Marked by the Moon

4

Alex moved into position with Barlow as if they’d been fighting together for years.

The five young men dropped everything but their knives and approached holding the weapons as if they knew exactly what to do with them. Alex wasn’t worried. Knives were made of steel, not silver; any wound they might have the good fortune to land would heal.

The boys rushed forward, and Alex decked the guy who’d dared to finger her pan ties. He flew off his feet and smacked into another one. They hit the pavement; their knives clattered every which way, and they lay still.

Alex glanced at her fist. She could get used to this.

Hyped, she bounced on the balls of her feet, spinning toward a third guy. She caught the scent of steel and jerked away an instant before the knife slashed her cheek. Barlow tackled him, and the two went down in a tangle of arms and legs.

A wild punch caught Alex on the chin. Her head snapped back, but she didn’t go down.

“What the hell?” the guy muttered; then his eyes widened as Alex started to laugh. The blow hadn’t even hurt.

He turned to run, and Barlow kicked the kid in the chest. Alex sidestepped as the boy sailed five feet and landed in a heap. He didn’t move, either.

The one Barlow had tackled lay immobile, the fifth—

“Watch out!” Alex shouted, and Barlow rammed his elbow backward, catching his attacker in the gut.

“Ooof,” the kid said, then dropped to his knees. His eyes rolled back, and he toppled over like a well-hit bowling pin.

Alex’s harsh, excited breathing was the only sound that broke the resulting silence. Barlow wasn’t even winded.

“That was—” Alex clenched and unclenched her hands. “Freaking fabulous.”

“Learn to pull your punches,” Barlow said, refusing to look at her. “You could kill someone, even in this form.”

He walked to the van, opening the driver’s-side door and climbing inside. Alex stared after him and thought again: Since when does killing bother a werewolf? Right now, it didn’t bother her. Right now, if someone came at her with the intent to turn her to ashes, she’d kill him with ease and probably dance a jig on his broken bones.

What was wrong with her? She was behaving more like a beast than the king beast.

The adrenaline rush faded, and Alex was left in a cold sweat, her hands lightly shaking.

“Alexandra!” Barlow roared from the van.

Alex glanced at the bodies flung all around; her heart slowed as she noted that each one was still breathing before she followed him.

“Keys,” he snapped as soon as she climbed inside.

“What’s your problem?” she asked. “You said, ‘Let’s kick their ass.’”

“Seemed like a good idea at the time.”

It had. In fact, it had seemed like a fantastic idea right up until the time the stillness had descended, and she’d realized how much fun she’d had, how easy it had been to hurt people, and how much she’d wanted to keep doing it.

Alex was both energized by their success and seriously worried by it. What was the weird connection between them, and how could she break it?

“Alexandra,” Barlow murmured.

“Alex,” she returned. The last time someone had called her Alexandra, finger painting had been the most important thing on her schedule, followed by snack and an afternoon nap.

“Your keys?”

Her hand went to her pocket before she remembered this wasn’t her pocket. “I think they’re back in that room.” She put her palm against the passenger window. One of the boys stirred. Another groaned. “With my clothes.”

Barlow muttered a word in another language, and despite her not understanding it she knew it to be a curse. “We need to get out of LA,” he said. “The cops are going to figure this out.”

“Right. They’ll decide the torn clothes are because someone shifted into a werewolf, and the keys on the floor belong to—” She paused. “How will they figure out who they belong to?”

“Your ID?” he suggested.

“I was a Jäger-Sucher once. That translates to ‘hunter,’ not moron. No ID.”

He placed his hands on the steering column, closed his eyes, and…was that a growl? She wasn’t sure since, seconds later, the van started like magic.

“You’re some weird werewolf,” she said.

He ignored her. “You don’t have any ID?”

“I didn’t say I had no ID, just that I had no ID on me.”

Reaching forward, she tapped the side of her fist into a plastic square above the radio. Instead of popping open to reveal the secret compartment, the plastic shattered into a hundred charcoal-gray shards.

“Whoops,” she muttered.

“What did I say about pulling your punches?” he asked.

“Only do it when I’m not punching you?”

He gave a short bark of laughter, and Alex nearly joined in. Would have if she hadn’t already reached into the hole and pulled out her fake driver’s license and the single photo she had of her father, Charlie.

The sight of his face brought everything back. The years they’d spent on the road, the closeness they’d shared after her mother had…died.

