Marked by the Moon

by Lori Handeland

  “What is there on this earth that you couldn’t give?” And what fool of a woman turned her back on a love as deep as Julian’s?

  All the breath seemed to go out of him, and his shoulders slouched as his head sagged. “A child,” he said. “All she ever wanted in this world was a child.”

  “But—Wait. What? You obviously asked her if she wanted to be a werewolf.”

  “Of course,” he said, in a weary, haunted voice.

  “And she agreed.” He made a noise that she took to mean yes. “Was Alana—” Alex paused, not wanting to use the word stupid, but hey, if the shoe fit—

  “I thought her grandmother had told her,” he continued. “I mean, if a child were so damn important, then why wouldn’t she have told her?”

  “Yeah, why?” Alex murmured, pulled toward him despite herself by the agony in his voice. She wanted to hold him and comfort him and make it better—three things Alexandra Trevalyn had never wanted before. That she wanted them with a desperation she could barely control scared her.

  She just might have to kill him after all.

  “Her gran knew Alana wouldn’t agree to becoming a werewolf if it meant giving up her dream of a big family, and Alana had to agree or she would have died. So Margaret lied.” He laughed, but the sound was more of a cough. “Told Alana that of course werewolves could have kids. When I found out I—” He paused. “Well, let’s say Margaret won’t be lying again anytime soon.”

  Alex frowned. Did that mean he’d scared the old lady speechless? Or something else?

  “But when Alana asked me,” he continued in that same voice that pulled at a part of Alex she’d never known she had, “and I told her the truth, she looked at me as if I were a monster.” He gave that short, sharp, un-funny laugh again. “I thought she’d get over it. That I would be enough. That we would be enough. I mean…what choice did she have? She was a werewolf, for better or for worse. Forever.” He shook his head. “Or not.”

  Alex had always wondered about that beautiful blond wolf in northern Minnesota. Either the woman had been dumb as a rock, or she’d wanted to die.

  Alana had breezed into town, and people had started disappearing. That always got Edward’s attention.

  He’d sent Alex; she’d done her job. But she’d always wondered. Alana had shown up first, then—bing, bing, bing—several other strangers followed. Folks left town, and they didn’t come back, and there were whispers of a wolf pack with a sleek, golden she-wolf in the lead.

  Alana had been sloppy. She hadn’t tried to hide their tracks. But it had always bothered Alex that she’d caught the other werewolves red-pawed, one with his snout buried in the local sheriff. But Alana…

  She’d never attributed a single death to Alana.

  Then came that fateful night. All of the other wolves were dead, and Alana had loped right into town. Strange behavior for a real wolf, kind of typical for a were.

  She’d crashed through the picture window in the lobby of the hotel where Alex had been staying. That sound, followed by the screams, drew Alex out of her room and down the hall.

  A wolf the shade of sunlight had backed the clerk—a teenage kid with a nametag that read holly—into a corner. The beast had glanced once at Alex, as if making sure she was there and that she was armed; then she’d lunged at the girl, teeth snapping.

  Ka-bam!

  That had been the end of Alana Barlow.

  Alex lifted her gaze to Julian, but he was still captivated by the photo. Alex couldn’t tell him that his wife had committed suicide by Jäger-Sucher, that Alana would rather be dead than live a childless life with a man who adored her. She just couldn’t.

  Besides, it would sound like an excuse, and she wasn’t going to make one. It didn’t matter if Alana had wanted to get shot or not, Alex would have obliged her either way. If Alana hadn’t been killing people in that town herself, she’d been leading a pack of monsters that had.

  In Alex’s opinion, Alana was as much of a psycho as the next werewolf. Obsessed by a child instead of blood, willing to give up her life rather than live it, screwing up Alex’s future, thank you very much, by getting herself killed, thus causing her husband to agonize over her loss and eventually come gunning—so to speak—for the hunter who had ended her.

  “You deserved better,” she murmured.

