Marked by the Moon

by Lori Handeland

  For an instant she considered that Barlow himself could be the werewolf that had murdered her father. He could heal silver; there wouldn’t be a mark on him from the bullet she’d fired on that long-ago night. But if Barlow were the culprit, wouldn’t Edward have mentioned that?

  No, whispered a little voice. Because if he had, Alex would have shot Barlow the next time she saw him rather than allowing him to lead her to the werewolf village. And the village was what Edward was after—that and the army Barlow didn’t appear to have.

  Alex’s mind whirled. Who was the bad guy? Who was manipulating whom? Who could she trust?

  “I don’t know what I can do,” Julian murmured, still facing away from her. “Most everything I’ve ever tried, I’ve done.”

  “Maybe that’s why someone tried to kill you.”

  Barlow turned then, eyebrows lifted. “They weren’t trying to kill me, Alex, they were trying to kill you.”

  “Me? What did I do?”

  If possible, Barlow’s eyebrows went higher.

  “Lately,” she muttered.

  Alex considered what had happened. She’d left the safety of the village; there’d been a sharp crack, which she’d ignored in her concern for George. Barlow had burst through the snowbank, knocked her aside, and then—

  Crack!

  “You pushed me out of the way,” she said.

  Barlow shrugged and didn’t comment.

  Why would anyone want to kill her? No one knew her well enough yet to hate her.

  It suddenly occurred to Alex that while she had not gotten a good look at her father’s killer, her father’s killer might have gotten a pretty good look at her. But if that was the case, why hadn’t the culprit outed her as a Jäger-Sucher to the others the instant she’d loped into town?

  Because to do that would be to admit that he or she had not been the good little Barlow-escue werewolf he or she was supposed to be but had instead been out killing people.

  Alex thought it far more likely that the wolf, if it had recognized her—and maybe it hadn’t, she’d been fifteen at the time—would try to kill her. Now someone had.

  Which meant her father’s killer was here. Perhaps Edward hadn’t been manipulating her—much—after all.

  “Aren’t you the slightest bit concerned?” Barlow asked. “I just told you someone tried to put a silver bullet into you, and you stand there staring into space.”

  “Werewolves try to kill me every damn day,” Alex said. “It’s when they try to be my friend that I get a little freaked out.”

  “Who said it was a werewolf?”

  Alex scowled. “Who the hell else would it be?”

  “Let’s find out.”

  George appeared out of the ever-thickening snow, his arms full of clothing and boots. He dumped them onto the ground between Alex and Julian.

  “Thanks,” Julian said. “Now get inside and stay there.”

  The boy opened his mouth to argue. Julian narrowed his eyes, and George snapped it shut again, then spun on his heel and marched away.

  Alex snorted and muttered something that sounded a lot like wolf-god. As if that were some kind of insult.

  Julian wasn’t sure where George had found the clothes, but he’d done a good job. Certainly everything was a bit tight on him, but Alex’s apparel appeared just her size. Probably because he’d caught the kid staring at her ass on more than one occasion.

  And why wouldn’t he? It was a damn good ass.

  Julian coughed to cover the growl that rumbled in his chest, then winced and put his hand over the shooting pain. He might have popped out a silver bullet, then healed the wound, but it still hurt and probably would for a good long while. He wasn’t sure. He’d never healed silver before.

  Had anyone?

  Alex stomped her foot into a second boot and straightened. “Now what?”

  Julian lifted his chin, indicating the ice mound where the shots had originated. “Now we see if there are any tracks worth tracking.”

  “But the ice—” she began, hurrying to keep up as he strode in that direction.

  Julian kicked at the fluffy layer of white. “Snow,” he said.

  She smacked herself in the forehead. “Duh.”

  Julian had to stifle a smile. Sometimes she amused him.

  Alex stopped abruptly and laid a hand on his arm. Julian paused and gazed at her quizzically.

  “What if they’re still there?” she murmured.

  Julian started walking again. “If they were still there they’d have shot you while I was burning.”

