Lori Handeland - Marked by the Moon

But the monsters are out there, and without people like Alex and her father, every person on the earth will eventually be a victim. Charlie’s mistake wasn’t made when he became a Jäger-Sucher. His mistake was in believing he could ever not be one.

“Rogue black bear a few hours from here,” Charlie answers. “Northern Alabama.”

“Is it really a bear?” Alex lays down her fork. Her father is already pulling out his wallet to pay the bill. When Elise calls, they move, because if they don’t, people die.

Charlie merely lifts a brow. Elise wouldn’t have called if it were really a bear.

“I meant, is it a bear shifter or code for werewolf?”

“Guess we’ll find out.” Charlie tosses some money onto the table.

Ten hours later, they do. The hard way.

They perform their recon same as always. Head into town and split up, Charlie to the police station, followed by the hospital and the newspaper office, where he learns all he can with a little help from his Jäger- Sucher –supplied fake IDs. His favorites, which label him a warden for various Departments of Natural Resources, usually get him access to just about everything.

Alex works the locals, hanging out in the coffee shop, the diner, the pharmacy, the gas station—anyplace where people might discuss what’s going on in their town. They’re often more willing to talk to a kid than the hunting and fishing police.

Go figure.

When each has discovered all he or she needs to know, they meet at the local ball field, where they play catch and share info. It’s what they do, what they’ve always done, the single connection they’ve kept to the life that died with Janet.

By the time Alex and Charlie head into the hills that night, they believe they are on the trail of a standard werewolf. Stronger, faster, better than the average wolf, with human-level intelligence, but nothing unexpected. Nothing that will prevent them from killing it with the silver bullets they keep in their guns.

In her sleep, Alex stirred, hoping to wake up before the bad thing happened. She even heard herself whimpering, the way she’d whimpered when the night had gone still, and she’d realized she was alone and would be for the rest of her life.

It happens so fast. One minute they are moving through the trees, confident, sure, their rifles ready, their pistols, too, the next a figure steps out of the trees. That it steps, as in on two feet, causes her father, causes Alex, to hesitate, and that is their fatal mistake.

The werewolf takes Charlie down with one swipe of its massive paw. The claws, razorsharp, slice through his jugular with the ease of a sword through whipped cream. The spray of blood arches like a glistening black fountain across the silver moonlight, plopping against last year’s leaves like rain.

The monster shoves Charlie Trevalyn aside as if he is nothing more than a gnat in the way of a windshield wiper, before falling onto all fours and moving toward Alex with the flash of speed common to the breed.

Julian had plenty of work to catch up on, but the moon called, and he was helpless to resist.

Not that he wanted to. The instant he stepped beneath the cool, silvery glow, he felt calmer. Since Alex had left, he’d felt anything but.

Hell. Since Alex had become like him, he’d been feeling a lot of things and calm wasn’t one of them. He was starting to believe that his plan for her might not have been one of his brighter ideas.

Gee, ya think?

Considering he continued to hear her mocking commentary in his head even when she wasn’t around…yeah, he thought.

Julian drew off his shirt, shucked his pants and everything beneath. Shadows flitted through the streets —woman-shaped, manshaped, wolf-shaped; his people had been marked by the moon just like him.

He jogged toward the tundra, the change rippling along his skin, warming him, soothing him. Often, when he had a seemingly unsolvable problem, clearing his mind and giving in to the wolf helped. By the time he came back from an all-night romp across this icy land with nothing in his head but the concerns of an animal, the answers to his all-too-human problems would be clear.

He raced through town; the buildings on either side of him became a blur as he gained superhuman speed. He would leap from the streets of Barlowsville as a man and land in the wilderness as a wolf.

Julian gathered his power, pushing off with his feet, reaching for his beast, and he heard a soft, heart-wrenching whimper.

He came down hard but not on his paws; he ignored the burn of ice across his bare skin as he turned toward the sound. His gaze zeroed in on Ella’s house—dark, seemingly deserted, yet he knew it had been her.

The thought of what might make Alexandra Trevalyn whimper had Julian heading with equal speed back in the direction he’d come. Dozens of figures, in various stages of shape-shifting, brushed past him—a bizarre Wild Hunt beneath the Arctic night.

He was halfway up the front steps when he paused, tilted his head, and listened. Alex had come out the rear door, and from the sound of things, she was running for her life.

Julian leaped off the porch and sprinted for the back of the house, everything around him blurring in a pulse of panicked speed. They came around the corner at the exact same time and slammed into each other. Julian snatched Alex before she could fly backward and smash into the ground.

She fought, cursing and kicking, and he shook her. “It’s me, Alex.”

“I know,” she said, and slugged him.

He should have dropped her right then—on her head —but he couldn’t. Something was wrong.

She’d left the house unclothed, and it wasn’t because she wanted to join the village wolves for a nice, long lope. Her skin beneath his hands was like ice, not the usual fiery temperature that preceded the change. Instead she’d dashed out in a panic, forgetting her bra and pan ties, let alone a pair of shoes.

She continued to fight him, even though she couldn’t win. But naked, sweating despite the chill of the air and her skin, she was slippery. He lost his grip, and she tried to dart around him. He snatched her back and pressed her body between his and the house.

“What happened?” he asked. When one of her arms slithered free, and she raked her nails down his side, he took both wrists and yanked them above her head, pinning them to the wall along with the rest of her.

She stilled then, thank God. All that wriggling and squirming and struggling was exhausting.

“What happened?” he repeated, more gently than before.

Her chest heaved; her breasts rubbed against him in a manner that would have been provocative if she hadn’t been so obviously distressed.

“He’s dead.” Her hair hung over her face in damp hanks that had begun to freeze into extremely messy dreads.

Ah, hell, Julian thought. Who had she killed now?

He used his free hand to cup her chin, to tilt her face so that her hair slid out of the way. “Who’s dead?”

Her eyes wide and unfocused, she murmured “Charlie” in a voice that, despite his attempts to steel himself against it, tore at his heart.

Julian let his forehead meet hers, and his hair cast over her cheeks, creating a golden curtain between them and the night. “Who’s Charlie?” he asked.

He knew, but he wanted her to talk, to come back from the dream, the memory, whatever had caught her in a grip so deep she seemed frozen by it.

A bank of clouds slid over the moon, painting them in darkness. He could smell her, that scent of sun-ripened lemons that was completely hers. For the rest of his very long life he would be able to pick her out of a crowd by that scent alone.