Marked by the Moon

16

“He’s my brother,” Julian said, and stalked across the room.

Alex’s hand tightened around the hilt of Cade’s sword, but she didn’t take it up. Smart move. He’d disarm her quicker than she could say boink your mama.

How had she gotten the weapon away from Cade in the first place? His brother might have been a bad Viking, but he was a Viking. You’d think that would be good for something.

“Your brother,” Alex murmured. “The dead one?”

Julian swung his gaze in her direction. “As you can see, he’s not dead.”

“You said he fell in battle, and that in your fury you shifted into a wolf.”

“I did.”

“Fell means died.”

“In what dictionary?” he asked.

She made an impatient sound. “If he wasn’t dead, then what pissed you off enough to make you furry?”

Julian was becoming pissed off enough right now to become furry. What was it about the woman that both infuriated and aroused him? Or was it only that her arousing him, infuriated him?

He pulled his eyes from the lips he’d so recently kissed, and pathetically wanted to kiss again, only to meet his brother’s considering gaze. “What didn’t you tell her, Julian?”

“Bite me,” Julian growled, and Cade’s lips twitched. Despite all the centuries of their existence, his little brother still enjoyed baiting him.

Cade glanced back and forth between Julian and Alex, then murmured, “Ah.”

Both Alex and Julian snapped, “Ah, what?”

Cade lifted his hands in surrender. “Nothing,” he said, but inside he was laughing.

Julian didn’t find any of this funny. He’d just spent hours agonizing over the past, over the reason Alex was here, what she had done. Then a single instant in her presence and all he could think of was the texture of her skin, the smell of it, that taste.

“Knull mæ i øret,” he cursed.

“You keep saying that,” Alex murmured. “What does it mean?”

“Fuck my ear,” Cade supplied helpfully, the laughter still bubbling in his voice.

Julian shot him a look, but while Cade did as he was told just like everyone else in town, he wasn’t afraid of Julian. Never had been, never would be. Cade knew his big brother would never hurt him.

“I think I’ll pass,” Alex said.

“It’s a Norwegian curse,” Cade continued. “The Norse version of ‘fuck me.’”

Alex studiously avoided glancing at Julian. Nevertheless he knew exactly what she was thinking.

Already did.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded.

“According to Cade, you promised him my blood.” Alex indicated the needle and vial his brother still held in his hand. “Why didn’t you tell me I’m not only a werewolf freak but, apparently, a freaky werewolf?”

Julian slapped himself in the forehead. He’d completely forgotten to bring her here. “Give him your arm.”

“No,” she said, then grabbed her own wrist, which had begun to lift in response to the order, and held it down. “Answer my question.”

His teeth ground together so loudly, it sounded as if he had gravel in his mouth. “I planned to tell you when I brought you to have the blood drawn.” He frowned, glancing between her and Cade. “Why did you come here if not for that?”

“I didn’t know about that. Or him. I followed a lone wolf through town.”

Julian tensed. The rogue had dared to walk into his domain? He’d tear the beast into pieces. “Where did it go?”

She lifted her chin in Cade’s direction. “Right there.”

Julian let out the breath he’d taken. Not the rogue. Just Cade. Cade liked to run alone. He always had.

“And when he came inside, you decided to come in for…” Julian waited.

“I decided to come in and ask, What the hell?” Alex said. “But he took a swing at my head with his Viking sword—”

“You did?” Julian glanced at his brother in surprise, squelching the desire to mutter too bad you missed, which would only arouse more suspicion. The wolves in Barlowsville were family. One didn’t wish any of them dead.

Cade shrugged. “I didn’t know who she was. I thought everyone was out with you.”

Julian let Cade believe he’d been running with the others. He certainly didn’t want to discuss why he hadn’t been.

“You wanna explain this, too, while you’re at it?” Alex stood next to Cade’s laptop. “Thought you were off the grid.”

“We are.” Cade crossed over, picked up the computer, and brought it back to the center island where he stood within arm’s reach of his toy. He never had liked anyone else touching it.

