Marked by the Moon

8

Alex fell asleep again. Shape-shifting required voracious amounts of energy, and the one small rabbit Julian had left for her dinner would barely have taken the edge off her hunger. Combined with the adrenaline rush from being chased by a polar bear, then being severely injured, her becoming unconscious for several more hours had been a given.

Julian, however, was wide awake. He lay side by side with Alex, trying not to let their skin brush, but every once in a while it did. Then he would have a flash of them together, and the only way to make the images stop would be to think of Alana and how he had lost her.

This child—and Alex was a child, even without the nearly twelve centuries that separated them—had killed Alana in cold blood and without remorse. That he’d touched her, kissed her, been inside her, not only kept him awake but made him slightly ill. That his body kept responding as if it wanted to do so again eventually forced him to leave behind the warmth of the quilt and venture into the chill of the cave where he sat with his back against the hard, icy stone and stared at her sleeping face. She really was quite beautiful.

Julian growled a curse in Norwegian and banged his head against the wall. The resulting thud echoed throughout the small space and caused Alex to murmur what sounded suspiciously like his name.

What in Thor’s hammer had possessed him to bring her along? Besides the fact that he’d been physically unable to leave her behind.

By dusk the storm had petered out. The sun set in a clear sky, red and pink and orange rays spreading across a vista of ice and snow. Julian shape-shifted, relishing the brush of the wind in his fur and the drift of the last few snowflakes tumbling onto his face.

“Planning to leave without me?” Alex stood in the opening. The quilt around her shoulders only reached to the apex of her thighs.

Julian’s gaze was drawn to the long, toned length of her legs, and he remembered how they’d felt clasped around his hips as he’d pounded into her again and again—

“Wake up on the wrong side of the cave?” she murmured.

Only then did he realize he’d been growling.

Annoyed with himself for the hard-on he couldn’t seem to shake, and with her for giving it to him, Julian ran into the deepening gloom. Once Barlow’s tail disappeared over a near ridge, Alex dropped the blanket and changed.

She’d slept better than she could remember sleeping in years. Had that been because of the great sex or because for the first time since her father had died she hadn’t felt alone?

Alex caught the flash of Julian’s golden fur just ahead and increased her speed. How was it that a man she considered her enemy, an animal that had turned her into one, too, had made her feel secure enough in his presence to sleep peacefully for hours? Just because the man had made her come didn’t mean he was anything less than a beast.

They continued on throughout the night, moving farther and farther north. Julian appeared and disappeared ahead, but he never allowed Alex close enough to actually run at his side, and that was fine by her. Despite being housed in a wolf’s body, her woman’s mind remained confused.

She saw nothing but snow and ice and trees, a few bunnies, which she managed to catch and eat. Her legs were working almost in tandem with her brain tonight. She only tangled them together and fell once or twice.

Not long after midnight, lights sparkled on the horizon. Alex blinked and they disappeared. She figured they’d been a mirage, especially when they reappeared several times over the next few hours, winking out again each time she tried to focus on them more clearly.

The air was so cold her eyeballs ached. Maybe that was why.

They’d left the trees behind. Eons of ice and snow spread to the sky. Alex began to worry about what would happen when the sun came up and she changed. Naked, without any kind of shelter, life would become extremely unpleasant.

However, in that time of eternal darkness, when the moon drops away and the sun is not yet born, a light twinkled to her left. For an instant she thought perhaps it was the aurora borealis—something she’d heard of, though she wasn’t quite sure what it was.

She paused, snorting with surprise, the chill of the night and the warmth of her breath creating a cloud of mist about her head. When it cleared, she saw the lights hadn’t come from the sky but a village.

More of a city really, with streets and electrical poles, houses and businesses. Cars. Trucks.

Her snout hung open. This place appeared as modern as any small town in America. Probably because it was a small town in America.

She took one step forward, and Barlow howled— much farther up the trail.

Not that there was a trail. They’d left the road a few miles back and begun to cut across the tundra. Ahead lay nothing but ice and snow—mountains of it.

She glanced at the smoke trailing lazily out of chimneys. Who would want to continue into that seemingly impassable wilderness when they could remain here?

However if this wasn’t the werewolf village, and considering Barlow’s skirting of it she didn’t think so, she’d do better to stay away. She had a feeling that in these parts, people shot wolves on sight. They’d definitely blow her away if she loped into town. Wolves didn’t do that unless they were starving or rabid—two things that often warranted an express bullet to the brain.

They’d need a silver bullet, but she wouldn’t put it past the folks of Alaska to pack a few of those just in case.

