Marked by the Moon

26

“I loved her.”

Alex pulled her gaze from that of Alana Barlow—on a merry-go-round, riding a horse, in the sandbox—all ages, all sizes, all Alana, all the time. There was even a collection of snow globes on the only table in the room, each one surrounding a different reflection of the beautiful, dead blonde.

Cade had pulled on a pair of sweatpants he no doubt kept in the house for the times he came here and… what? Beat off in the middle of her shrine?

“This is sick,” Alex murmured.

A terry-cloth robe hit her in the face. “You’re sick. You disgusting, filthy Jäger-Sucher.”

Since the room was cold and her goose bumps had goose bumps, Alex put on the robe. “I guess all the cats are out of their respective bags,” she said.

Cade knew who she was—or close enough—and she had a pretty good idea who he was.

“Bet you were pissed when Julian took that bullet instead of me.”

“Pissed isn’t the word.” With the speed she still hadn’t quite gotten used to, he reached over and backhanded her so hard she not only flew off her feet but smashed into the wall.

Several of Alana’s pictures tore free and skated through the air to join her on the floor.

“Bitch,” he muttered. “See what you’ve done?”

A blow like that would have killed Alex if she’d been human. As it was, he’d merely knocked out a few of her teeth. She spat them on the floor and wondered if she’d live long enough to grow them back.

Alex gathered the photos and stood. “Where’d you get these?”

She was half afraid he’d say the place was Julian’s; then she’d really be creeped out.

Instead he snatched the pictures from her hands. “Don’t touch her,” he said. “Never touch her.”

Alex had to bite down on her lip to keep from saying that Alana was ashes, and they were a little hard to touch. She figured a comment like that would be the quickest way to lose another couple of teeth.

“I thought werewolves didn’t show up on film?” she said instead.

Another great reason to become one. No more pictures. Alex had never been a fan. Smile for the camera. Look pretty. Be on.

Alana didn’t appear to have any problem. From the number of photos, and the visible joy on her face in every one, she’d adored the camera as much as it had adored her.

“I asked for old photos from her Gramma, then made copies. Told her I was going to give them to Julian as a gift. Once he was ready.” Cade tacked the fallen pictures in the exact places they’d fallen out of. “I never thought he would be.”

“He isn’t,” she said. “Don’t worry.”

He rounded on her with a snarl. “He made you like her. Like us. Then brought you here. Why would he do that? He’s lost his mind. He’s lost his balls. He isn’t fit to lead.”

Alex didn’t like the sound of that. Not fit to lead usually led to some kind of coup. And in werewolf land, that meant a challenge. Although why worry? She didn’t think Cade could kill Julian.

Then again, she hadn’t thought Cade could kill anyone.

There was a lot more to Cade than any of them had been aware of. She needed to discourage a coup— along with hatred of Julian. If she had a snowball’s chance, she’d even have tried to convince him she wasn’t evil incarnate—but she knew better.

“He wanted me to suffer,” she blurted. “Killing me was too easy.” His eyes narrowed, and she hurried to add, “Not that he won’t eventually.”

“I don’t see you suffering. In fact, you fit right in with no trouble at all. And now you’re his mate. He’ll never kill you.” He took a deep breath and slowly let it out. “So I have to.”

Cade had planned this well. She was naked—or near enough. She didn’t have a gun, a knife, a silver anything. And she’d returned to human form, where she was only a slightly faster, stronger woman, and from the speed with which he’d smacked her, not as fast or as strong as him. Shifting into a wolf would take too long, especially when he could do so in an instant.

Alex glanced at the windows; she couldn’t help it. But they were shuttered and—

“No one knows where we are.”

Her gaze met his, and she caught a trace of the madness he’d kept so well hidden lurking behind the eyes of a man she’d begun to think of as her friend.

“If they come to my place they’ll think we went running together. They’ll wait until tomorrow to worry.” He smiled, and the madness blossomed. “By then it’ll be too late.”

“Julian will know. He’ll figure it out.”