  His amusement faded with those words. He might have angered out the bullet; he might have magically healed. But while the silver had been in his chest, while his skin had been sizzling and his hair had been frying, the agony had been beyond anything he’d ever known.

  It had made him so mad.

  When he’d seen the first shot kick up the snow a few inches from Alex’s paws, rage had sparked, allowing him to burst through the icy bank that had concealed him. Then, when the bullet had slammed into him, his fury had exploded along with the flames.

  They reached the looming hill of ice and stepped gingerly around its edge. Then together they stared at the rifle half covered with snow.

  “Why would an Inuit shoot me?” Alex asked.

  “True. They barely know you.”

  She laughed. Julian’s smile broke free, but it faded as he continued to peer at the ground.

  “Look.”

  He pointed at the tracks—first feet, but then several yards away from the village, out where the snow would have masked everything, the feet became paws. A few yards farther, the wind across the tundra had erased them completely.

  “The rogue is both human and wolf,” Julian said.

  “Needed fingers to pull the trigger,” Alex murmured. “And paws to get the hell gone. But how did he know what we were planning?”

  Julian cut her a quick, curious glance, and she explained. “He—or she—knew we were coming. He brought a rifle loaded with silver. If he was here to eat another villager, no need for a gun.”

  Julian stared into the wall of swirling white. She was right.

  “There’s nothing else to see here,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  But Alex was staring into the storm now, too. “Shh,” she whispered, head tilting, eyes narrowing.

  Julian listened, detected nothing, held his breath and tried again. Somewhere out in that swirling white he heard the patter of paws.

  He glanced at Alex. She lifted her chin, sniffed. So did he.

  Definitely a werewolf. But who? The snow, the wind, all the people who lived nearby were throwing off his nose.

  Julian stepped forward, and Alex touched his arm, shook her head; then her gaze tracked to the right and she slowly lifted her arm, pointing to the glistening black wolf that burst from the night.

  “Ella,” he whispered.

  They followed her back toward Awanitok. Julian bent and grabbed the discarded rifle as they hurried past. He didn’t bother to check if there were any bullets left. He could smell them.

  Ella appeared on her way somewhere, trotting purposefully through town as if she hadn’t a care in the world.

  “Just because she’s here,” Alex said, “doesn’t mean she’s evil.”

  “This from the woman who thinks that just because we breathe we’re evil.”

  Alex didn’t have a snappy comeback for that, and Julian would have asked why if Ella hadn’t chosen that moment to turn into Jorund’s backyard.

  “Faet!” Julian spat, and began to run.

  He came around the corner as the wolf gracefully leaped onto the back porch. Sliding glass doors reflected the swirling snow and the foggy sheen of the moon. Julian feared Ella would crash right through them.

  Was Jorund sitting at his kitchen table, peacefully drinking tea? Did he have his aching feet propped up on an ottoman, glasses settled on his determined blade of a nose, a science-fiction novel—his favorite—open on his
quilt-covered lap?

  When the werewolf burst through his window would the old man spring up, tangle his feet in the quilt, and fall down? Break a hip? An arm? Have a heart attack? Any of those would be preferable to the alternative—bloody, painful death by rogue werewolf.

  Julian couldn’t let that happen. He lifted the rifle to his shoulder and sighted on Ella’s flank.

  “Wait,” Alex whispered.

  “No.”

  “Look.”

  Something in her voice stopped him. Perhaps that she’d tried to stop him. Alex would be the first person to let him shoot a werewolf—unless she had a very good reason not to.

  The glass doors slid open. Jorund appeared in a wash of yellow light from his kitchen. He wore a black silk robe adorned with golden dragons and tied loosely with a matching sash. His hair flowed in a river of silver-threaded black past his shoulders, and he held a glass of red wine in one hand. Behind him, on the table, sat the bottle and a second, empty glass.

  The old man stood to the side, and the wolf trotted in. Jorund let his free hand trail over her back, on his face an expression Julian had never seen there before.