Barlow howled again, and this time he was annoyed. That howl very clearly said: Come. With a side helping of: Now!

Alex snorted, pawing at the ice with her claws. She didn’t want to go, but she didn’t have much choice. Not only did his voice call to her, making her twitch with unease at the thought of disobeying him, but her human mind understood that to walk into that village—as either a wolf or a naked woman—was beyond her.

With a growl and grumble, Alex scrambled up a very tall, slippery embankment and tumbled down the other side. She shook the snow crust from her fur and continued on.

The going was rough. No human would be able to follow this trail without snowshoes and a lot of practice. Maybe a snowmobile, but it wouldn’t be easy. Alex glanced at the night sky. Perhaps a helicopter.

Another huge mountain of ice rose ahead. Barlow stood at the precipice, glaring at Alex as if she was the lamest werewolf in the land. Annoyed, she clambered upward. Right before she got there, he threw back his head and howled so loudly she lost her footing and slid halfway back down. By the time she recovered, he was gone.

She was so annoyed she didn’t at first see what lay on the other side. A second, much smaller village appeared to have popped free of the earth.

A single light in the town square created just enough glow to illuminate Barlow trotting down the street, and there was an odd humming, almost a buzzing, in the air.

Barlow turned and yipped. Alex took a step forward despite herself. She found Barlow’s “orders” damn hard to resist—all that alpha wolf, I-am-your-maker shit—which only made her more determined to resist them.

She forced herself to remain where she was despite his call. She would join him eventually. She didn’t have much choice. The werewolf that had murdered her father was part of Barlow’s pack. Barlow’s pack lived in this village. Therefore, she would enter.

When she was damn good and ready.

Barlow waited in the town square. The place was spooky silent. Businesses lined the street. But nowhere did she see a car or a truck. Of course she hadn’t seen a road, either, since they’d left the first village behind.

Houses rose behind the commercial district, chimneys smoking. Lights flickered here and there, and she suddenly understood that the odd hum was the buzz of the generators that powered the place. Beyond that buzz she heard not a single rumble of a car, or even the bark of a dog.

In the space of a blink, Barlow changed from wolf to man. For an instant she envied him that power. She hated being vulnerable for the time it took her to morph into a woman.

“I want you to meet my people,” he said.

Alex glanced around the deserted town pointedly. She had to wonder where he was hiding that werewolf army.

“Shape-shift,” he ordered.

Alex stuck out her tongue. The long, languid, loose organ flopped free of her mouth and she drooled, which was not the effect she’d been hoping for.

“Suit yourself,” he muttered, then he threw back his head and howled.

Alex skittered, startled by both the action and the sheer volume. Her ears, super-sensitive in this form, rang, and her throat ached with the desire to answer.

She could not drag her gaze from the man, big and bronzed and naked in the half-light, as the howl of an alpha wolf curled toward the slowly lightening sky. If she’d had human skin, it would have had goose bumps. As it was she shook herself vigorously to make the odd tingle go away.

Alex turned her gaze toward the buildings, expecting his people to answer that call, but no one opened the doors and stepped outside. No one walked in from the side streets. No headlights blazed in the distance.

She turned to Barlow, ready now to reach for her humanity, to shape-shift into herself if only to ask him what the hell, and she saw them.

Dozens of wolf-shaped shadows materialized from the gloom.

Alex glanced at the empty village, then back at the approaching cadre of wolves. Huh. It hadn’t occurred to her that the whole town would spend the night hunting together. In her experience, werewolves were solitary. Of course she was starting to understand that Barlow and his wolves were nothing like the ones she’d known.

They loped across the expanse of snow and ice, even as the approaching dawn crept up behind them, sweeping down like a tidal wave. The instant the sun touched their tails, they changed, tumbling end over end just as Alex had yesterday. But unlike Alex, they gracefully gained their feet, continuing toward the village on two legs instead of four.

The sun moved inexorably forward, changing each and every werewolf from beast to man or woman. By the time the pack ran into town, they were human.

Their faces reflected joy—Alex thought because of the night they’d spent in the woods. She understood now the ecstasy of running, the cool wind in her fur, incredible speed at her beck and call, feeling at one with the earth, the trees, the land—at home in a way she’d never felt before.

Alex tensed. This wasn’t home. What she had experienced was the collective consciousness of this pack. It would fade; it wasn’t real, and she needed to remember that.

However, the joy of the others didn’t appear to be residual spunkiness from their nightly frolic. Instead, their happiness stemmed from Julian’s return. Every person came to him, and he set his hand upon them. A shoulder here, a cheek there, the top of a head, a pat on the back. Once he’d done so, they let out a sigh of utter peace and moved aside so the next supplicant could step forward.

