Lori Handeland - Marked by the Moon

“Most of my men were related to me in some way.” It made for less hassle on the high seas. If everyone was related, there was a slimmer chance of not only mutiny, but wholesale slaughter as well.

“Go on,” Alex said.

“I just told you everything.”

“Not everything. Why does an entire Inuit village in the twenty-first century call one man master? Not very PC.”

“PC,” he repeated, his mind churning to find a meaning.

“Yeah, you really fit in,” she muttered. “Politically correct. We did away with master in this country about a hundred and fifty years ago.”

“I didn’t tell them to call me that.”

“You didn’t stop them, either.”

“It’s a courtesy title. It doesn’t have the connotations you’re giving it.”

“They still consider you the boss of them, and I want to know why.”

Julian took a deep breath and continued. “I returned a century ago.”

“Scene of the crime,” she murmured, but he ignored her.

“I brought my wolves. We wanted to live at peace.”

“Alaska is huge. You had to build in their backyard?”

At first Julian had come merely to see the place he’d idealized in his mind, one he’d visited while he was still human. But then he’d caught a glimpse of all the blue-eyed Inuit…

“Family is important.” Especially since he’d thought the only family he had left was Cade. Especially since he’d never have any children, any descendants but the ones he’d found here.

Something flickered in Alex’s eyes. Sadness? Anger? Guilt? He couldn’t say. The expression was there and gone so fast, and he didn’t really know her that well at all.

Not that he wanted to. Not that he would . Once they finished this discussion, he’d leave her to Ella and interact with her as little as possible. Because every time he saw Alex, he remembered Alana.

Eventually.

“I protect them,” he said.

“From what?”

“Everything. Anything.”

“Wow! How did they survive a thousand years without you, Jorund?”

Pretty well. Until he’d set up a werewolf village right next door.

“You’re protecting them from you,” Alex said slowly. Could she read his face, or just his mind? “From the city of monsters you plopped down right next to them. Talk about extortion!”

“I do more for them than just ascertain none of my people…” He waved his hand in the general direction of Awanitok.

“Snack?” she supplied.

He ignored her. “They live in the way that they wish. No interference from the government.”

“How do you manage that?” she asked, but before she even finished the last word, her face lit with understanding. “Magic.”

He shrugged. “How else do you deal with the government?”

She tilted her head. “Go on.”

“My Inuit have no trouble hunting. Their crafts are the most coveted in tourist centers everywhere.”

“You bribe them.”

“An ancient method,” he agreed. “But it works.”

“And in return they give you…” He watched comprehension dawn in her eyes, quickly followed by condemnation. “Oh, you suck!”

“I’m sorry?”

“They give you a sacrifice, but this time it isn’t boinking the Indian maiden. This time it’s blood.”

“A fair exchange.”

Fury suffused her face. She pushed back from the table and stood over him, fists clenched. “I should know better.” Her jaw was tight; he could practically hear her back teeth grinding together. “You say you’re different, but you aren’t. You’re just like every other werewolf in the world; you have no respect for human life.”

“I have more respect than you do.”

“She wasn’t human.”

And they were back to that again. Julian had hoped Alex would begin to understand once she was here, once she could see. But it had only been a day and—

“Wait a second.” He grabbed one arm, and she took a swing at him with the other. He caught her wrist before it smashed into his face, then he shook her just once. “What’s human life got to do with anything?”

Her eyes widened, and the angry color drained from her cheeks. “They’re your family, yet you chase them through the woods beneath the full moon, and you tear them into pieces.”

“What?” he shouted, releasing her as he straightened to his full height. Barlow towered over her, and for an instant Alex was reminded of the polar bear, roaring and posturing. She half expected him to shape-shift into one. She’d studied berserkers, and in the legends many could turn into both a wolf and a bear. She wouldn’t put it past Barlow to have left that part out.

But he didn’t shift, not even his paws. Instead, he closed his eyes, and his lips moved silently, as if in prayer.

“How do you pray and not burst into flames?” she wondered aloud.

He opened one eye, which was all he needed to give her a very impressive glare before he snarled, “Explain why you think I’m accepting human sacrifices.”

The rumble beneath the surface revealed just how close the beast within him had come. Oddly, Alex wasn’t scared. Considering what she’d just learned, she wasn’t sure why.

“Werewolves must kill, then consume fresh human blood on the night of the full moon,” Alex said. “I knew that even before I became one.”

“We require blood, yes.” He opened both eyes, and though the blue had hardened to the color of ice beneath a clear, summer sky, they still bored into hers with such heat she was surprised her corneas didn’t explode. “But blood and death are two very different things.”

“How would you—? Can you—?” She leaned back. “Wait. What?”

“I have told you over and over that my wolves are different. Our full moon craving can be satisfied with blood. No death involved.”

“The Inuit give you blood,” Alex clarified. “Like some full moon communion?”

“If you like.” His lips tightened. “You really thought I’d let my wolves kill one person a month?”

“You let me kill someone,” Alex said softly.

He looked away. “That was different.”

“Oh, right. I needed to understand .” Alex allowed the full weight of her sarcasm to fall on the last word.

“Yes,” he agreed. “But I didn’t have much choice once I’d made you.”

“You could have not made me,” Alex muttered.

Barlow ignored her. “Every new wolf must kill the first time or embrace madness. Even my wolves, if that initial kill isn’t accomplished, become killing machines ever after.”

“You think that’s what happened to the wolf that’s stalking the Inuit?”

“No. All of the wolves here were made by me and brought into this life with their consent.”

“Not all,” she said.

“All the ones that count.”

Well, she’d asked for that. “Were every one of your wolves given a very bad man as their first meal?”

“Not every one.”

“When did you grow a conscience?”

His eyes narrowed. “I became a werewolf in the ninth century. Conscience was a little different back then.”

“I suppose you just tossed them a conquered captive and called it a day.”

When he didn’t answer, she knew she was right. She also knew that living for eons meant that a lot of things had changed, including how people viewed right and wrong. Judging a Viking with the mores of the twenty-first century was as backward as he had once been.

She didn’t like cutting Barlow any slack, but to be fair she had to.

“You’re certain none of your wolves might have made another and let him or her run wild, so to speak?”

“They wouldn’t dare.”

Alex snorted. She couldn’t help it. “Not everyone is as beta as you think.”