Marked by the Moon

6

Naked and vulnerable, she scrambled upright. Just as the bear came out of the woods.

Goose bumps raced across her flesh, and not just because of the chill air across her skin. She might not die from the coming attack, but it was certainly going to hurt. And if there were pieces of her all over the place, would she really be able to heal? She just didn’t know.

“Barlow!” Alex shouted.

The bear roared right in her face. Its breath smelled like…

Blood and hunger. With a little rotten fish on the side.

“Shit,” she muttered. Should she run, or shouldn’t she?

Her wolf howled for fight not flight. Her human self knew better. Even if she could shift in the daylight, a wolf wasn’t going to win a battle against a polar bear, and while human she wasn’t going to be able to outrun this thing.

The polar bear leaned to the left to swipe at her with its right paw; the animal was pretty damn quick for its size.

Alex eluded the claws; she was faster, even in this form, but she would never be fast enough. Unable to stop herself, she took several steps back, and the polar bear roared again.

Which was all Alex needed to make up her mind. She wasn’t going to stand there and let it slice her apart. She had to at least try to escape. Maybe she could get far enough ahead and make her way up a tree.

Polar bears couldn’t climb trees. Could they?

Alex ran deeper into the forest, thinking that perhaps she’d find a place so dense that she could fit through but the great white beast could not.

The earth trembled beneath her feet; the animal’s hot, stinky breath brushed her ass. What was a polar bear doing in the forest anyway? Didn’t they live on the ice?

Alex bore down. She couldn’t keep up this pace for long, but she had to put some distance between them.

Suddenly Barlow stepped from behind a tree. Alex was so startled she forgot if she had two feet or four and got them tangled, tripping, skidding, almost falling. She managed to right herself, but those few seconds cost her.

The bear slapped Alex with one massive paw.

She heard her ribs crack, felt her skin tear, smelled the blood as it splattered. The blow lifted and tossed her several yards, where she landed in a heap at Barlow’s feet.

Alex glanced all the way up his tall, broad, naked body. Too bad she was in too much pain to enjoy the view.

Why had he bothered to reveal himself? Without weapons, in this form, Barlow could do no more than she against this massive foe. They’d both be torn to bits, and they wouldn’t be able to heal wounds like that completely until night fell again, and they shifted.

Barlow’s gaze flicked over her, and his blue eyes darkened to black; then he threw back his head and emitted a bellow of fury that seemed to shake the leaves upon the trees.

The sound caused the polar bear to pull up short. Barlow threw out his arms, hands spread wide, and at the very edge of his fingertips something twinkled.

Then he was shifting in the blink of an eye, so fast Alex couldn’t tell the exact instant he changed from man to beast. Fury turned Julian into an animal. Rain or shine, sun or shadow, if he became enraged enough, he changed. That was how he’d become what he was in the first place.

He shot out his hands, reached for his magic, believed he could become a wolf in the sunlight, and he did.

As he leaped over Alex’s inert body, the scent of fear that oozed from her pores only infuriated him more, made him stronger, faster, better. She was one of his now. She should be afraid of nothing, no one.

But him.

Julian stalked around the polar bear, which had the good sense to turn away from Alex and keep an eye on him. Unfortunately Alex didn’t have the same good sense. Instead of running, she lay there and watched.

Against his better judgment, Julian took his gaze from the bear and met hers, lifting his lip, jerking his head. Her eyes widened; he thought she understood. He was wrong.

“Julian!” she shouted, an instant before the bear hit him broadside.

Flesh tore; bones broke. He might be magic, but he couldn’t prevent that.

Julian hit the ground and rolled, stifling a whimper when his wounds howled at the impact and the movement. He whirled, teeth snapping, but his jaws closed upon empty air. The polar bear had reared up, roaring, taking wild swipes at Alex as she poked him in the chest with a stick.

