Lori Handeland - Marked by the Moon

“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.

Julian ran until the stench of the city no longer filled his nostrils. Then he lay on the pine-needle-strewn ground and rolled until his fur smelled again like Alaska.

God, he hated leaving home. Which was damn funny considering he’d once done nothing but.

Julian had been born in Norway so long ago, his memories should have been hazy. Yet some were so clear they could have occurred yesterday. Burning and pillaging appeared to stay with a man for centuries.

Once his name had been Jorund the Blund. Julian shook his golden fur. Pine needles flew every which way. His hair, nearly white in his youth, and his height, tall even among Vikings, had marked him as different.

In battle, his men could see his pale head far above those of their enemies. Because of that, and his prowess with a sword, they’d followed him to the ends of the earth.

Or what had been the ends at the time. They’d conquered parts of Scotland, England, and Iceland. They’d plundered their way up and down several coasts. They’d done things Julian wished he didn’t remember.

He had an excuse. He’d been a Viking . What was he supposed to do, refuse to plunder and pillage? That was a good way to meet the pointy end of a sword. Besides, the concept that taking whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted it, because he could was wrong had never even occurred to him.

Not then.

Paw-steps approached, the slash of a body through the trees. Alex was closing in. He’d run ahead, eager to immerse himself in home. He had no worries that he would lose her. He wouldn’t be that lucky.

She burst through the branches, sending the fresh scent of pine into the air. They were going to have to talk about silence and stealth. Perhaps tomorrow when they could actually talk.

Alex, whose snout had been to the ground as she followed his scent, pulled up when she caught sight of him. Her lip lifted; a snarl rumbled.

Certainly werewolves could think like humans— reason, plan—they were faster, stronger, and they didn’t die without a silver bullet, but for the most part when they were wolves, they were wolves. Speech was beyond them.

However, they got their message across. Right now Alex was saying she’d kill him if she could.

Julian lifted his lip and snarled back. The feeling was mutual.

In truth, werewolf murder was rare. He’d heard it described as a fail-safe in the virus. Werewolves were selfish and vicious, and many were not quite sane. Therefore, if two met, they would fight to the death. Which would leave very few werewolves around.

Julian and his wolves were different. Yes, they became werewolves because of a virus, but they weren’t evil. They didn’t kill for the sake of killing. Excluding the first kill, they rarely killed at all— especially one another.

But they could.

Suddenly Alex tilted her head; her tail stiffened, her snout lifted, and a light breeze ruffled her tawny fur. She quivered once; then she was gone, racing through the trees at a pace only a werewolf would love. If she took one wrong turn in this dense cover she would smash headfirst into an immovable object and break her neck.

Too bad that wouldn’t kill her.

She disappeared into the distance, and Julian huffed an annoyed breath through his nose. Was she trying to step on every stick in the forest?

He followed, but at a more sedate pace. Julian had run snout-first into a tree before. He didn’t plan to do so again.

He found her sitting in a patch of moonlight, head tipped upward, mouth lolling open to catch the fat snowflakes that had just begun to fall.

For an instant he wanted to join her, to tumble her to the ground and wrestle as wolves did. To run and play, to hunt together, then later—

Mounting her as a wolf, again as a man. Fur against fur. Skin upon skin. His breath and hers, coming fast and sharp. Panting. The slick slide, that welcoming heat. She’d be tight, tighter still when she clenched around him and he—

Julian yipped in surprise at the images that cascaded through his mind. Alex yipped, too, startled, then glanced over her shoulder and showed him her teeth.

If wolves could laugh, Julian would have. Even if he didn’t despise her, she certainly despised him. He could fantasize all he wanted about fucking her, but it would never, ever happen. Alex found herself dazzled by everything. The world, when viewed as a wolf, was completely new. Scents swirled around her, and they told her things—a rabbit ahead, a mouse just there, a moose had meandered through not long ago.

The snow pattered like rain upon the ground, upon her, so much louder than snow should be. The night was silver and blue, exquisite, a shadow land that existed only for her.

Then Barlow blundered in and wrecked everything.

She was staring at the moon, fighting the bizarre urge to howl, when he yipped from just behind her. She nearly jumped out of her fur. Where had he come from? He moved as quietly as a wolf as he had as a man.

She, however, was having a hard time staying silent —and right now she was so hungry, she was wondering how Barlow would taste raw.

Glancing over her shoulder, she caught sight of a similar expression in Barlow’s too human eyes. He was wondering how she would taste also. But in a totally different way.

Barlow came toward her, and Alex scrambled to her feet, nearly collapsing when they tangled together. She could not get her mind around four feet, not two. By the time she righted herself he was gone, and she stood in the clearing alone with the moon.

Her stomach growled so loudly she started. Then she wasn’t sure if the skittering sound on the snow had been her own claws or the claws of another.

Her ruff went up, her wary gaze flicked around the open space, and she caught the scent of something “other.”

Scents in this form were so precise, yet she had nothing to connect them to. She knew that once she could put an image with that scent, she would never again forget it. But right now all she felt was an intense urge to run. So she did.