  He spun away from the photo. Alex hadn’t realized she’d crept so close until his chest brushed hers. Together they gasped, their eyes widening, nostrils flaring as the awareness that had always been between them ignited.

  Then he was dragging her against him, and she was letting him. As his mouth hovered, and his fingers clenched, and their breath mingled, he whispered, “Then there was you.”

  Julian believed in fate. And this was his.

  He had loved Alana with all that he’d had. But she’d left him and gone away to die.

  Though he’d suspected it he hadn’t wanted to believe it, had refused to, until he’d heard the truth in Alex’s voice, saw it in her face.

  Suicide by Jäger-Sucher. What a way to go.

  But Alana was gone, and Alex was here, and through some bizarre twist of that fate he believed in, she was his mate. At least he understood now why he couldn’t keep his hands off her.

  He was tired of fighting—her, himself, Edward, the rogue—all he wanted was to sink into the strange peace he found in the circle of Alex’s arms and forget.

  Still he would have let her go if she’d asked, if she’d made even a single movement toward freedom. Instead, she knotted her fingers in his shirt, pulling him close; then she closed the distance between their lips.

  And he was lost.

  Her taste was home, she smelled like…here. When had that started?

  Mine, whispered his mind.

  Mate, growled his beast.

  He nipped at her lip, drank her sweet gasp, ran his mouth over the curve of her jaw. The line of her throat beckoned, the scent of her skin, the pulse of the blood that called to his, that made them one even when they weren’t.

  He marked her again, taking a fold of her flesh between his teeth and worrying it. She lifted her hand, cupped his head, tangled her fingers in his hair, and urged him on.

  As he trailed his tongue over her collarbone, then followed the slight swell of her breast, he thanked all the gods he’d ever known that she’d found a blouse with buttons somewhere in Ella’s closet.

  He opened them, muttering hallelujahs that she hadn’t bothered with a bra when she’d come looking for him.

  Her skin held the flavor of cinnamon atop a cake of spice, her nipples swollen, hard, luscious as a cherry to his lips. When he suckled she cried out, arching, straining, and when he bit, just a little, her gasp whispered, yes.

  Her knees were weak, or maybe just his. Nevertheless, they couldn’t continue to stand in the living room, especially when anyone could walk in. So he carried her up the stairs.

  He’d burned everything Alana had touched. All of his furniture was new. He’d never been more glad of it.

  He laid her on the bed, straightened to take off his clothes, then became captivated with the picture she made there. Her hair matched the southwestern copper of his quilt. Her eyes, open a mere slit, gleamed like slices of limes against the honey shade of her skin sparkling in the half-light that spilled from the hall.

  Her shirt fell open, one side covering a breast, the other revealing it. Ella’s black pants gaped at the waist, exposing her navel, a round, perfect well, and the stepping-stones of her ribs drew his gaze to the smooth curve of her waist. He wanted to lick her from the tips of her toes to the top of her head, then start over again.

  She lifted her hand. Her long, clever fingers furled back toward her palm.

  Come to me, they said, echoing the invitation in her eyes.

  He tossed shirt and jeans into a corner, then knelt, removing her boots—God they were ugly—her socks, the rest. He placed his mouth to her arch, running his tongue along her sole, nibbling at the fine bones
of her ankle.

  He touched her as if she were spun crystal, tasted her as if she were the finest of wines. She shivered when he skimmed his palms over her; she shuddered with his every breath.

  Her legs were long, the muscles hard beneath the softest of skin. Her inner thighs trembled when he kissed them, as did her fingers in his hair.

  The bones of her hips were like blades in a sheath. He tested them with his thumbs, ran his nails down her flanks, cupped her buttocks, then he feasted. By the time he moved on, his name on her lips had gone from curse to caress and back again.

  He couldn’t wait; he didn’t want to, rising up, then sliding home. Her arms came around his shoulders, her legs around his hips; she held him close, she welcomed him in, yet still he didn’t feel their connection.

  He perched on the edge; she did, too. Deep within, he felt her tremble. He clenched his jaw to keep from coming.

