Lori Handeland - Marked by the Moon

Not that she didn’t understand the man’s need for payback—even sympathize with it. Alex shook her head.

He wasn’t a man. Alana hadn’t been a woman. They were murdering beasts. They didn’t feel love, or pain, or remorse.

Except Barlow did. The agony in his eyes, the gruffness in his voice told the tale. He mourned his wife with an intensity that matched Alex’s own.

Unease flickered. She was a werewolf now, and yet she still missed her father, ached with his loss and her love for him.

But there was a reason for that. She been injected with Edward’s serum and cursed by a voodoo priestess. She was as close to human as a werewolf could get. That was the only reason she still felt any emotions at all.

So what was Julian Barlow’s excuse?

“Where’s your car?” he asked.

Alex glanced around. They’d run a long way, then walked some more. She wasn’t familiar with the area, but she recognized a few of the buildings ahead as some of those she’d passed while trailing Jorge.

She pointed to the west. “About a mile.”

Barlow began to jog and she did the same, just a young couple out for a little exercise. Except it was the middle of the night, they were white, and—with Alex’s oversize, worn clothes, bloody arms and neck, and lack of shoes—she looked like a bag lady in a Dawn of the Dead remake.

“Now you understand how it is for most werewolves,” he said.

“How what is?”

“You were changed against your will.”

“So?”

He sighed as if she were incredibly dense and continued. “New wolves are like babies. They can’t be blamed for what they do. Would you punish an infant for banging a toy against a wall and breaking it?”

“I hardly think the man you left behind for me to kill was a toy.”

“No, he was a habitual child molester.”

Alex’s lips pulled into a grimace.

“Kind of leaves a bad taste in your mouth, doesn’t he?”

Thanks to Edward’s serum and Cassandra’s spell, she hadn’t killed her toy. Right now, Alex was kind of sorry about that.

“I told you he was a very bad man,” Barlow continued. “He deserved to die.”

Alex had to agree, but—“Who made you judge and jury?”

“Me.”

Huh. He sounded just like Edward.

“You felt the madness as soon as you awoke, didn’t you?” he pressed.

Alex glanced at him and told the truth. “Yes.”

He continued to stare straight ahead as they ran much faster than she ever had with much less huffing and puffing.

Certainly Alex had kept up with her training. If she wanted to best supernatural beings daily she didn’t have much choice. She could run ten miles without collapsing, sprint one hundred meters in thirteen seconds; she’d had instruction in Judo, and she could fight with every kind of weapon. Her father had been very thorough.

However, she hadn’t kept up this well. No human being could. The virus in her blood was obviously good for more than a full moon fur coat.

“Would you execute an insane person for listening to the voices in his head?” Barlow continued.

Alex didn’t answer, because her answer would give her away. Despite her new abilities, her conflicting feelings, she still didn’t consider a werewolf a person.

They came around the corner of yet another empty building and stopped. Five guys stood between them and Alex’s cargo van.

Yesterday Alex would have run the other way. She was interested only in killing werewolves, not stupid kids trying to be tough. Today she wanted to fight, even before she saw that they’d managed to get inside and were using their switchblades on what few clothes she owned.

A growl rumbled from Alex’s throat. Barlow cast her a quick glance. “No,” he said.

“That’s all I’ve got in the world.”

“You don’t need it anymore.”

“That isn’t the point,” she snapped.

“ Don’t shift.”

Alex had been inching forward, longing to plant her fist in the face of a guy who was shredding her underwear. She paused though she wasn’t sure why. Something in Barlow’s voice, in the tone of his command, made it difficult for her to disobey.

“You’re too new,” Barlow explained. “I can hold them off while you change, but once they’ve seen us do that, we’ll have no choice but to kill them all.”

Alex frowned. Since when did a werewolf care if he had to kill people?

“What do you suggest?” she asked.

Barlow cracked his knuckles, and his smile gave Alex a shiver. He might wear a veneer of humanity. He might play at being calm, reasonable, in control. But that smile and the flash in his eyes revealed the truth.

He liked violence as much as the next werewolf.

“Let’s kick their ass,” he said.

Alex moved into position with Barlow as if they’d been fighting together for years.

The five young men dropped everything but their knives and approached holding the weapons as if they knew exactly what to do with them. Alex wasn’t worried. Knives were made of steel, not silver; any wound they might have the good fortune to land would heal.

The boys rushed forward, and Alex decked the guy who’d dared to finger her pan ties. He flew off his feet and smacked into another one. They hit the pavement; their knives clattered every which way, and they lay still.

Alex glanced at her fist. She could get used to this.

Hyped, she bounced on the balls of her feet, spinning toward a third guy. She caught the scent of steel and jerked away an instant before the knife slashed her cheek. Barlow tackled him, and the two went down in a tangle of arms and legs.

A wild punch caught Alex on the chin. Her head snapped back, but she didn’t go down.

“What the hell?” the guy muttered; then his eyes widened as Alex started to laugh. The blow hadn’t even hurt.

He turned to run, and Barlow kicked the kid in the chest. Alex sidestepped as the boy sailed five feet and landed in a heap. He didn’t move, either.

The one Barlow had tackled lay immobile, the fifth—

“Watch out!” Alex shouted, and Barlow rammed his elbow backward, catching his attacker in the gut.

“Ooof,” the kid said, then dropped to his knees. His eyes rolled back, and he toppled over like a well-hit bowling pin.

Alex’s harsh, excited breathing was the only sound that broke the resulting silence. Barlow wasn’t even winded.

“That was—” Alex clenched and unclenched her hands. “Freaking fabulous.”

“Learn to pull your punches,” Barlow said, refusing to look at her. “You could kill someone, even in this form.”

He walked to the van, opening the driver’s-side door and climbing inside. Alex stared after him and thought again: Since when does killing bother a werewolf? Right now, it didn’t bother her. Right now, if someone came at her with the intent to turn her to ashes, she’d kill him with ease and probably dance a jig on his broken bones.

What was wrong with her? She was behaving more like a beast than the king beast.

The adrenaline rush faded, and Alex was left in a cold sweat, her hands lightly shaking.

“Alexandra!” Barlow roared from the van.

Alex glanced at the bodies flung all around; her heart slowed as she noted that each one was still breathing before she followed him.

“Keys,” he snapped as soon as she climbed inside.

“What’s your problem?” she asked. “You said, ‘Let’s kick their ass.’”

“Seemed like a good idea at the time.”

It had. In fact, it had seemed like a fantastic idea right up until the time the stillness had descended, and she’d realized how much fun she’d had, how easy it had been to hurt people, and how much she’d wanted to keep doing it.