere…except maybe here, in the dimly lit halls of a half-forgotten legacy.

It was late, and he had come to the dome to stare out at the stars, to drink in the view of a slowly recovering world.

One day, he thought, I will go and visit, but every night he searched his view of the Earth’s surface, and every night, he was disappointed to see the places he most wanted to go still glowed.

Tonight, he looked, again, and saw the same, although he imagined one small corner had grown in healthy darkness, and the thought made him smile.

At this rate, I will be covered in silver before I can stand beneath those skies and look up at where I am now, he thought, and sadness rippled through him like a stream.

A small sound caught his ears. If he were in wolf form, his ears would have twitched, and he’d have tilted his head, all the better to catch the sound. As it was, he tilted his head and turned his face just enough that he could catch sight of her from the corner of his eye. He knew that, as soon as she knew he’d seen her, she’d bolt.

He also knew she was nothing to fear. The she-child had been stalking him for the last five days, and he had stalked her back, just enough to ensure she posed no threat to him.

“She’s probably come off one of the cargoes,” Nev Shinto had said, when Chitin asked. “Been a few stowaways last few weeks. Probably escaped from an orphanage or traders. I don’t ask, and I don’t tell. You know me.”

Don’t ask. Don’t tell, that was the port master’s mantra, and Chitin wasn’t going to complain. He benefited from it as much as the next wall walker. He had held up a credit stick with a distinctive red-and-gold star on one side, and watched Nev’s eyes light up.

Where to Find It:

That Books2 Read Link, again: https://books2read.com/u/mV2yWl