Alex was so fascinated with their behavior and his, she neglected to keep her eye on the sun. Just as the last person was blessed by Barlow, and everyone turned to her, the rays of dawn cast over her face, and she shifted.

Julian waited for Alex to break and run—to burst into the grocery store, the bank, the café and try to find something, anything with which to cover herself.

But to her credit, she didn’t. She straightened from four legs to two, either refusing to be embarrassed by her nakedness or not embarrassed at all. If that was the case, she was adapting to being a werewolf much quicker than most. Even Alana—

Julian frowned. Alana had needed help to adjust; she hadn’t quite fit in. They’d fallen in love while Julian instructed the shy, sweet young woman in the ways of the werewolf world.

He pulled his attention from the past into the present where his people stood naked in the dawn’s hazy light. No one cared. They were pack. They had nothing whatsoever to hide.

“I told you to shift,” he murmured. “If you’d have listened, you could have grabbed some clothes before I called them.”

“I’ll shift when I want to,” she said. “Or when I have to. Not when you tell me to.”

He’d been right about her defying him. And about his enjoying it.

“Besides,” she continued. “They don’t have clothes; you don’t have clothes. Why should I have clothes?”

“Frostbite?”

“I’ll heal frostbite easier than I healed—” She glanced at her ribs. The bruises and the scratches were gone. She met his eyes and shrugged.

His people began to shuffle impatiently. The initial change left them warm enough to withstand the extreme cold. But the longer they were human, the more human they were, and while frostbite could be healed, it would have to wait until the moon rose to do so completely. A day of frostbite on tender extremities would not be a day full of sunshine.

“Everyone welcome Alexandra Trevalyn,” he said. “Alex. She is one of us.”

He felt her swift glance. Had she thought he would reveal her past? If his pack knew she was the hunter who had killed his wife, they would kill her.

If he’d wanted her dead, he would have ended her himself. Before he’d made her a werewolf.

Everyone moved closer, welcoming her. Pack members were touchy-feely, and that made Alex uncomfortable. Julian crossed his arms over his chest and watched as she tried not to squirm.

A sudden insight stunned him. He had not planned to bring her here. Therefore, he had not brought along the serum that would allow her to touch anyone but him in human form. Which meant she should now be writhing on the ground in agony along with everyone who had touched her.

“Enough,” he barked.

His people turned to him in surprise. Welcoming a new pack member meant getting to know their scent, their touch, and letting the new member get to know yours. They believed Alex had taken her medicine, as they all had. So why was he stopping them?

Since he couldn’t tell them that something very strange was going on, he chose to tell them nothing.

“Ella.” Julian addressed the oldest female in the pack —a dark, thin Frenchwoman who appeared the same age as Alex but in truth had narrowly escaped the guillotine during la révolution. “See that she gets settled.”

Ella moved forward, hand outstretched. Alex frowned, staring at Ella’s palm as if she had no idea what the woman wanted. She wasn’t afraid; she must have come to the conclusion that since she could touch Julian, she could touch everyone.

Alex backed up a few steps. “I’ll—uh—be right back.” She moved out of the crowd and came to Julian. “Where will I stay?”

“With Ella.”

“But I—” She broke off, biting her lip. “I just met her.”

“You just met everyone.”

“Not you.”

Julian blinked. “You want to stay with me?”

“I don’t want to,” she said at the same time he said, “That wouldn’t be smart.”

“Because of yesterday?” she asked.

The instant the words left her mouth, Julian remembered the taste of that mouth, the feel of it on his body, the scent of her all around him, and his penis leaped.

“Faen,” he muttered. Shit! He was naked. If he got a hard-on now—

He didn’t want to think about that. In fact, he’d better not think about it or he’d definitely get one.

Her eyebrows lifted, and her lips twitched as if she knew his every thought. “What if I promise not to jump you?”

“You’re admitting that you did jump me?”

“No.”

Her defiance caused amusement to flicker, quickly followed by annoyance at both his reaction and the sight of her face. How could he be both attracted and repelled by her every minute of every day? He wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake her, at the same time he wanted to throw her down on the ground and take her.

“Ella,” Julian snapped, and strode away without bothering to reiterate his orders. It was a sign of weakness to repeat himself, and Julian could not afford to be weak.

Just because he was their leader, and had been for close to a century, did not mean a wolf wouldn’t challenge him if given the opportunity. Julian had managed to keep the peace because he was the strongest, the biggest, the baddest when he chose to be. No one dared question him.

Except Alex.

He sighed, wondering if he might have to kill her after all.