  It wasn’t right. Not yet.

  Please, not yet.

  Sweat broke out on his brow as he tried to think what was missing, what he needed, what she did.

  She clenched, clamping down on him, squeezing him from within, and her hand drifted across his chest, meandering right and left, thumb scraping one nipple, then the other, before coming to rest at his waist.

  She stroked the sensitive flesh where his thigh became his hip, and he tensed. “Alex,” he growled, both a wish and a warning.

  Her eyes opened, and something caught in his chest when she whispered, “Julian.”

  He thrust one final time; then he was coming; then she was.

  Two simple words. Her name and his. A recognition. An admission.

  A vow.

  It was enough.

  Chapter 25

  Alex waited until Julian slept; then she crept from his arms, his bed, his house.

  What had she done?

  Sex was one thing…This—

  She glanced up at the window of his room. This had been another.

  He’d touched her with such gentleness. He’d gazed into her eyes with—

  “Faet!” she muttered, clattering down the steps and striding around the side of the house.

  He’d gazed at her with love. And what had she done?

  Loved him right back.

  Alex stepped into Julian’s yard and had a little talk with herself.

  She did not love Barlow; he did not love her. They barely knew each other, and what they knew they did not like.

  Just because their blood couldn’t stay in separate petri dishes, and their hands couldn’t keep to themselves, didn’t mean they were meant for each other.

  Then again, maybe it did.

  She’d thought him a monster; he’d thought her one. Had they learned differently, or merely come to accept that beneath the surface, everyone had a little monster inside?

  “No one’s perfect,” she whispered. Especially Alexandra Trevalyn.

  Julian had never lied about who he was, about what he was, about what he planned to do.

  Unlike her.

  She was a spy; she’d come here to kill—both him and one of his wolves. While she might not kill Julian—

  “Won’t,” Alex said to the night, and sighed. “I won’t.”

  She would kill the werewolf that had killed her father. As soon as she found it.

  Once she did that, she would not be able to stay. However, when she left this place, Edward would find her, and he’d insist she reveal the location of Barlowsville.

  Could she really bring the most feared Jäger-Sucher of them all down on these people’s—and they were people, she knew that now—heads?

  He’d kill them. Killing was what Edward did best. It had once been what Alex did best, too. It had once been what Alex lived for. But here, she’d found so much more to live for than death.

  If she didn’t tell Edward what he wanted to know, he’d either kill her or stick her in a cage for the rest of her very long and furry life.

  What the hell was she going to do?

  She could solve her problems by staying. Alex let her gaze wander over Barlowsville. She liked it here. She thought she could grow to love it.

  Once the thought of being a werewolf had horrified her. She’d have eaten the last bullet in her gun to avoid losing her humanity. Now she understood—

  She hadn’t really been using it anyway.

  A door opened. Alex’s breath caught as she turned toward Julian’s house. But the place remained silent, and her heart fluttered and stilled.

  “Psst! Alex!” Cade hung out the back entrance of the lab. “You want to run with me tonight?”

  Alex glanced once more at Julian’s. They needed to talk, but it didn’t have to be right now. Besides…

  She turned toward Cade and waved. She could use a little cheering up.

  Julian awoke to a pounding on the door. He reached for Alex, confused at first that she was there, then equally confused when she was not.

  The moon poured into his bedroom, making him yearn. He’d find her, and they’d run together, just the two of them. But first he had to force whoever was at his door to shut up.

  He found his pants in the corner with his shirt, but Alex’s clothes were gone. He checked in the bathroom on the way past, the kitchen too, but she wasn’t there. Considering he wasn’t clasping his stomach and writhing in agony, she hadn’t gone far.

  Julian yanked open the front door. The man on the other side nearly knocked on his nose.

  “Knut.” Julian jerked his head back just in time to avoid the huge, hamlike fist.

  “Neil,” the man corrected with a scowl, lowering an arm the size of the logs in Julian’s cabin walls.

