o 35b0a02a46796a4f

by deba schrott

  “And your sword is right there.” Julian pointed at the weapon on the table. “You let a girl take it from you.”

  “Right here,” Alex murmured. “And I’m not just any girl.”

  Julian spoke before his brother could question that comment. “Cade’s a loner. Always has been.”

  “Loner,” Alex repeated. “Isn’t that another word for ‘rogue’?”

  “What are you?” Cade asked. “A cop?”

  “Yes,” Julian said, at the same time Alex said, “No.”

  She was,” Julian blurted. “Obviously she isn’t anymore.”

  “I could be,” she said.

  “I’m all the cop we need around here.”

  “Yeah, you’re doing a great job so far. How many are dead?”

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  “Start with him. Can’t you touch him and. .“ She wiggled her fingers like a sitcom witch performing a spell.

  “Voodoo the truth free?”

  “It wasn’t him,” Julian said.

  “Just because he’s your brother doesn’t mean he couldn’t have killed someone.”

  “That is what it means. Exactly.”

  Alex threw up her hands. “He’s a werewolf.”

  “What is there about this town that you don’t understand?” Julian snapped. “We don’t kill people.”

  She stared him right in the eye as she said with utter conviction, “One of you does.”

  Barlow wanted to smack her. Alex could see it on his face. But he didn’t want to do it in front of his brother. Which meant he hadn’t told Cade who she really was.

  Interesting.

  The two had been together for centuries. They appeared very close. Yet Barlow was keeping secrets. Was Cade keeping secrets, too?

  “No one here would dare hurt anyone from there,” Julian said.

  “I think you’re wrong.”

  “I don’t care what you think. I know. Whoever’s killing the Inuit does not live here.”

  “You’d rather believe a lone werewolf wandered out in the middle of nowhere and started snacking on the pets,”

  Alex said. “Instead of the logical answer that someone from a village full of werewolves has decided you aren’t the boss of them?”

  Doubt flickered over Julian’s face, there, then gone the next instant. “Yeah,” he said. “That’s what I believe.”

  But she’d gotten him thinking. Which was good enough for her.

  Alex had also started to think. She’d come here to find the werewolf that had murdered her father, only to discover a werewolf murdering villagers. What were the chances they were one and the same?

  Pretty damn high.

  Especially if she bought into the theory that Barlow’:

  wolves were different—and considering their seeming lad

  of a desire to kill everyone they met, she kind of did—then it would follow that the one wolf that had murdered before was now doing so again.

  She was going to have to start meeting people, giving them a good, long look-see. She’d winged—or eared—the werewolf that had murdered her father with a silver bullet, and silver left a mark—in both forms.

  However, cheerily chatting up the populace when she was supposed to loathe them was going to arouse Barlow’s suspicions. She’d just have to do it when he wasn’t around.

  “Don’t you have somewhere to be?” she asked. Barlow lifted a brow. “Trying to get rid of me?” “Always.”

  Cade laughed. She was really starting to like the guy. “Before you go.” Cade lifted the needle. “You mind?”

  “I prefer my blood inside instead of outside.” Alex turned toward the exit.

  Barlow snatched her by the elbow, and she froze as his touch seemed to flow through her like another virus, this one making her want him, need him. Now.

  She yanked her arm free, and he let her, dropping his hand to his thigh and rubbing the palm against his jeans as if his skin was buzzing, too.

  “Don’t you want to know why you’re different from all the others?”

  Yeah, she kinda did.

  “Cade can help.”

  Alex turned to him. “Can you?”

  Cade shrugged. “I’ll try.”

  “What else have you been up to?” She waved her hand to indicate the room and all its contents.

  Cade glanced at Julian, who nodded, making Alex grind her teeth. Did everyone have to ask him everything?

  “I invented the serum so that we can touch in human form.”

  “And here I’d thought that was just another handy-dandy gift from Big Daddy.”

  Cade appeared about to laugh, but he coughed instead before giving her an answer. “I’ve been attempting to isolate what it is in the virus Julian passes on that keeps us from becoming—” Cade broke off, lips pressed together, forehead creased.

  “Psychotic, evil killing machines?” Alex supplied.

  “Sheesh,” Julian muttered.

  -

  Oh, yeah. She wasn’t supposed to hate them so much.

  “For want of a better description,” Cade agreed, but he glanced back and forth between Alex and Julian, waiting for an explanation that wasn’t ever going to come.

  “How’s that working out for you?” Alex asked.

  “I’m getting there.”

