Lori Handeland - Marked by the Moon

“Alex?” Ella murmured. “Are you all right?”

“Uh—yeah.” Alex dumped the pieces into the trash. Her palm appeared no worse for the explosion, so she filled another glass and set it carefully in front of her customer before returning to Ella.

By then, she was calmer, though she wouldn’t say exactly calm. The scent of Julian that wafted her way every time the door opened and sent a gust of air across Ella made Alex both furious and nostalgic. She missed him.

And wasn’t that just the most pathetic thing ever?

“Why would I be halfway to Juneau?” she asked.

“If he’d done to me what he did to you, I would be.”

“He told you?” This, after he’d insisted Alex keep who she was a secret, that if anyone in Barlowsville discovered the truth, they’d want her dead. Was Ella an exception to the rule? Or did Barlow just want Ella to have first crack at her head?

Alex glanced around the restaurant to make sure no one was listening. However, considering they were all werewolves, a private conversation…just wasn’t happening.

“What the hell?” Alex whispered.

“He’s searching for you.”

Alex’s eyes narrowed. “And now I’m searching for him, too.”

She had to wait until the wave of customers receded. She couldn’t just up and leave Cyn and Rose snowed under, and it wasn’t as though Barlow was going anywhere. According to Ella, he’d already been to Awanitok and was headed to see Cade. He’d probably still be there when she got through.

As she stepped out of the café, Ella zoomed by on a snowmobile, disappearing into the steadily descending gloom in the direction of the Inuit village.

Alex went to the house to change clothes. The ones she wore now smelled like bacon grease and bleach. While there, she took a shower to get the scent out of her hair.

Alex had never minded working as a waitress, but she’d never cared for how she smelled afterward. Now that her nose was ultra-sensitive, she cared for it even less.

She set the cash she’d made that day on top of the nightstand. Tomorrow she’d buy some jeans and T-shirts for work. Ella was never going to get the scent of hash browns out of those wool slacks.

Alex strolled from her end of the village in the direction of Barlow’s place. People continued to greet her as if she was one of them. No one looked at her like she was a serial killer. Although, now that she thought about it, Ella hadn’t looked at her that way, either. Ella had looked at her as if she wanted to pat Alex on the hand and give her a hug.

Alex opened the rear door of the laboratory. She heard their voices right away.

“I can’t get more than a few miles from her and I become physically ill.”

Alex crept closer, frowning. That was Barlow.

“I’ve never heard of such a thing before.” Cade.

“Find out why. Make it stop. She can’t stay here forever.”

“Why not?” Cade sounded very confused.

“Yeah.” Alex stepped into the room. “Why not?”

It was a testament to how engrossed they’d been in whatever they were discussing that they hadn’t heard her come in. Both men started, then spun—Julian snarling, Cade wide-eyed.

“Where have you been?” Julian demanded.

“Halfway to Juneau.”

“Huh?” Cade glanced at Julian. “I thought you couldn’t be separated.”

Julian’s gaze held hers as he answered his brother. “She wasn’t halfway to Juneau.”

“What’s going on?” Alex asked.

“Nothing for you to worry about,” Julian said, at the same time Cade answered, “He gets sick if you’re too far away from him.”

Julian glared at Cade, who spread his hands. “How could she not know this?”

“She doesn’t get sick,” Julian said between clenched teeth. “I do.”

“You sure?” Cade asked, turning to Alex. “Any desire to throw up? Headaches, dizziness?”

Alex shook her head. “I thought that being a werewolf cured all ills.”

“For him,” Cade grabbed a pencil and scribbled on a yellow pad. “Apparently not.”

Julian crossed to Alex. “Where were you?”

“Didn’t Cade tell you? He sent me to Rose for a job.”

“You’re working?”

“I can’t wear Ella’s clothes forever.”

“Of course you can.” He waved his hand regally, dismissing Ella’s charity as only a man could. “There’s no reason for you to get a job. You’re not—”

“Staying? From what I heard, you’d better hope that I am. Unless you’re a big fan of puking.” Alex squinted. “Is that steam coming out of your ears?”

He glanced over his shoulder at his brother, who was busy talking to himself and making notes on his yellow pad, then grabbed her elbow and half dragged, half led her down the hall and out the back door.

“Why are you here?” he asked.

“Two reasons.” Alex yanked her arm from his grasp. “Why did you tell Ella about me?”

“I didn’t.” Alex raised her eyebrows, and he shrugged. “She figured it out. The way you behave, as if you hate me—”

“I do,” she said, but there was no heat behind the words.

“She figured that I’d made you against your will; then she added the fact that I’d gone to LA to look for Alana’s killer, and come back with you and—” He shrugged. “She’s pretty damn mad about it.”

“Why didn’t she kill me before I knew that she knew? I’m going to be ready for it now.”

“Ready for what?” Julian asked, even as understanding spread across his face. “She isn’t going to kill you. She was mad at me. She called you ‘poor thing.’” He made a face that revealed what he thought of that statement.

Alex had to agree. She did not much care for being called “poor thing.”

“You said two.” Alex glanced up. Barlow leaned against the building watching her. “You came here for two reasons.”

“Oh.” For an instant Alex couldn’t remember what the other one had been. Discovering her secret revealed, yet still being alive to worry about it despite Barlow’s threats to the contrary, had thrown her off her game. “We are what we were when we were made, right?”

“Yes,” he said slowly. “That’s what this—” He waved a hand at her, then himself. “—is all about. You’re still you, despite being marked by the moon.”

“Marked by you,” she muttered.

“Same thing.”

“There’s a rogue wolf.” He seemed startled by the change in subject, but he nodded. “If I’m the same at heart when woman and wolf, then so’s this rogue.”

“I’m not following.”

“A psychotic killer in both forms.”

Julian straightened so abruptly, Alex had to force herself not to back away. “I don’t make wolves lightly, Alex.”

“Except for me.”

His teeth ground together, the sound reminiscent of a bulldozer rolling over gravel. “That was hardly done lightly. And I knew all about you before I did it.”

Not all, Alex thought.

“Who’s the most likely candidate for psychotic killer of the week?” she asked.

“You,” he muttered.

Alex didn’t bother to comment. She could claim she didn’t kill people . He’d swear she did. They’d start to argue and blah, blah, blah.

“Think back on who you’ve made,” she said. “Did you know all of them as well as you knew me?” Or thought you did.

“None of my wolves were killers when I made them,” he insisted. “Why do you care? It’s my Indian village that’s being targeted, my people who are being accused.”

She couldn’t tell him the truth—that she believed his rogue and her father’s killer were one and the same— so she told him a different truth instead.

“I’m good at finding murderous werewolves. It’s kind of what I do.”