“He hasn’t figured anything out so far. I have my brother as convinced of my peaceful nature as anyone.”

“Love is blind,” she said.

“And pretty damn dumb.”

She had to keep him talking. If he was talking to her he wasn’t killing her.

“You murdered my father.”

Alex hadn’t meant to say that. Bringing up death at all was probably a bad idea. But she’d opened her mouth, and out it had come.

Cade had been staring at a montage of Alana in a sky-blue dress, hair piled on top of her head and messily hanging about her ears. Kind of like Cade’s.

She’d never gotten a look at his ears in this form but —

Alex frowned. She had seen his wolf ears, and they’d been as intact as hers.

“Charlie?” Cade turned away from the wall. “Never met the man.”

Could Cade have found a way to heal silver? Who the hell knew?

“Why would you think that I’d killed Charlie?” he mused.

“If you didn’t kill him, then how do you know who he is?”

“Julian has a dossier on you.” His head cocked. “From your lack of surprise, you knew that.” He lifted his gaze to the ceiling, tapped his finger against his lip. “You’re searching for your father’s killer. You think that he’s here. Why would you think that?”

His head lowered, his eyes falsely wide, his mouth in a sarcastic o. “This has Edward written all over it.”

Alex didn’t comment, because it did.

“The old man pulled a fast one. He’s been trying to find us for years. He never would have been able to.” He clapped his hands. “But then Julian became obsessed with you and his revenge. So Edward lay in wait. He used Julian’s pain to his advantage, let you become the perfect little spy.” Cade began to grin. “I wouldn’t put it past him to have leaked your identity to Julian in the first place.”

Alex’s eyes narrowed. She wouldn’t put it past him, either.

“Then he tells you your father’s killer is here, and the next thing you know you’re volunteering.”

Close enough.

“This is fantastic.” He laughed. “I won’t even have to deny killing you. You’re a spy. They’ll give me a goddamn medal.”

“Julian won’t.”

Cade’s laughter died, and he shrugged. “He’s a fool. Lets Alana run off and be killed by you. Then tries to get cutesy, to punish you, and he ends up mated to you. Everything he touches turns to shit.”

“He saved your life.”

“And I thanked him. Am I supposed to be his slave until the end of time?”

“I think, yeah.”

“I think not. He doesn’t want to rule the world, well I do.”

Uh-oh, Alex thought.

“I’ve been waiting and watching for a weakness.” His gaze met hers, and he smiled. “Now he’s got one. Once I kill you, he’ll be writhing. I should be able to challenge him and win.”

Alex blinked. Hell. The coup really was on.

She had to do something. She didn’t want the village under Cade’s thumb. He was nuts. And what about the Inuits? They’d be nothing but a smorgasbord.

She needed to get outside, then to the trees where she could perhaps hide long enough to shape-shift, make her way back to Barlowsville, and blow the whistle on the wolf in their midst.

It wasn’t much of a plan, but it was all she had. And it started with knocking Cade senseless enough for her to have a head start.

Before she could think too hard and too long about what she was about to do, Alex snatched up one of the glass globes full of water and snow and Alana, then she pitched it right at Cade’s head.

It was a good throw—a great one, in fact. She put everything she’d ever learned from Charlie into it. All those years of instruction, of practice, combined with her increased strength, and she just knew that pitch was going to cause some damage.

Until Cade reached up with that surprising speed, snatching the thing out of the air an instant before it would have broken his nose.

Julian strode toward the back door, the change trickling over him like a winter wind. His jeans split at the seams, bursting open to allow his haunches free.

His fury at his brother for wrecking everything, combined with his fury at himself for not realizing it, allowing him to open the back door with hands on the end of paws before he shouted from a snout that should not have been able to form words, “Bring the others.”

Then he hit the ground loping, following the scent of Cade and Alex down the street, out of town, then around and around and around. He knew she couldn’t be far, but he also couldn’t figure out in what direction they’d gone.

