Lori Handeland - Marked by the Moon

“Sex happened,” Alex finished.

“That’s amore .” Joe spread his arms wide, and Rose walked into them.

“Faet!” Julian said.

“Got that right,” Alex agreed.

After a brief hug, Rose faced them. “What brought this up?”

Julian glanced at Cade, but his brother still didn’t appear inclined to speak. “Cade did an experiment. Trying to figure out why Alex and I are so—” He searched for a word.

“Fucked,” Alex muttered, and he scowled.

Rose did, too, or at least her face creased into an expression that was the closest she ever came to one. “I don’t understand, child. The mate bond is a gift even greater than the one Julian’s already given you.”

“Given.” She snorted. “Yeah.”

Rose’s frown deepened. “A love like this will never go away.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.” Alex straightened her shoulders. “And it isn’t love.”

“It will be,” Rose said.

They weren’t getting anywhere, and there were still a few things Julian needed to know. “You’re saying that if Alex and I were human we’d be soul mates?” Rose and Joe both nodded like bobble-headed dolls. “But what if we never met?”

“Soul mates always meet. It’s fate.”

Considering that Julian had been a Viking while human—centuries ago, before Alex had even been born —he had a problem with that theory.

“What if he’d never made her a wolf?” Cade asked.

Everyone glanced in his direction as if they’d forgotten he was there.

“Becoming werewolves allowed the mate connection to be born.” Rose beamed at Julian like he’d done it on purpose.

Julian’s stomach began to burn as if he’d suddenly sprung a very bad ulcer. “So if I’d left her human, there’d have been no connection?”

“Why-a do you think I insisted on making Rose like me?” Joe asked.

Julian could have sworn the ulcer began to bleed.

“With me human,” Rose said, “and Joe a werewolf, the connection began to fade almost immediately.”

“How do you know this stuff?” Alex demanded.

Joe shrugged and looked at Rose. Rose shrugged and looked at Julian. “Doesn’t everyone?”

Julian growled, causing the older woman’s eyes to widen. “Sorry,” he said. “But I’ve never heard of this. And Cade’s never seen a reaction like he saw with us —” He flicked his finger between Alex and himself before setting his hand on his aching gut. “And you two.”

“What reaction?”

Quickly Julian explained what had happened with the blood hopping.

“I’d like-a to see that!” Joe exclaimed.

“No, you wouldn’t,” Alex muttered. “It was creepy.”

“If you think about it,” Rose said, “that makes sense. The mate bond is part of what we are. It’s a connection in the blood.”

“So there’s no way that Cade can cure it?” Alex asked.

Rose and Joe frowned. “Why would he want to?”

Alex opened her mouth to recite a laundry list of reasons, but snapped it shut again when Cade turned from the window, one brow lifted as he waited on her reaction. She decided to save comments of a more personal nature until she had Barlow alone.

“Why didn’t you know this?” she asked instead. “You and Alana—”

Rose and Joe gasped. Cade winced. Julian’s upper lip lifted in a snarl, and he bolted from the room.

Whoops.

“What’d I say?”

“When Alana left,” Cade murmured, “he didn’t know she was gone for days.”

“What? How could that be?”

“They had a fight. He thought she went to her grandmother’s. By the time he checked on her, she was dead.”

Now Alex winced. Luckily the others believed it was in sympathy and not guilt.

Guilt? Since when?

“I don’t understand,” Alex said. “If Alana left the village, why didn’t Julian know it in his gut?”

“Because Alana wasn’t his mate.” Rose stared at the open door through which Barlow had disappeared. “You are.”

“Oh, that’s gonna go over really well,” Alex muttered.

Silence settled over the room. No one seemed to know what to say or do.

“We should get back to the café,” Rose murmured. “If that’s okay?”

It took Alex a moment to realize that Rose had directed the question at her. “I—uh—Sure.” She shrugged and looked at Cade.

He waited until the older couple left before answering. “You’re the alpha’s mate.”

“So I hear. Why are they asking me if they can leave the room?”

“That makes you the second in command.”

“Fantabulous,” she muttered.

Cade’s gaze went distant. “It explains why you could resist his commands. Mates are equals.”

Alex didn’t feel equal. She felt cursed.

“And also why you could touch Julian’s wolves and they could touch you without the inevitable headache.”

“Why?”

Alex wasn’t sure she cared, but listening to Cade was better than listening to the voice in her head, which kept screaming that she was in big trouble.

“The mate bond must have given you the same link to Julian’s wolves that he has. Like Rose said, a connection in the blood. It’s the only explanation.”

“Glad we got that sorted out.” Alex’s stomach was starting to roll. She felt a little dizzy. “Is it hot in here?”

Her forehead had gone clammy. She stepped onto the landing and took several gulps of the chill Arctic wind.

Cade came up behind her. “Julian must have run pretty far this time.”

“What?” Alex wiped the back of her hand across her mouth. “Why?”

“You’re getting sick.” He stared at her as if he’d like to open her up and see what lay inside. “Fascinating. We don’t get sick.”

“Speak for yourself,” Alex said, and puked over the railing.

Since she hadn’t eaten since yesterday, she didn’t puke much. Which only made things worse.

“You’d better come back to the lab.” Cade helped her down the stairs. Alex felt so shitty she let him.

She tried to walk as if she weren’t drunk off her ass, but it wasn’t easy. Several of the locals gave her strange looks as she and Cade weaved past.

Ella was just pulling up in front of her house on what appeared to be, considering the dent in the fender, George’s snowmobile. She took one look at Alex and cried out, “What’s the matter?”

“That bad, huh?”

“I’ll take her.” Ella reached for Alex.

Cade didn’t let go. “She can stay with me.”

“She lives with me.” Ella pulled on Alex’s arm.

“Not a wishbone,” Alex murmured, and tugged free. “What are you doing here?”

Ella’s face was a mask of concern and at first she only stared blankly at Alex. Then Alex snapped her fingers in front of Ella’s nose. “I didn’t think you’d come home until tonight.” She’d said as much when they’d left her at Jorund’s yesterday.

“Oh!” Understanding filled Ella’s dark eyes. “There was another murder.”

Alex cursed. “We’re gonna run out of villagers.”

“Not a villager. A deliveryman I expected from Juneau. When he didn’t show this morning, I went searching for him and—” Ella winced. “I found him.”

“A dead deliveryman is going to raise a few questions.”

“You think?” Ella muttered, and Alex would have smiled if she weren’t afraid that would set off another bout of puking. The more Alex was around Ella, the better she liked her.

“We’re going to have to camp out in the Inuit village,” Alex said.

“I can do that,” Ella murmured.

Alex managed to navigate Ella’s porch steps. She used the door to steady herself as she turned. “Thanks, Cade. Maybe you’d better find Julian.”