Lori Handeland - Marked by the Moon

“Calm down.” Ella opened the door to his house and stepped inside, drawing him along with cool, slim fingers on his arm. “I’m sure she’s around here somewhere.”

Julian was sure she was, too. Because if she’d gone too far he’d be gripping his gut and wishing for a basketball-size Tums.

And that thought had him sitting in the nearest chair and putting his head between his knees. Idiot. How was he ever going to get rid of her?

Ella bent down, put a hand on his leg, and peered into his face. “Maybe you should tell me what’s going on.”

“I wish I knew.”

“She bothers you.”

“Bother.” He laughed. “Yeah. That’s what she does.”

“She seems angry. Like she doesn’t want to be here. Like she despises you. I can’t believe—” She paused. “You wouldn’t—I mean you didn’t—”

Julian’s patience snapped. “Just ask me what you want to know, Ella.”

“Tell me that you didn’t make her like us against her will, Julian.”

He remained silent. She had said not to tell her.

“How could you?” Ella straightened and stepped back, as if she could no longer stand to be near him. “The poor thing.”

Poor thing? Alexandra Trevalyn was not a poor thing.

“There are countless women in this village who would be happy if you looked their way. Women in Awanitok as well. You didn’t have to—”

“Hold on.” Julian lifted his head. “Why do you think I brought her here?” His eyes widened as her cheeks flushed and she glanced down. “You thought I saw her, wanted her, and took her?”

“You’re a Viking,” she said simply.

“I haven’t raped or pillaged in at least a decade.”

Ella gave him a look that only a true Frenchwoman could give—one that made Julian want to apologize not only for being sarcastic, but for every transgression he’d ever made in all his lifetimes.

Julian sighed. “You know why I went to LA.” Ella was the only one he’d told.

“You had a lead on Alana’s killer. But you came back with—” Ella’s mouth continued to open and close, but no sound came out for several seconds. “Julian,” she finally managed. “What did you do?”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

She smacked him in the back of the head as if he were a recalcitrant student and she a teaching nun from the Dark Ages. “Why would you make the woman who killed your heart, your soul, your wife like us? That’s a gift.”

“She’d consider it a curse. She does consider it a curse. Which is the whole point.”

“You had better explain your point, because I am not seeing it.”

“She believes she killed a monster.”

“But she did not.”

“She’ll never understand that until she understands —”

“Us,” Ella finished, comprehension dawning in her eyes. “You made her like us so she could see what she’d done and agonize about it forever.”

Julian spread his hands and shrugged.

“Fool,” she snapped.

Julian pulled back quickly before she smacked him again. But Ella was so furious, she began to pace like a caged…wolf.

“You brought the enemy into our midst. You think she won’t tell Edward where we are and how to get here.” Ella stood and turned toward the door. “She’s probably halfway to Juneau already.”

Julian caught her hand, holding on when she tugged and snarled. “When I get too far away from her I get physically sick.”

She stopped struggling, and her frown returned. “Why?”

“She was the first one of my wolves I ever tried to leave behind before she was able to fend for herself.”

Ella gave him another look that would have melted metal and muttered a word that sounded suspiciously like “Ass” before continuing: “You believe the same thing would have happened if you’d left any of us too soon?”

“I did, until I went running the other night and had to stop because of the pain.” He took a deep breath, then let it out. “I think it’s only her.”

“There’s something different about Alex,” Ella murmured. “You need to find out what it is.”

Julian was already on top of that. He stifled a wince at the innuendo and the predictable image it brought to mind.

He’d meant to tell Cade about this development when the two of them were alone—call him foolish, but he hadn’t wanted Alex to know that the absence of her company turned him into a weak, writhing wimp—but he hadn’t done so yet. Now would be a good time.

Julian stood. “Alex may be at the lab. You want to come along?”

“I need to get back to work.” Ella ran their version of a post office, routing all deliveries through the Inuit village. “If she isn’t with Cade, let me know. Otherwise I’ll see her when I get home tonight.”

“You don’t want her out of your house?”

“What?” Ella had been heading for the door, but now she turned. “Why?”

“You said she was the enemy.”

“I’ve changed my mind. Edward would kill her just as quickly as he’d kill any one of us. He’d think she was the enemy, too.” Her lips curved. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

“Alex is a killer.”

“We’re all killers, Julian.”

“That’s the wolf; it’s instinct. We don’t—”

“We do, ” she interrupted. “Only once, oui, for most of us, but we kill. It’s instinct, as you say. At the time we do not know any better. But wasn’t it instinct for Alex to shoot a werewolf? At the time, did she not know any better?”

“I—” Julian paused, uncertain. “I still wouldn’t think you’d want her in your house.”

Ella stared at him as if he’d lost his mind, then muttered something in French, ending with a word that sounded like an epithet: “Hommes!” [Men!]

“What did I do?” Julian asked.

“I would not throw that poor girl from my home. She is the victim here.”

Julian snorted, then backed up with his hands raised when Ella’s eyes narrowed. He might be the alpha, but that also meant he had the brains to know when his interests were best served by shutting up.

“You said you had not raped and pillaged in decades, but making someone a werewolf against their will is rape.”

He opened his mouth, but she made a sharp gesture and he shut it again.

“She has had her very self stripped away.” Ella walked to the front door, opened it, then glanced back. “You need to think about that, Julian.”

Her anger caused Ella’s accent to deepen, and his name came out sounding very French indeed.

Alex was ankle-deep in the lunch rush when Ella walked by the front window. She opened her mouth to call out, then shut it again when Ella backtracked, peered in through the glass, then made use of the door.

Alex had one seat left at the counter, and Ella took it. “You’re here,” she said.

“Where did you think I was?”

Ella glanced around, then lowered her voice. “Halfway to Juneau.”

Alex had leaned in so she could catch the words and in doing so caught a whiff of—

“Julian,” she murmured.

Ella’s gaze lifted, and for an instant guilt flickered in her eyes. But guilt for what? Did Ella and Julian have a thing going on? Did she think Alex would care?

Strangely, Alex did. The thought of Julian in bed with this gorgeously exotic Frenchwoman, touching her the way he’d touched Alex, made her so angry she thought she might actually shift in the daylight, too.

The thick plastic glass Alex had been holding in preparation for filling it with Pepsi for the young, Hispanic man on the other end of the counter erupted into several dozen shards. Everyone in the restaurant glanced her way.