Cade quickly gave Alex a rundown on how he had Internet when no one else did. She didn’t appear to understand the explanation any better than Julian did. She opened her mouth, no doubt to spew forth more questions, and the back door banged—open, then shut. Footsteps hurried down the hall.

George burst in, face flushed, chest heaving.

“Ah, hell,” Julian muttered an instant before the boy announced, “We found another body.”

“One a night,” Alex drawled. “Someone’s hungry.”

Julian ignored her. “Who was it?”

“Dr. Cosgrove.”

“Doctor?” Alex asked.

“Veterinarian.”

“Maybe someone didn’t care for the way he was sticking them with needles,” she muttered.

“We don’t see the veterinarian,” he snapped. “We don’t see any doctor at all. We don’t get sick.”

“Except in the head.”

He shot her a glare.

“What?” She rounded her eyes with false innocence. “You don’t think someone in the village has snapped?”

George was listening wide-eyed. He’d no doubt report every word to Jorund as soon as he got back.

“I’ll come within the hour,” Julian said.

The boy nodded and went out the way he’d come in. Silence settled over them. It didn’t last long.

“Aren’t you going to ask your brother what he’s been doing out there alone in the night?” Alex demanded.

“Why?”

Alex rubbed her nose as if she had a sudden headache. “Rogue wolf killing Inuit nightly. Remember?”

“You think Cade is a murdering, rogue werewolf?”

Julian asked. “Look at him.”

“Hey!” Cade exclaimed. “I’m right here.”

“And your sword is right there.” Julian pointed at the weapon on the table. “You let a girl take it from you.”

“Right here,” Alex murmured. “And I’m not just any girl.”

Julian spoke before his brother could question that comment. “Cade’s a loner. Always has been.”

“Loner,” Alex repeated. “Isn’t that another word for ‘rogue’?”

“What are you?” Cade asked. “A cop?”

“Yes,” Julian said, at the same time Alex said, “No.”

“She was,” Julian blurted. “Obviously she isn’t anymore.”

“I could be,” she said.

“I’m all the cop we need around here.”

“Yeah, you’re doin’ a great job so far. How many are dead?”

“I’ll take care of it.”

“Start with him. Can’t you touch him and…” She wiggled her fingers like a sitcom witch performing a spell. “Voodoo the truth free?”

“It wasn’t him,” Julian said.

“Just because he’s your brother doesn’t mean he couldn’t have killed someone.”

“That is what it means. Exactly.”

Alex threw up her hands. “He’s a werewolf.”

“What is there about this town that you don’t understand?” Julian snapped. “We don’t kill people.”

She stared him right in the eye as she said with utter conviction, “One of you does.”

Barlow wanted to smack her. Alex could see it on his face. But he didn’t want to do it in front of his brother. Which meant he hadn’t told Cade who she really was.

Interesting.

The two had been together for centuries. They appeared very close. Yet Barlow was keeping secrets. Was Cade keeping secrets, too?

“No one here would dare hurt anyone from there,” Julian said.

“I think you’re wrong.”

“I don’t care what you think. I know. Whoever’s killing the Inuit does not live here.”

“You’d rather believe a lone werewolf wandered out in the middle of nowhere and started snacking on the pets,” Alex said. “Instead of the logical answer that someone from a village full of werewolves has decided you aren’t the boss of them?”

Doubt flickered over Julian’s face, there, then gone the next instant. “Yeah,” he said. “That’s what I believe.”

But she’d gotten him thinking. Which was good enough for her.

Alex had also started to think. She’d come here to find the werewolf that had murdered her father, only to discover a werewolf murdering villagers. What were the chances they were one and the same?

Pretty damn high.

Especially if she bought into the theory that Barlow’s wolves were different—and considering their seeming lack of a desire to kill everyone they met, she kind of did—then it would follow that the one wolf that had murdered before was now doing so again.

She was going to have to start meeting people, giving them a good, long look-see. She’d winged—or eared —the werewolf that had murdered her father with a silver bullet, and silver left a mark—in both forms.

However, cheerily chatting up the populace when she was supposed to loathe them was going to arouse Barlow’s suspicions. She’d just have to do it when he wasn’t around.

“Don’t you have somewhere to be?” she asked.

