Lori Handeland - Marked by the Moon

“I couldn’t have done it,” she said.

“I know,” Julian murmured. Sound asleep, the baby still clutched at his finger.

“I don’t think he should be able to do that yet.” Alex leaned down and nuzzled the child’s head. He smelled like the first snowfall of the season.

“I think there’s going to be a lot of things he does that he isn’t supposed to be able to.”

They were treading new ground. As far as they knew, there’d never been a werewolf pregnancy, let alone a child born of two lycanthropes. Alex would have been lying if she said she hadn’t spent a lot of sleepless nights worrying if the child would be all right. If it would actually be a child at all.

But now that he was here and he was “perfect,” she whispered, all her fears seemed kind of foolish.

Julian had worried about who would take care of the child on that single night when every inhabitant of Barlowsville ran beneath the moon. Alex had pointed out it wasn’t as if the moon snuck up on them. They knew when it was coming. A few hours before it did, they would drop the baby off with an entire village of Inuit babysitters.

Julian also worried that Alex would someday feel the need to go out hunting for her father’s killer. But the closer she got to her due date, the less she thought about anything but her child.

“Edward will find him,” she said with a shrug.

For a while she’d been concerned that Edward would find her. She hadn’t reported back. But neither had any of Edward’s other toadies. He’d believe she was as dead as they were, and she’d let him. That part of her life, that other Alex, was dead.

Ella and Jorund appeared in the doorway. Ella had proved a huge help with all things baby, and Jorund… he went wherever she was.

The two had recently married, and Jorund now lived in Barlowsville. He’d left George in charge.

The day after he’d come home, Julian had given in to Ella’s request to make Jorund a werewolf. Julian could no longer deny the power of true love. It crossed boundaries of age, of race, of species. True love made all things possible. Their child proved that.

“What are you going to name him?” Ella asked.

“Charlie,” Julian said, and tugged his finger from his son’s grasp.

In his sleep Charlie frowned; then he opened his tiny, perfect mouth and he—

“Was that a growl?” Alex asked.