  “I’ve told you before that my wolves aren’t possessed by evil.” Barlow tilted his head, and his hair swung like a golden pendulum beneath the bright fluorescent lights.

  “Except for that inevitable first kill,” she pointed out.

  “Except for that.”

  “Maybe some of your wolves like the first one so much they keep right on doing it?’

  “They don’t,” he said with conviction. “They don’t have the taste for it.”

  “So you say. But what’s truth and what’s lies?”

  “If you were evil, wouldn’t you want to kill everything that crossed your path?”

  She looked him up and down. “Who says I haven’t?”

  His lips twitched. “You’ve resisted. A werewolf not made ‘by me wouldn’t be able to.”

  “What good is that serum if you were all born demon-free?”

  “It’s not for us,” Cade said. “It’s for every poor human being who’s been changed against their will.”

  “But—” Alex began, then paused.

  Cade didn’t appear to know about Edward’s cure. Or maybe he just didn’t care. According to Julian, being one of his wolves was super-cool. None of them wanted to go back.

  In her experience, no werewolf wanted to. The ones that were possessed by the demon liked what they were. As the virus strangled the person they’d been before they were bitten, they embraced the evil. She had to wonder if, even after Edward’s cure, that person ever found their way back.

  “But what?” Julian prompted.

  “Nothing.” Alex was supposed to keep her secret Jäger-Suchers past a secret, which meant she wouldn’t know about a cure, either. She stuck out her arm toward Cade. “Do me.”

  Julian choked. Cade fumbled the needle again.

  At least she’d distracted them from further questions, and she did want to know why she could touch the other wolves without the serum. Or why she wanted to touch Barlow at all.

  Alex watched the tube fill rapidly with her blood. Strange. It didn’t seem any different now than when she’d been human.

  Cade removed the needle and turned away.

  “Aren’t you gonna swab me with alcohol or anything?” Now that she thought about it, he hadn’t swabbed her arm before he’d stuck her, either.

  “You aren’t going to get an infection,” Barlow said.

  “Right.” A single drop of blood welled from the tiny pinprick before it healed over.

  Cade capped the tube and began to write something on a label. Alex moved closer, fascinated despite herself.

  “Why don’t you try and cure lycanthropy?” she asked.

  “Why would I do that?” His voice was a
bsent, his eyes focused on her blood and the mysteries it might solve.

  “Wouldn’t it be more productive to cure the disease itself and not just one symptom of it?”

  Cade glanced up, and his gaze had gone shrewd. “You sound like you don’t want to be a werewolf, Alex?’

  “I d—”

  Julian’s hand twitched. Several empty beakers flew off the table and crashed onto the floor. Cade’s attention turned to the mess. Alex glanced at Julian, who drew his finger across his throat. Dramatic, but it got the point across.

  “Do,” she said. “I do want to be a werewolf?’

  Her mind mocked, I do. I do. I dooo! in the voice of the Cowardly Lion.

  “Mmm’ Cade said noncommittally. “From what I hear don’t need to waste my time. The Jäger-Suchers have a cure?

  So he did know. Since- Julian had, she shouldn’t be surprised.

  “Not sure what it is, though.” Cade swept the glass into dustpan with a tiny, handheld broom, then straightened dumped the mess into the trash. The tinkling of the broken pieces sounded like distant church bells.

  “If it were a serum or a pill, there’d be a lot less were- wolves. Makes me think it’s some kind of spell that or one person can do. It takes a long time to rid the world werewolves if you have to visit each and every one in on to do it.”

  “What’s a Jäger-Suchers?” Alex asked.

  Cade sighed and let his head drop between his

  shoulders. Which was good since Julian rolled his eyes, along with head, to indicate his total disbelief at her gall.

  But Cade ‘suspicious, and if she wanted to prove she was here because she wanted to be, not because she had to be

  —for more Sons than one—Alex thought she should at least pretend to be as much of a nube as Julian said she was.

  “Julian.” Cade’s voice was exasperated. “If you’re going to make a new wolf, the least you can do is be certain she’s prepared.”

  “He isn’t going to come here,” Julian said.

  Cade lifted his gaze. “She needs to know.”

  “Know what?” she asked. “And he, who?”

  Cade put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her against his side. Alex was so startled she let him. Then it felt so nice, she didn’t move away. She couldn’t remember the last time anyone had touched her with anything but violence or lust.

  Or in the case of Barlow—violence and lust.

  “There’s a secret society,” he began.

  “That’s enough.”

  Alex glanced over her shoulder. Barlow’s nostrils flared, his eyes, fixed on Cade’s arm, blazed. What was he so mad about?