They’d been the perfect family. Father with a good job. Mother who stayed home. Cute little girl who adored them both.

Every night after work, Charlie would take Alex to the park while his wife, Janet, made supper. He had loved softball—both watching and playing it—and he’d imparted that love to Alex. Even at five, she’d had her own glove, and she’d been able to catch pretty darn well. But what she’d loved more than the game itself was the time with Daddy.

Until there’d come a night when they’d returned to their house not long after dark and instead of supper, they’d found a nightmare.

Charlie’d had a secret life, one he hadn’t shared with Janet. He’d thought he left his Jäger-Sucher past behind him. He’d changed his name; he’d even changed his face. Unfortunately he hadn’t changed his scent. He couldn’t, and his past had sniffed him out.

One of the werewolves that had gotten away found him. Or rather, he found Janet. Then he killed her.

His mistake was in waiting for Charlie. Because even though Charlie worked in a hardware store now, even though he pretended to be just another guy, he still kept silver bullets in the gun he’d locked in the trunk of his car, and he could still shoot with the accuracy of the marine sniper who’d trained him.

Luckily her father had a sixth sense about danger, or maybe he’d just smelled the blood. He’d told Alex to run to the neighbor’s and play with their new kitten. By the time he’d picked her up, he’d packed the essentials into their car and called Edward to clean up the mess.

Charlie had rejoined the Jäger-Suchers. He hadn’t felt like he had any choice. He’d never be free of his past, and his daughter would never be safe unless he killed every last monster on earth.

He’d made a mistake keeping the secret. But he would rectify that by teaching Alex all that he knew so she could never be surprised as her mother had been.

It hadn’t been easy, but they’d managed. Werewolves hunted at night, and Charlie did, too, long after Alex was asleep. She’d been old enough to understand that something bad had happened to her mommy in the dark, and she knew better than to venture into it alone.

As she got older, she saw things, things that made her desperate to learn all her father had to teach.

So Charlie taught, Alex learned—how to kill werewolves, how to add and subtract—and when they had a little downtime between assignments, they played catch, just like they had when they’d still had a home.

Alex’s eyes suddenly burned with tears she could not shed. Because if Barlow saw her crying over Daddy and Mommy, he’d know something was wrong with her.

When people become werewolves, their humanity dies. They lose all allegiance to their family, their friends, to anyone or anything but themselves.

Alex glanced at Barlow out of the corner of her eye as she slid the photo of her father beneath the seat.

So what was wrong with him?

Julian was spooked, but he didn’t let it show. He’d learned long ago—before he’d even become what he was—to keep his emotions in check. Emotions were a weakness he couldn’t afford. Just look where his love for Alana had gotten him.

Here with this woman-wolf who was really freaking him out.

His lips twitched at the slang. It had taken him a few decades to figure out that the only way to fit in was to learn the local lingo and use it. Of course now that he no longer needed to fit in, he could probably do so without any problem at all.

He had no idea why he’d encouraged the fight. Perhaps to see what Alex could do in human form. He needed to know all he could about her before he brought her into his inner sanctum. He definitely hadn’t beaten those boys senseless because of the hint of sadness that had billowed around her like fading perfume.

Julian’s fingers clenched on the steering wheel. She was still sad. He could smell it.

It had taken him a few centuries to hone his human senses until they were nearly as sharp as his wolf’s. Trust a Norseman to adapt. It was one of the many things they were good at.

Of course he’d never adapted this well. He could smell anger, violence, fear. That was easy. But he couldn’t recall ever smelling sadness before. Even with Alana.

Julian drove to the crappy motel near LAX, parked around back, and got out.

Alex got out, too. “What gives?”

“You can’t get on a plane like that,” he said.

The blood on her body had seeped through the T-shirt and the sweatpants he’d given her, creating a gory polka-dot pattern. The fight had torn a few holes, added another level of dirt. She still wasn’t wearing any shoes.

Alex followed him into the dingy, dank room he’d rented when he’d arrived only a few days ago. The place smelled of a hundred others. He couldn’t wait to get home.

“Use the shower,” he ordered.

“What if I don’t want to?” she asked, but she was already headed that way.

As soon as the lock clicked on the bathroom door— foolish on her part, no door would keep him out if he truly wanted to get in—Julian pocketed the key and returned to her van.