What was she thinking? She could barely walk, hunched to the side and bleeding. She was doing nothing but infuriating the animal with the smell of her blood and the annoyance of that stick.

Julian hurried forward, crowding her back, meeting the beast with bared teeth.

“He’ll kill you,” she managed, pain in every word.

Doubtful, Julian thought, then wondered why she cared. Why hadn’t she run off and left him to be torn to pieces, or perhaps climbed a tree and watched? He knew why he felt compelled to protect her. But why on earth would she protect him?

Alex stepped around Julian, then poked the bear again. The thing growled and swatted at her, giving Julian the opening he needed. He dived in and tore a chunk out of the soft underbelly. The animal cried out, then fell back onto all fours where Alex promptly poked it in the eye.

The bear tried to swipe, but its vision was compromised. Julian snarled; Alex poked at the other eye, and the polar bear ran.

“Woo-hoo!” Alex lifted her stick to the sky, pumping her arm once before she grabbed at her injured side with a hiss.

Julian snorted even as a small kernel of admiration bloomed. It had taken guts to face that beast with nothing but a stick.

Said stick landed on the ground in front of him with a thud. Julian glanced at Alex just in time to watch her eyes roll back. Then she tumbled to the ground, too, and without arms there was nothing he could do to stop it. Instead he watched, helpless, as her head bounced against the earth with a dull thump before she lay still.

He nosed her arm, but she was limp. Not dead. Not from this. But she was broken, bleeding. He needed to get her out of the open and let her rest until the sun went down. For that he needed arms, hands, feet, and a body that wasn’t broken.

Unfortunately, he’d shifted too many times, too close together. His head was fuzzy with exhaustion. He wanted to lie down and sleep until dusk.

But to heal completely and quickly he needed to shift from one form to another, so he stood over Alex and tried to get angry. It was the only way he knew to draw forth his magic. Closing his eyes, he thought of why she was here, what she’d done, how she’d ruined his life. He remembered how he’d found Alana—or rather hadn’t found her. Nothing left but a pile of ashes.

Anger began to pulse; warmth flooded through him as magic skated across his back, lifting his ruff like a heated summer breeze. A growl rumbled in his chest, and he imagined himself human. The next instant, he was.

Julian lifted Alex’s inert body, stifling the rumble of hunger when her blood spilled all over him.

She opened her eyes on a wince, blinked a few times, then let her head fall against his chest. “Wha—? Where?”

“There’s a cave near here,” he said, uncertain if she could still hear him but needing to talk, to feel human again so his wolf would quit hearing the siren call of blood. “We stay there during the daylight. Can’t exactly run around bare-assed and barefoot.”

Well, they could. But frostbite made it damn difficult to run, and even werewolves needed to rest.

Unfortunately, he’d been exaggerating when he said “near.” The cave was a good five miles away, and carrying Alex, the trip took him longer than he wanted it to. Especially since the pretty snowflakes began to swirl more thickly and a storm blotted out the remains of the sun. By the time they reached shelter, a full-blown blizzard was in place; he could barely see, let alone run.

Things got worse from there.

Julian stumbled into the cave on frozen feet, fell to his knees, set Alex on the ground, and hurried to the far side of the cave for wood.

“What the hell?” he shouted, his voice echoing back at him from a nearly empty cave.

The wood was gone, as was the food they stored here, along with most of the blankets. The single mattress and a battery-operated lantern remained—the two no doubt too cumbersome to steal—along with a threadbare quilt, which must have been too old to warrant carrying away.

He snatched up the light, turned the switch, nodded once when the lamp began to glow, and brought it over to where Alex lay.

She had begun to shiver. Her lips had turned a lovely shade of lilac, and her skin had turned a putrid shade of gray. He had to get her warm and fast.

She was slick with blood. Under normal circumstances, it would have dried by now. Unfortunately, the blizzard had not only lowered her body temperature but made the blood on her skin into a slurpy, pasty mess.