Barlow lifted a brow. “Trying to get rid of me?”

“Always.”

Cade laughed. She was really starting to like the guy.

“Before you go.” Cade lifted the needle. “You mind?”

“I prefer my blood inside instead of outside.” Alex turned toward the exit.

Barlow snatched her by the elbow, and she froze as his touch seemed to flow through her like another virus, this one making her want him, need him. Now.

She yanked her arm free, and he let her, dropping his hand to his thigh and rubbing the palm against his jeans as if his skin was buzzing, too.

“Don’t you want to know why you’re different from all the others?”

Yeah, she kinda did.

“Cade can help.”

Alex turned to him. “Can you?”

Cade shrugged. “I’ll try.”

“What else have you been up to?” She waved her hand to indicate the room and all its contents.

Cade glanced at Julian, who nodded, making Alex grind her teeth. Did everyone have to ask him everything?

“I invented the serum so that we can touch in human form.”

“And here I’d thought that was just another handy-dandy gift from Big Daddy.”

Cade appeared about to laugh, but he coughed instead before giving her an answer. “I’ve been attempting to isolate what it is in the virus Julian passes on that keeps us from becoming—” Cade broke off, lips pressed together, forehead creased.

“Psychotic, evil killing machines?” Alex supplied.

“Sheesh,” Julian muttered.

Oh, yeah. She wasn’t supposed to hate them so much.

“For want of a better description,” Cade agreed, but he glanced back and forth between Alex and Julian, waiting for an explanation that wasn’t ever going to come.

“How’s that working out for you?” Alex asked.

“I’m getting there.”

“I’ve told you before that my wolves aren’t possessed by evil.” Barlow tilted his head, and his hair swung like a golden pendulum beneath the bright fluorescent lights.

“Except for that inevitable first kill,” she pointed out.

“Except for that.”

“Maybe some of your wolves like the first one so much they keep right on doing it.”

“They don’t,” he said with conviction. “They don’t have the taste for it.”

“So you say. But what’s truth and what’s lies?”

“If you were evil, wouldn’t you want to kill everything that crossed your path?”

She looked him up and down. “Who says I haven’t?”

His lips twitched. “You’ve resisted. A werewolf not made by me wouldn’t be able to.”

“What good is that serum if you were all born demon-free?”

“It’s not for us,” Cade said. “It’s for every poor human being who’s been changed against their will.”

“But—” Alex began, then paused.

Cade didn’t appear to know about Edward’s cure. Or maybe he just didn’t care. According to Julian, being one of his wolves was super-cool. None of them wanted to go back.

In her experience, no werewolf wanted to. The ones that were possessed by the demon liked what they were. As the virus strangled the person they’d been before they were bitten, they embraced the evil. She had to wonder if, even after Edward’s cure, that person ever found their way back.

“But what?” Julian prompted.

“Nothing.” Alex was supposed to keep her secret Jäger-Sucher past a secret, which meant she wouldn’t know about a cure, either. She stuck out her arm toward Cade. “Do me.”

Julian choked. Cade fumbled the needle again.

At least she’d distracted them from further questions, and she did want to know why she could touch the other wolves without the serum. Or why she wanted to touch Barlow at all.

Alex watched the tube fill rapidly with her blood. Strange. It didn’t seem any different now than when she’d been human.

Cade removed the needle and turned away.

“Aren’t you gonna swab me with alcohol or anything?” Now that she thought about it, he hadn’t swabbed her arm before he’d stuck her, either.

“You aren’t going to get an infection,” Barlow said.

“Right.” A single drop of blood welled from the tiny pin-prick before it healed over.

Cade capped the tube and began to write something on a label. Alex moved closer, fascinated despite herself. “Why don’t you try and cure lycanthropy?” she asked.

“Why would I do that?” His voice was absent, his eyes focused on her blood and the mysteries it might solve.

“Wouldn’t it be more productive to cure the disease itself and not just one symptom of it?”

Cade glanced up, and his gaze had gone shrewd. “You sound like you don’t want to be a werewolf, Alex.”