He sat on the passenger side, slid his hand beneath the seat, pulled out the photo she’d hidden there. A man—same eyes, same smile, hair closer to chestnut than Alexandra’s shade of light brown. He was of average height, thin and rangy, with gold-rimmed glasses and big, hard, capable hands.

Charlie Trevalyn—Alex’s missing father.

Julian knew the man must have been killed, most likely by werewolves considering Alex’s loathing for them. Of course there was no record of such a thing. Just as there was none of what had happened to her mother. Why would there be?

Werewolf kills were sometimes written off as rabid animal attacks, but usually people just disappeared. When they did, Edward Mandenauer was often involved.

Julian put the photo of Charlie back where he’d found it and returned to the hotel room. He placed a call to the airport and let his pilot know when he wanted to leave. By the time he hung up, sweat had broken out on his brow, dampened the back of his shirt, and begun to run down his neck. Sometimes werewolf senses were a gift and other times, like now, a curse.

He heard every drop splashing against her body, swirling downward, cascading over her shoulders, her breasts, belly, thighs. He could smell the soap, the shampoo, hear the swish of her hands as she washed.

If he closed his eyes he could see the water, the bubbles, the stroke of fingers against skin. His tongue darted out to wet his lips, and he tasted her—that mouth, her neck, the blood.

“Shit. Fuck. Hell.” Sometimes if he cursed in English he managed to draw his mind away from whatever he was cursing about. But not this time. He could still see her naked body, hear her rapid breathing, smell the soap mixing with her tangy scent.

He opened his eyes. Steam trailed out from beneath the door, snaking toward him like a magical mist, enticing him to do things he should not. He’d taken several steps forward before he stopped, turned, and forced himself to retreat, to stare out the window at the coming dawn and once again count to ten, then fifty, then a hundred in Norwegian, trying to shake the bizarre sense of destiny from his brain. Alex had closed the door behind her—locked it, too— then turned on the shower. When she’d stepped beneath the water, she’d discovered that the usual just-short-of-scalding temperature she preferred was something she preferred no longer. Tepid was all she could stand against skin that felt like she’d been lying naked in the tropical sun for hours with no respite—or sunscreen.

She easily scrubbed off the blood and the dirt, but no matter how hard she tried, no matter how long she rubbed, she couldn’t get rid of the scent of werewolf. That scent was part of her now.

She had a sudden flash of Barlow’s hands on her breasts, his tongue in her mouth, and everything she’d felt in that small clip of time she’d spent in his arms rushed back. Despite her hatred of werewolves, and him in particular, she’d wanted the man more than she’d ever wanted anyone else.

There was definitely something hinky about Julian Barlow.

Mind control? Witchcraft? A magic spell? Maybe all three. She’d find out of course. Finding out was what she did best—along with killing.

His brush lay on the sink; Alex used it even though the mingling of his golden strands with her light brown made her edgy. After wrapping herself tightly in a scratchy hotel towel, Alex opened the door. A fresh set of clothes lay on the floor just outside.

She snatched them up without even looking around. The clothes, obviously his, fit badly. The jeans were huge—she threaded a length of what appeared to be telephone cord through the belt loops to hold them up —the tank top, too. She didn’t really want to wear his boxers, but what choice did she have? The long-sleeved shirt, heavy socks, and bulky, tree-hugger sandals were also too large. She managed by pulling the straps as tight on her feet as they’d go.

When Alex stepped into the room again, the first thing she saw was Barlow staring out the window. The night had turned gray as dawn approached. In the distance she caught the twinkling lights of LAX, so numerous and bright they seemed like stars that had fallen to the earth.

The room smelled of smoke—but not cigarettes— reminding her of the small towns she and her father had passed through, places where they’d burned their garbage in the backyard. The scent made her ache with the echo of loneliness.

Every dusk had brought another monster; every dawn had brought another town. They never got friendly. It didn’t pay. Who knew when the kid you’d struck up a friendship with might turn out to be the next werewolf victim, or perhaps the next werewolf.

“We should get to the airport,” Barlow murmured without turning. “We leave in an hour.”

Alex opened her mouth to question him, then thought better of it. She’d know soon enough where they were going. All she’d have to do was read her boarding pass.

Except they didn’t fly commercial. Barlow had his very own plane.