Exhaustion caused Julian to stumble. He righted himself, shook his head to make the blinking black lights in front of his eyes go away, and tried to focus.

“Angry,” he muttered. “I am so angry.”

But he wasn’t. He could barely work up the energy to stand. He wasn’t certain he could bring forth enough anger to help.

Julian’s powers were a mystery. He believed they had come with his shape-shifting since he’d never been magic before, but none of his wolves was so gifted. He had not discovered any limits to what he could do beyond an inability to heal humans. The only thing that saved them from death was his bite.

Julian glanced again at the wall where a stack of wood should be, then at the empty box where nonperishable food should rest and managed a stir of fury.

“Good,” he said. “More.”

Even if he accessed the rage necessary to perform magic, he didn’t have enough energy left to heal Alex and start a fire from nothing.

What should he do? He couldn’t decide.

Which was not like him. He was the alpha. Decisions were his business. Of course he could never remember being this depleted and alone in all his lifetimes.

Didn’t it just figure that she was at the heart of it?

“Okay,” he said. Talking out loud seemed to make him feel more awake, more focused. “If you build a fire, she’ll only bleed worse once she’s warm.”

She wouldn’t die, true, but what if the loss of blood damaged her brain? That would be all he’d need—a pissed-off, crazy, ex–Jäger-Sucher werewolf.

“I’ll pass,” he muttered, then laughed. The laughter scared him. He sounded a little crazy himself.

Julian snatched up the quilt, lifted her again, and marched into the storm. There he used the heat of his hands to melt snow and wash the bloody muck from her skin; then he wrapped her in the blanket and carried her inside.

Her lips were still blue, her face ice white. She shivered so violently, he was afraid she’d bite off her own tongue from the force of her chattering teeth. Although maybe that wouldn’t be so bad. Without a tongue she’d have a helluva time talking.

Until it grew back.

Julian peeled away the quilt, gritting his teeth as her scent washed over him. She smelled like pack, with a hint of lemony woman and an enticing tinge of blood. The fine hairs on his arms lifted and goose bumps ran across his flesh.

The bruises along her ribs appeared black against the snowy shade of her skin. The snow bath and the extreme cold had slowed the bleeding from the slashes across her belly. They were deep—they would, if she’d still been human, need a helluva lot of stitches—but Julian couldn’t see any of her insides peeking through to the outside.

“That has to be good,” he murmured.

She moved, moaned, and fresh blood pimpled her flesh. Werewolves healed fast, even in human form, but she would not heal completely unless she shifted, or he helped her.

Julian placed his palm against the wounds, closed his eyes, thought of—

His fingers flexed. She was so soft, so smooth and supple and—

“Damn!” He snatched his hand away as his penis twitched. What the hell was wrong with him?

She had killed his wife. That should make him angry enough to do anything.

But it didn’t.

Instead the thought of Alana only made him sad. And sad was not mad. No matter how much he might wish it to be.

Julian tried again, placing his hand to the bruise. She wiggled beneath his touch, rubbing her skin along his. His eyes slid closed, and his fingers stroked the curve of her ribs; the soft, slight swell of her breast brushed his knuckles. This felt so good, so right, so meant—

He lurched back, falling hard on his ass, then sat there breathing heavily, staring at her still, pale form. This was not right. For him, nothing would ever be right again. Especially with her.

At last the anger came, and his fingers began to warm. He held them over her, remembering what he’d felt, what he’d thought, what he’d nearly done. His hands sparkled as if covered in dew beneath the morning sun, and he watched, still fascinated despite all the centuries of magic, as her skin knit together and the bruises began to fade.

He could not heal her completely. He didn’t have it in him right now no matter how angry he became. She’d have to do that herself once darkness fell.

The wind howled, tossing icy specks of snow against his back. Though he’d much prefer to walk into the storm than stay in here, with her, he needed his strength to make his way home.

Julian gritted his teeth and lay down, pulling the quilt over them both.