Lori Handeland - Marked by the Moon

“You’re starting to give me the creeps,” Alex said after it happened for the fourth time in as many days.

Ella had been frowning at Alex’s stomach, which was pushing uncomfortably at the seams of Ella’s best slacks. “We have to talk.”

Julian stayed in the wild for six months. His guilt haunted him. Alex haunted him.

He didn’t like the man he’d been, so he remained a wolf. He had plenty of residual anger at both Cade and himself to stay in his preferred form. But all that fury was exhausting.

He started sleeping each day, running each night. Eventually he started running to her.

They were mates for life, and thanks to him that life would be long. The least he could do was let her live without him. But he missed his home. It was the only one he’d ever had.

So he hung around the outskirts of civilization, and he caught a distant glimpse of Alex now and again, a flicker of her scent—ice, trees, and the faint drift of citrus—sometimes the sound of her voice, and that was enough.

Until it wasn’t.

There came a night when he couldn’t stand the separation any longer. He told himself he’d only watch her as she lay sleeping; then he’d leave. She’d never even know he was there.

Fool.

She’d been a Jäger-Sucher . There wasn’t a werewolf in the world she wouldn’t know was there.

She didn’t run with the others most nights. She stayed alone at Ella’s, and the lights went out very early. Not long after they did, he went in.

She wasn’t in her bed; she wasn’t in her room. He found her standing at the front window, staring at the moon.

“I wondered how long you’d stay away.”

He tried to work up enough anger to turn invisible. He should have done it before, but he discovered that being near her made him so damn happy, he had no anger left.

“I’ll go soon,” she said.

“What? Where?”

She continued to stare at the sheen of the half-moon that coated the village in liquid silver ice.

“This is your place not mine.” She lifted a hand, but she didn’t turn around. “Don’t worry. If you can hold on for a few days, I’m sure Edward—make that Elise —will concoct something to make this…connection go away.”

“You won’t go near him,” Julian said, and the house shook just a little. “Not ever again.”

“I won’t tell him where you are. I know you didn’t believe me, but now—” She took a breath, and it shook. “I’d never let him hurt—” Her voice broke.

Was she crying? No. Alexandra Trevalyn would never cry.

So why could he smell her tears?

“I’ll stay here until it comes. I’ll let you keep it. You know that I’d never bring the Jäger-Suchers down on —”

What was she talking about?

She turned, and it was as if all the air had been sucked out of the room, his lungs, the universe.

“Our child,” she finished, placing her palm on the full swell of her belly.

Julian did the only thing a man could do at a revelation like that.

He fainted.

Julian went down so fast and so hard, Alex would have thought he’d been shot if the night hadn’t remained completely silent.

She went onto her knees. He was already coming around.

“Impossible,” he said as he opened his eyes.

She took his hand and placed it on her stomach. The child, no doubt irritated at being awoken by the thunderous thumping of Alex’s heart, took the opportunity to give her its usual vicious kick.

Julian gasped and lifted his gaze to hers. He didn’t appear capable of further speech.

“That’s kind of how I felt when I heard.”

Ella had figured it out. Alex refused to believe her until her stomach began to expand, and the baby began to do the mambo.

“Impossible might be a good name,” Alex murmured, keeping her hand on top of Julian’s on top of her stomach. “It’s your child, after all.”

“But I can’t—We can’t—”

“You obviously can, and we did .”

“How?”

His face was gaunt. He broke her heart. She wanted to kiss him, to touch him and pull him close. But that would only make what she had to do so much harder.

“You healed a silver bullet, Julian. Is there anything you can’t do if you put your mind to it?”

His forehead creased. “A boy with my gold hair. A girl with your green eyes.”

She stared at him for several seconds. “Did you hit your head?”

“I thought that once, when we were…” He sat up, but he didn’t remove his hand from her stomach.

“Oh!” Suddenly everything became clear. Julian was magic, and when he thought of things, they happened. “We were having sex and you thought of kids?”

“I didn’t mean to. I was thinking about—” He looked away.

“Alana.” That he’d been thinking of his wife while he was doing Alex was kind of…yuck. Then again, had she really believed he’d been thinking of her?

“You were angry?” she asked.

“Back then, every time I looked at you I was angry.” Julian twitched his shoulders, more of a wince than a shrug. “ Green eyes. That was you. So I guess I wasn’t really thinking of her at all.”

But he always would be. Alex knew that now.

Julian sighed. “She died because I couldn’t give her a child, but it seems that I could. I never considered—”

Alex squeezed his fingers, and he looked into her face. “I don’t think you could have given her one. This mate bond seems to be the cause of a whole lot of—” She floundered for a word.

“Weirdness,” Julian supplied.

“Yeah. Besides, would you ever have been able to work up enough fury at her to change the course of lycanthropy?”

His lips quirked. “Probably not.”

Alex didn’t say what else she was thinking. That Alana had taken the easy way out; that if Alana had truly loved Julian, she’d have chosen the hard way. As Alex had.

She lifted her hand from his and got up. He scrambled to follow, and she stepped away. She couldn’t be near him and not want him.

“A life for a life,” she said. “It’s only fair.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I took Alana, but I can give you this.” Her palm skated over the fullness. “Once I have the baby, I’ll leave him or her with you. I’ll go to Edward. He’ll have to do something to make this connection between us go away. If he wants me to be able to work for him without puking all day.”

“Work for him,” Julian repeated.

“There are still werewolves out there that need to be killed. But now I know that there are some who don’t. I won’t make the same mistake twice.”

“That’s—” Julian appeared to be searching for his words. Maybe he had hit his head. “The stupidest thing I’ve ever heard in all of my lifetimes.”

Alex blinked. “I’m sorry?”

“You should be.” He reached out and drew her to him—too fast, they bumped bellies. “You’re my mate, Alex.”

“You didn’t choose me; you didn’t choose this.”

“I did.” He touched her stomach again as if he had to just to make sure it was real. She did that several times a day herself. “I chose to make you like me. For all the wrong reasons, true, and I hope you’ll forgive me. I was wrong. If you want to go back to the other world and be cured, I’ll understand.”

She laid her hand on top of his. “Why would anyone want to go back once they’ve found this?”

“It’s a miracle,” he said.

“No.” Alex lifted her lips and kissed him; then she knew without a doubt that she was home. “It’s magic.”

Their son was born three months later. As soon as Alex held him in her arms, she understood why Julian had said her idea of leaving the child behind had been the stupidest thing he’d ever heard.