They also didn’t leave in an hour. Something needed to be adjusted, and when dealing with planes Alex was all for adjusting it, however long that might take. She sat in a hard plastic chair and watched Barlow pace. He seemed more like a wild animal now than when he’d been one.

At last the pilot motioned for them to board. Alex reached for her ID, then remembered she’d left her license on the table in the hotel when she’d gone into the shower, then she’d never seen it again. The scent of burning waste in the room suddenly made a lot more sense.

“You burned my ID?” she whispered furiously.

“You won’t need it where we’re going.”

“Just because you have your own plane doesn’t mean we don’t have to show ID.”

He smiled. “It does on my plane.”

“But—”

“If you have enough money you can buy anything. Especially anonymity. I’d think you would have learned that from Mandenauer.”

Barlow got on board, leaving Alex to follow or not. Though she had no doubt that if she chose not, he’d make her.

They flew away from the sun, out over the Pacific. Just when Alex had begun to obsess about landing in China or Russia or some Stan country with a lot of caves and disappearing forever, the pilot turned toward land, then tilted the nose north.

“You’ll see Fairbanks before you know it,” he announced through the headphones they’d all donned along with their seat belts.

Alaska?

No wonder Edward had never found them.

Several hours later they flew over Fairbanks. The pilot couldn’t help playing tour guide.

“Fairbanks has one of the largest population centers this far north in the world. About thirty thousand in the town, and another eighty-four thousand in there.” He pointed to the acres upon acres of trees. “Place is surrounded by hundreds of miles of subarctic bush.”

“How cold does it get?” Alex asked.

The guy grinned, enjoying himself. “In January down to sixty-six below; in July it can hit ninety-nine.”

“What about right now?”

“September is a strange one. We’ve had snow, temps in the teens. Today it’s probably forty.” He waved at the western horizon where the sun was falling down. “But it’s gonna cool off soon.”

“Kind of early to be getting dark.”

“You’re near the Arctic Circle. In December they only see the sun for a few hours.”

Alex definitely needed to be out of here before December.

The plane banked over the city, which appeared fairly modern, full of paved streets, concrete and steel buildings. She even caught the bright flare of golden arches; then they sailed past, headed toward some pretty thick timber. The trees were so tall, the belly seemed to skim the branches.

“Where’s the airport?” Alex asked, and her voice shook just a little.

Barlow lifted a brow and mouthed, Scared?

She turned away.

“I don’t need no stinkin’ airport,” the pilot answered in a very bad Speedy Gonzales accent.

Alex almost panicked—until she remembered she couldn’t die. Unless the vehicle was pure silver, and if so neither Barlow nor she would be flying in it. This damn-hard-to-kill thing was kind of liberating.

The pilot set the plane down on a gravel road that wound among towering pines. They climbed out; he waved and was gone.

“Now what?” Alex asked.

“Now we run.”

“Run?” She turned in a circle. All she saw was trees. “Where?”

“Two hundred miles.” Barlow pointed. “That way.”

Alex followed his finger, which pointed north and a little west.

What was it about this place that was so familiar? She closed her eyes for a second. Trees. Earth. Sunshine and shadow. Ice on distant mountaintops. The very air smelled like him.

“This is home,” she murmured.

When Alex opened her eyes, Barlow stared at her as if she’d just sprouted another head.

“What?” she asked.

He looked away. “The sun’s nearly down.”

“Great catch, Sherlock,” she muttered.

The way he watched her, so intent one minute, then dismissive the next, grated on Alex’s already taut nerves.

“I can’t run two hundred miles.”

“Yes.” He began to unbutton his shirt. “You can.”

“You mean—”

“Wolves can run forty miles per hour, cover a hundred and twenty-five miles in a day.” He tossed his shirt into the trees. “Werewolves are wolves, only better.”

Or worse, depending on your point of view.

The sun had slipped below the horizon, and soon the moon would appear. Round, seemingly full to the human eye, Alex still sensed the slight difference. She didn’t have to change, but oh, how she wanted to.

The howl startled her so badly she jumped. Barlow had already shifted and paced back and forth at the edge of the wood. The urge to join him was impossible to ignore.

Alex threw off the shirts, the shoes, the jeans, and let the cool silver hum of the moon surrounded her. The power poured into her. She reached for the wolf; her body contorted. She writhed and wriggled, struggled and strained. It took her a lot longer than it had taken him, but eventually she succeeded.

Then together they ran into the night.