  “Maybe we’d better go,” Alex said.

  “Put down the gun, Ataniq.” Jorund turned away, leaving the door open. “And come inside.”

  By the time Julian and Alex got there, Jorund had pulled out two more glasses and poured them each some wine. Ella was nowhere to be found, though Julian heard someone moving about in one of the bedrooms.

  Jorund sat at the table. From the way he carefully adjusted his knee-length robe to avoid flashing them, he wore nothing beneath the silk. Julian was becoming more uncomfortable by the second. He downed his wine in a single swallow.

  “George told me what you had planned.”

  Julian scowled. “He was supposed to tell no one.”

  “I’m the leader of this village, not you.”

  Annoyed, Julian snapped, “Yet you call me master.”

  “Courtesy title,” the old man murmured.

  “Then why did you send George to bring me here each time you found someone dead?”

  “You promised to protect us from your wolves. You aren’t living up to your end of the agreement. Why wouldn’t I call you?”

  “We haven’t established that one of my wolves is the wolf.”

  The elder lifted his brows but didn’t comment.

  “Who else did George tell?” Alex asked. She had yet to touch her wine; she merely kept toying with the stem of the glass.

  Jorund’s gaze flicked to her, then back to Julian. “No one.”

  “Who did you tell?” Julian demanded.

  “Just me,” Ella said.

  She’d donned a robe that matched Jorund’s, and her pale skin held a flush across the cheeks.

  “What’s going on here?” Julian asked.

  Ella’s lips curved, and she entwined her fingers with Jorund’s. The contrast of her youthful hand and his ancient, gnarled appendage was like a monkey’s paw and a baby’s fist. “I love him,” she said. “And he loves me.”

  “Since when?”

  “Twenty years now,” Ella answered.

  “Give or take,” Jorund added.

  “He’s old enough to be your great-grandfather,” Julian pointed out.

  “I’m two hundred and forty-six years old, Julian.”

  “Got you there,” Alex said.

  Julian ignored her. “He’s going to die, Ella, and you’re not.”

  “Barring a silver bullet.”

  Julian took a second to scowl at Alex. He did not need any help. From her smirk, she was enjoying this.

  “We wanted to talk to you about that.”

  Ella’s comment brought Julian’s attention back to them just as Jorund’s hand jerked. “Not now,” the old man murmured.

  “Yes.” Ella’s grip tightened on his. “Now.”

  For an instant Julian wondered if Ella had been behind that shot. He really had no idea who to trust anymore. Everything he’d thought to be true was not.

  He lifted his gaze from their linked fingers to Ella’s dark eyes. “Talk to me about what?”

  “I want you to make Jorund like us.”

  Chapter 22

  Alex’s amusement with Julian’s obvious discomfort at the sexual activity of his “grandson” faded with Ella’s words.

  “Why?” she blurted.

  Julian gave her another dirty look—he was getting very good at them—then glanced back at the Frenchwoman. “Why now?” he amended.

  “Jorund’s fading,” she said simply.

  Julian let his gaze wander over the old man. “He seems to be doing all right to me.”

  Jorund’s lips twitched, but he didn’t take the bait.

  “Julian,” Ella snapped, her impatience evident in her Frenchifying of his name. “If you do not do it, I will.”

  “Told you they all weren’t as beta as you thought,” Alex murmured, which earned her another evil glare from the wolf-god.

  Alex was beginning to wonder about Ella. Although in the robe, she could see the woman’s neck for the first time and it was unscarred, she’d never gotten a decent peek at Ella’s ears since she always wore her hair down.

  Alex would not have considered the Frenchwoman a good candidate for rogue werewolf killer of the month—until she’d trotted out of the snowstorm right after the rogue had trotted into it. What better way to remove suspicion than to appear as if you hadn’t just disappeared?

  Ella had obviously been sneaking away and coming here for a long time. The Inuit would think nothing of her hanging around, and she could therefore eat whomever she liked and lope off with no one the wiser.