The scents overlapped; they went one way, then curled back the other. He was so angry, so upset, so— yes, he admitted it—scared his focus was shot to shit. He felt as if his brain would explode, so he plopped onto his haunches and lifted his nose to the moon.

“Oooo www-exxxxx!” he called, and the moon answered.

Julian, it whispered in a voice that rumbled through his blood. Julian.

His head whipped to the right. There.

He pulled on his power and the next instant…

He saw her.

Alex went for the door. Of course he’d had her close it. Not that its being wide open would have helped. Not when he was ancient, and she was so brand new. His speed was legend, and hers…Well, hers was not.

Her fingers had no more than brushed the doorknob, and he was there, slamming her head against it, making her as dazed as she’d wanted him to be.

She recovered quickly enough, which made her realize that her plan had been crappier than she’d thought. Cade would have recuperated from glass to the noggin before she’d run fifty yards from the house.

“Nice try,” he said. “But I was kind of waiting for that. I read the dossier, remember? And there was that one article about you competing in a softball tournament.”

Her neck burned; she hissed in a breath that smelled of scalded flesh, ashes, and silver. The knife glittered next to her face.

“Everyone was so amazed at your talent. How fast you could pitch. How accurate and so darn hard. Where had you been? What had you been doing?” He chuckled. “I bet Edward loved that.”

“Not so much,” she managed through the pain. Was he going to hold that silver knife against her neck until she caught fire? And how could he hold silver anyway?

He lifted the blade from her skin, where he’d merely been resting it, though it had felt as if he’d plunged the weapon straight home, and she noted the thick iron hilt that kept the silver from touching him.

Edward had seen the article, too. Edward saw everything. Boy, had he let her have it.

Jäger-Suchers did not waste time; they did not play games. Jäger-Suchers did not allow their pictures to be taken; they definitely did not allow them to be printed in the paper. Jäger-Suchers did not draw attention.

Alex had never played in a softball tournament again.

“There was a follow-up article,” Cade said. “About how you disappeared. How your name was false. How you paid in cash. They even tried to match your fingerprints, but huh—the entire hotel room had been wiped down. And your van had fake plates.”

“Welcome to my world,” Alex muttered.

Cade slammed her head against the door again, then leaned in close and whispered, “Welcome to mine.”

In the distance the howl of a wolf lifted into the night. Alex realized how hard Cade had hit her when the howl began to sound like her name.

“Julian,” she whispered, and Cade smacked her again. Strangely he didn’t appear to hear that howl, or if he did he wasn’t worried. Which scared her more than the knife had. He should be more afraid of Julian.

“You ruined him,” Cade continued. “All he can think about is you. He let the most beautiful woman in the world walk away. You killed her, and yet he trails after you panting.” He yanked her upright. “Open the door.”

Still a little woozy, Alex said, “Wha—? Why?”

“I’m not going to defile her place with your blood.”

“Ashes.” Alex managed to get her hand on the handle, but it wasn’t easy. “Not blood.”

“You think I’m going to kill you fast?” Cade asked, then he picked her up by the back of the neck and tossed her into the night.

Alex skidded across the ice, the robe riding up to her hips, the uneven surface dragging furrows in her skin. She scrambled to her feet, and Cade landed on her back, driving her face into the snow.

“You killed her,” he said again, as if she didn’t already know. “You’re gonna pay in blood. Every last drop of it before you die.” He stood, hauling her along, too. “I’d like to study it anyway.” He turned the knife this way and that, considering the spark of moonlight across the blade. “For that I’ll need the blood outside and not in.”

He was stronger than she’d thought, quicker than he’d ever appeared as he dragged her to the rear of the monster truck and strapped her to the tailgate. The truck was so hopped up on its oversize tires that her feet barely touched the ground.

Alex fought, but Cade was no longer the lame little brother. She understood now that he never had been.