“I d—”

Julian’s hand twitched. Several empty beakers flew off the table and crashed onto the floor. Cade’s attention turned to the mess. Alex glanced at Julian, who drew his finger across his throat. Dramatic, but it got the point across.

“Do,” she said. “I do want to be a werewolf.”

Her mind mocked, I do. I do. I dooo! in the voice of the Cowardly Lion.

“Mmm,” Cade said noncommittally. “From what I hear I don’t need to waste my time. The Jäger-Suchers have a cure.”

So he did know. Since Julian had, she shouldn’t be surprised.

“Not sure what it is, though.” Cade swept the glass into a dustpan with a tiny, handheld broom, then straightened and dumped the mess into the trash. The tinkling of the broken pieces sounded like distant church bells.

“If it were a serum or a pill, there’d be a lot less werewolves. Makes me think it’s some kind of spell that only one person can do. It takes a long time to rid the world of werewolves if you have to visit each and every one in order to do it.”

“What’s a Jäger-Sucher?” Alex asked.

Cade sighed and let his head drop between his shoulders. Which was good since Julian rolled his eyes, along with his head, to indicate his total disbelief at her gall. But Cade was suspicious, and if she wanted to prove she was here because she wanted to be, not because she had to be—for more reasons than one— Alex thought she should at least pretend to be as much of a nube as Julian said she was.

“Julian.” Cade’s voice was exasperated. “If you’re going to make a new wolf, the least you can do is be certain she’s prepared.”

“He isn’t going to come here,” Julian said.

Cade lifted his gaze. “She needs to know.”

“Know what?” she asked. “And he, who?”

Cade put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her against his side. Alex was so startled she let him. Then it felt so nice, she didn’t move away. She couldn’t remember the last time anyone had touched her with anything but violence or lust.

Or in the case of Barlow—violence and lust.

“There’s a secret society,” he began.

“That’s enough.”

Alex glanced over her shoulder. Barlow’s nostrils flared, his eyes, fixed on Cade’s arm, blazed. What was he so mad about?

“I’ll tell her,” he said.

“I don’t mind.” Cade smiled, and Alex smiled back. She felt so much more at ease with Cade than she could ever feel with his brother. “Besides, you’ve got places to go, Inuit to see.”

“Just find out what’s wrong with her.” Julian plucked his brother’s arm off Alex’s shoulder, snatched her by the wrist, and yanked her with him toward the door.

“Keep your skin on!” she said, hanging back.

Fury flashed, and for an instant she thought he might grab her by the throat. Instead, he bent, hitting her in the gut with his shoulder and effectively stifling any further protest before he lifted her over his back and headed down the corridor.

By the time she recovered her breath, he’d kicked open the rear door and fresh air wafted across her overheated face. “What is wrong with you?”

He unceremoniously dumped her to the ground. The only reason she didn’t land on her ass in the snow was that she was getting more lithe on her feet with each passing hour.

His eyes still blazed; his voice now rumbled between wolf and man. “What we’re concerned with here is what’s wrong with you.”

“There’s nothing wrong with me that you didn’t make wrong with me.”

Barlow turned away, presenting her with his back as he leaned against the white building. “You need to leave Cade alone,” he said. “He has work to do. You can’t…fuck with him like you fuck with me.”

Alex stiffened. “Excuse me?”

Obviously Barlow didn’t hear the danger in her voice, because he just kept talking.

“He’s innocent. A bit of a doofus. He’s spent his life trying to heal people. All he cares about is helping others.”

“I bet I could make him care about me.”

Barlow spun so fast she didn’t have time to move away. Not that she would have. She’d meant to poke the beast. He’d poked her.

“Leave him alone.” His skin rippled. He was losing control.

Good. So was she.

Alex stepped in close; then she lowered her voice so that even super-wolf had to lean in to hear what she said. “You think I just bang anyone who comes along?” She lifted her eyes and showed him her fury. “Like you?”

He snapped, grabbing her by the shoulders and dragging her against him. Despite her sweater and his flannel shirt, she could feel the heat wafting off him like the waves of the sun across the asphalt in August.

“You’ll bang no one,” he said between gritted teeth. “Except me.”