  Except if she was an evil killing machine, why hadn’t she started evilly killing before now?

  Julian pushed back his chair and stood, towering over them all. “We have rules about new wolves.”

  Ella glanced pointedly at Alex. “You mean like asking them if they want to become one?”

  “I told you that was going to bite you on the butt,” Alex muttered. “So to speak.”

  Ella’s comment reminded Alex that the Frenchwoman knew who she really was. Sure, Ella had taken Alex’s side; she’d called her “poor thing,” but if she was a rogue werewolf, lying was the least of her sins. Wouldn’t a rogue be first in line to kill the person most qualified to kill them?

  “If Jorund wanted to become a werewolf, why didn’t he do it before he was eight thousand years old?” Julian asked.

  “I wasn’t…certain.” The old man sighed. “I’m still not.”

  “Then I can’t turn you. You have to be sure.”

  “Alex wasn’t,” Ella said flatly.

  “Dammit, Ella,” Julian erupted. “That was different.”

  “I agree. This is about love. That was about hate.”

  Alex winced, even though she was right.

  Julian pressed his lips together. The table began to shimmy as if there were an earthquake, though nothing else in the house moved.

  “I told you not to upset him,” Jorund said.

  Ella kept her gaze on Julian’s face. “I’m not afraid of him.”

  The wine in Alex’s glass began to bubble and boil. She stood up, moved back. “Maybe you should be.”

  Suddenly the table stilled, the wine calmed, and Julian sat back down. “Is it because of the initial kill?”

  The old man shrugged. “I don’t like the idea of taking a life to ensure my immortality.” He lifted one hand as Ella leaned forward to speak. “But I also believe that there are some humans who should be removed from this earth. I’m just not sure we should be choosing who they are.”

  “We aren’t,” Julian said. “I am.”

  Jorund’s lips twitched. But he didn’t comment.

  Julian’s gaze narrowed. “What else?”

  “It’s not that I don’t want to be with her forever.” Jorund lifted his gaze to Ella’s, and his eyes reflected his devotion. “But I can’t leave my people no
w.”

  “Because of the rogue?” Julian asked, and Jorund nodded.

  “He’ll take care of it,” Ella said.

  “I promised to protect my people,” the old man said. “How would it look if I suddenly became the creature that was killing them?”

  Ella stood, throwing up her hands and making a very French sound of aggravation deep in her throat. “You would not be that creature. You would be you. You would never hurt a living soul now, and therefore you would not hurt a living soul after.”

  “So you say,” Jorund returned.

  “Once you die,” Ella murmured, “it is too late.”

  The Inuit ignored her. “If my people are safe, then I can be sure.”

  “Okay,” Julian said. “Okay.”

  Julian released the throttle of the snowmobile and coasted to a stop in front of Ella’s. Alex climbed off immediately.

  They’d been silent all the way back. He didn’t know about her, but he’d been fighting the response he seemed unable to stifle whenever she was near. She touched him, even without meaning to, and he was lost.

  Alex rubbed her hands against her pants as if she was trying to rub the sting from her palms. He knew the feeling.

  Julian lifted his chin to indicate the dark and quiet house. “Will you be all right?”

  “Why? You think Ella tried to kill me?”

  “No.” He frowned. “Do you?”

  She spread her hands. “Someone did. Right now, the only one off the hook for it is you.”

  “And George.”

  “And George,” she agreed.

  “If Ella wanted you dead,” Julian began, “she could have killed you in your bed.”

  “A little obvious.”

  “I doubt anyone would have been calling for her blood once she told them who you really were. In fact, if she wanted you dead, all she would have had to do was tell the truth, then stand back and watch.”

  “Maybe it wasn’t Ella.” Alex smiled. “I’m glad.”

  “Someone tried to kill you, Alex.”

  She shrugged. “I’m used to it.”

  Her nonchalant attitude about that situation made Julian twitchy, anxious. He wanted to stay and protect her. But he knew what would happen if he did.