“You pretended to be a science geek—”

“I didn’t have to pretend that.” He slashed the knife through the air like Zorro. “I love playing with blood. You would not believe some of the things I’ve got cooking in my lab. Julian has no idea. He’s all brawn. Always has been. I could make a whole new monster with what I’ve got in there. Once I’m in charge, I’m going to. Edward won’t know what hit him.”

Alex’s eyes widened. Maybe Edward hadn’t been lying about everything. Maybe it was just that the werewolf army he’d suspected was the brainchild of a different Barlow, and maybe the army wasn’t even werewolves at all.

“Were you ever working on a serum to de-evil the other werewolves?”

“I wouldn’t do that to them. Why be a werewolf if you can’t enjoy killing people?”

“So you lied to your brother about the serum?”

Cade cocked his head, his gaze lowering to her chest. From the flare in his eyes, Alex figured the robe had drooped open.

She glanced down. She’d been right; the slight swell of her breasts was tipped by moonlight.

Another flash of silver and flames erupted from the four-inch slit Cade put in her chest. He’d obviously done this before, because he did it just right. If he cut too deeply she’d be doing a Joan of Arc imitation. Instead he just grazed the surface enough to cause blood to flow down her ribs like rain, putting out the tiny fire and leaving just a little bit of smoke.

“Honey,” Cade murmured, licking his lips, “I lied to my brother about everything.”

Boosted by his anger, Julian covered miles in an instant. He would have barreled right into Cade’s back if he hadn’t seen the flash of silver, caught the scent of flames and blood, then heard his brother’s words.

The wolf’s body sensed danger. Silver meant fire, and fire would kill. The human mind understood that Cade had a knife, and he was using it on Alex.

But he hadn’t killed her yet. Right now he was just playing with her, as a cat might play with a mouse right before he ate it.

And just like a cat, if something bigger threatened to take away that mouse—

Gulp.

So Julian fed his anger with the scent of blood and fear—Who dared mark her but him? Who dared scare her at all?—and he threw up his invisibility cloak just as Cade turned around.

His brother’s eyes narrowed. But there was nothing to see.

Cade spun back to Alex. “I’ve got all night. I can make this last. You’ll beg to die. You’ll wish you had.”

“Eat me,” Alex muttered.

“Oh, I plan to.”

Cade drew a test tube out of the pocket of his loose sweatpants. “First things first, just in case I get carried away.” He slid his fingers into the belt of the robe, then slid the flat of the knife along the smooth, flat expanse of her stomach. “Hmm,” he said.

“Don’t even think about it.”

Cade laughed. “I’ll think about what I want and do what I want. My days of listening to anyone are over.”

Alex lifted her eyes and seemed to look right at Julian. But she couldn’t know he was there. Except—

He sniffed. When he’d arrived he’d smelled her fear. He’d seen it in the stiff set of her body and the wariness in her eyes. Now…

He smelled blood but no fear. Flames but no panic. She seemed as relaxed as a woman-wolf could be while hanging from a monster truck with a psychotic werewolf running a silver blade over her abs.

“Whoops.” Cade’s wrist twitched, and a thin line of red appeared at Alex’s waist. She didn’t even flinch. Not when he cut her and not when the flames danced along the wound like a thousand tiny tongues.

Cade waited for the flicker of fire to die, then bent and licked the blood. As he straightened he stepped in and captured her mouth with his.

“Urgh,” Alex said, twisting and turning as if she was in greater pain than when she’d been bleeding and burning.

Cade lifted the hand that wasn’t holding the knife and cupped her breast, viciously tweaking the nipple until she gasped.

Julian erupted from the invisibility bubble, hands and feet sprouting from paws, even as his snout crunched inward to become both nose and mouth. If anyone had been watching it would have seemed as if he just appeared from thin air, a wolf pouring out of the ether and landing upon the earth as a man.

Before Julian could grasp his brother by the neck and wring it, Cade had danced to the side and the tip of the silver knife hovered just above Alex’s jugular.

“That’s what I thought,” Cade murmured.

“You are so fucked now,” Alex said.