  Neil did not appreciate being called Knut, and Julian couldn’t say that he blamed him. But it was difficult sometimes for Julian to remember. They’d grown up together, fought together, lived as werewolves together. He’d known Knut as long as he’d known Cade.

  “Joe said you were searching for me.”

  Not actively. Not yet. But he would have. If he could keep his mind on the issue at hand and his hands out of Alex’s pants.

  “Where have you been?” Julian asked.

  “Fishing.”

  “For two weeks?”

  “I like fish.” Neil drew himself up to his impressive height of six-five. It did take a lot of fish to fill up Neil. “Since when do you care what I do?”

  “Since Inuit have been dying daily.”

  Neil’s wind-burned face creased. “Why would that have anything to do with me?”

  “Perhaps I should have said dying nightly.”

  Neil caught the innuendo right away. “One of us is doing it.”

  “Unless you’ve caught a whiff of an unknown werewolf in your travels.”

  “None.” Neil’s pale blue eyes narrowed. “You thought it was me.”

  Many had made the mistake of believing that Neil’s calm demeanor and large stature meant he was slow, in both body and mind. They had died badly at the end of his sword.

  “You were gone,” Julian said, “and they did die.”

  Neil drew in a breath, glanced to the side, then back at Julian. “Who died first? Was it the wise woman?”

  Julian blinked. “How did you know that?”

  Neil’s lips tightened, and he rubbed a big hand through his shorn dirty blond hair. No matter how many centuries he lived, no matter how short he cut his hair, or how many flannel shirts he collected, Neil would never look like anything but a Norse raider.

  “I thought he’d gotten over that.”

  “Who got over what?”

  “I’d have told you if he’d eaten a wise woman in the past two centuries.” Neil’s eyes met Julian’s. “I swear.”

  “Who—” Julian began, then he knew.

  He shoved Neil out of the way and raced barefoot and bare-chested across the snow.

  Alex chased Cade through the moonlight. She wasn’t enjoying this run at all. She’d thought when werewolves shared the moon, they bonded. That it was the
equivalent of coffee with the girls, poker with the boys, maybe a couples’ potluck.

  Instead, she kept getting ice and snow kicked in her face as she followed his light brown tail on and on. No gamboling, no rolling and wrestling, no playing. No fun.

  They weren’t too far away from town at least. She didn’t feel sick. But she did miss Julian. She wished she’d stayed home and run with him.

  First she and Cade had loped around and around Barlowsville in larger and larger circles. Alex was a new wolf. She didn’t know the procedure. It had seemed a little foolish to her, but Cade appeared to enjoy it. Every time she glanced at him, he was grinning.

  Eventually they’d headed away from town, and the terrain had become rougher if that were possible. Even on wolf feet, Alex had stumbled, fallen, then slid all the way down a hill and into a hollow of water so cold she couldn’t understand how it wasn’t frozen.

  Once she’d extricated herself, she looked around for Cade and huffed a surprised bit of air through her nose to discover that he’d disappeared into a fairly large grove of trees. She plunged in, too, managing to keep sight of his tail, even though the thickness of the branches nearly obscured the moon.

  Eventually she popped out of the cover and into a clearing where a house stood, surrounded on all sides by trees and tall piles of snow—an oasis in a desert of ice.

  Unlit, the building was but a shadow, not a wisp of smoke from the fireplace, no hint of a generator. Cade trotted past the huge monster truck parked to the side. How had that gotten there? She didn’t see a road anywhere.

  Alex made an anxious sound as Cade approached the door. What was he doing?

  That became apparent an instant later when Cade straightened to his full height, naked skin gleaming silver. Then he reached out and opened the door.

  Alex cocked her head, afraid she’d hear screams, shots, but there was nothing. Perhaps this was a place Cade kept apart from the lab where he could relax away from his weird science. She wouldn’t blame him.

  The thought of going inside, finding warmth, a towel, even clothes, appealed more and more as the water on her fur turned to ice, then began to crackle and break and rain around her paws like sleet.