Julian’s eyes widened. She had that much confidence in him? He wasn’t sure anyone else ever had.

“Let her go, Cade.”

“I’m done listening to you. She deserves to die for what she did to Alana.”

“Alana was never happy as a wolf.”

“She would have been!” Cade shouted. “If she’d been with me.”

“You were a werewolf, too, Cade,” Julian said softly. “And in the end, she hated it.”

“She would have grown to love it.”

“That’s what I thought, what I hoped. But the longer she was one of us—” Julian paused, then admitted the truth. “She was never one of us.”

Alana had never embraced being a werewolf, and once she’d learned the truth that had been denied her—

“Alana wanted to die. If it hadn’t been Alex, it would have been someone else.”

“You lie!” Cade roared, and the knife nicked her skin.

Zzzt!

The tiny flame sounded like a bug zapper, but Alex’s body jerked as if she’d been jolted by a cattle prod. Silver near a major artery appeared to be a very bad idea.

“Alana’s gone,” Julian said. “We can’t bring her back. Hurting Alex won’t change that.”

“No,” Cade agreed. “But it’ll make me feel better. And you’ll feel better, too, once she’s dead. She won’t be your mate anymore. You’ll be free.”

Julian’s eyes met Alex’s. Surprisingly, he didn’t want to be free if it meant no more her.

“He doesn’t care about you,” she said. “He wants me dead so you’ll be too sick to fight when he challenges you.”

Cade’s lips twitched. “I guess that cat’s out of the bag.” He tapped the tip against Alex’s neck again, and again flames spurted as she jerked.

“Stop!” Julian shouted despite himself.

Cade ignored him. “Did you know that she’s a spy?”

“Right.” Julian’s gaze was on Alex’s face, concerned at the paleness of it. Which was the only reason he saw the shift in her eyes. He glanced at Cade, who smirked.

“Edward told her that the werewolf who killed her father was here.”

“Is that true?” Julian asked.

Alex straightened her shoulders, the movement giving the impression of lifting her chin, even though she couldn’t without risking another painful zap from the knife. “Yes.”

“I could have told you that there was no murderer in my village.”

“Except for him?” She switched her gaze from Julian to Cade.

“She’s got you there, bro.”

Julian ignored Cade, his eyes on Alex. “Why didn’t you tell me about Edward?”

“I think she made an agreement, Julian. I think she’s supposed to give him you.”

He had to give her credit: She held his gaze, she didn’t look away. “Is that true?” he repeated.

“No.” She swallowed, the movement of her throat bringing her skin treacherously close to the knife. He barely had time for relief at her words before she continued, “I’m supposed to give him the whole damn village.”

A chill passed over Julian that had nothing to do with his standing buck naked in the middle of the Arctic. “And in return?” he asked.

“I lose my tail.”

Julian blew out a derisive breath. “Edward’s not going to cure you. He’s going to keep you. You’re the perfect spy. Hell, I trusted you.”

Her mouth trembled. “I know.”

He wasn’t sure if she was commenting on Edward’s duplicity or Julian’s trust, then decided it didn’t matter.

“So,” Cade said, “okay if I kill her now?”

“No.”

Cade’s eyebrows lifted. “You want to?”

Julian rubbed his forehead. “No.”

“Well, I’m not going to fight you until she’s dead.”

“I’m not going to fight you at all.”

“That’ll make it easier.”

“You can’t let him win,” Alex said urgently. “He’ll treat the Inuit like animals, chase them through the wilderness and hunt them down like…”

“Prey,” Cade murmured. “Great idea. I just figured I’d have my very own human farm. I could pick and choose what I’d like for dinner. But the werewolf version of ‘The Most Dangerous Game’ would be a lot more fun.”

“You think my wolves will stand for that?” Julian asked. “No one likes to kill but you.”

“They’ll do what I say.” He spread the fingers of the hand that wasn’t holding the knife. “Once you’re dead.”

“Will they?” Julian murmured, and his wolves emerged like an army from the trees.