  “I’ll tell her,” he said.

  “I don’t mind.” Cade smiled, and Alex smiled back. She ‘felt so much more at ease with Cade than she could ever feel with his brother. “Besides, you’ve got places to go, Inuit to see.”

  “Just find out what’s wrong with her.” Julian plucked his brother’s arm off Alex’s shoulder, snatched her by the wrist, and yanked her with him toward the door.

  “Keep your skin on!” she said, hanging back.

  Fury flashed, and for an instant she thought he might, grab her by the throat. Instead, he bent, hitting her in the gut with his shoulder and effectively stifling any further protest before he lifted her over his back and headed down the corridor.

  By the time she recovered her breath, he’d kicked open the rear door and fresh air wafted across her overheated face. “What is wrong with you?”

  He unceremoniously dumped her to the ground. The only reason she didn’t land on her ass in the snow was that she was getting more lithe on her feet with each passing hour.

  His eyes still blazed; his voice now rumbled between wolf and man. “What we’re concerned with here is what’s wrong with you.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with me that you didn’t make wrong with me,.”

  Barlow turned away, presenting her with his back as he leaned against the white building. “You need to leave Cade alone,” he said. “He has work to do. You can’t. . . fuck with him like you fuck with me.” -

  Alex stiffened. “Excuse me?”

  Obviously Barlow didn’t hear the danger in her voice, because he just kept talking.

  “He’s innocent. A bit of a doofus. He’s spent his life trying to heal people. All he cares about is helping others.”

  “ I bet I could make him care about me.”

  Barlow spun so fast she didn’t have time to move away. Not that she would have. She’d meant to poke the beast.

  He’d poked her.

  “Leave him alone.” His skin rippled. He was losing control.

  Good. So was she.

  Alex stepped in close; her voice so that even super-wolf had to lean in to hear what she said. “You think I just bang anyone who comes along?” She lifted her eyes and showed her fury. “Like you?”

  He snapped, grabbing her by shoulders and dragging her against him. Despite her Sweater and his flannel shirt, she could feel the heat wafting off him like the waves of the sun across the asphalt in August.

  “You’ll bang no one,” he said between gritted teeth. “Except me.”

  CHAPTER 17

  Julian wanted to kiss her. He wanted to throw her on the ground and do a helluva lot more than kiss. Ever since he’d walked into his brother’s lab and seen them together, so comfortable, so at ease, he’d been itching to remind her to whom she belonged.

  He shook his head. What was he thinking? She didn’t belong to him. He didn’t want her to.

  As if she’d read his mind, Alex snapped, “You don’t own me, Barlow.”

  “No?” he murmured, and lowered his mouth to the pale skin visible above the sweater and below her ear.

  She stiffened, straining to get away, but he was stronger than she was; he always would be. She kicked him; he barely felt it, the scent of her calling him home.

  He took a fold into his mouth and suckled, tongue pressing against the pulsing vein, and she stilled, going pliant in his arms. His hands slid around her back, then down her pants. He cupped her cheeks, warming himself before he slid his thumb along the crevice.

  “Ahem.”

  Julian registered the sound of throat clearing like the buzz of a fly—annoying but it could be ignored.

  “Ahem!”

  Or not.

  He kept his hands right where they were and raised his head. The mark left by his mouth resembled a full moon.

  Even as he admired it, the hickey began to fade. He grit his teeth against the nearly overwhelming urge to put it there again.

  Julian lifted his gaze a bit more and met his brother’s.

  “I wanted to talk to Alex,” Cade said. “I’ll come back when you’re finished.”

  Alex tensed as if to pull away, but with his palms still cupping her ass. . . wasn’t happening.

  “Shh,” Julian murmured, tugging her closer, pressing a kiss to her brow.

  She jerked away. “What are you doing?”

  He blinked. What had he been doing? Comforting her, cuddling her, as if what he felt for her was more than lust, as if what he felt for her was—

  Julian yanked his hands out of her pants and took one giant step backward, even as she tried to move away, snagged her clumpy rubber heel on the snow, and began to windmill her arms so she wouldn’t fall.

  Cade smoothly stepped up, caught her around the waist, and set her on her feet. Alex peered over her shoulder and smiled at him in a way she’d never’ once smiled at Julian.

  “Stop growling,” she said without even glancing in Julian’s direction. Then she covered Cade’s hands, which still rested on her hips, with her own. “Thanks.”

  Julian had never seen her behave so gently, or, speak the same. He hadn’t believed that she could. What he really couldn’t believe was that he yearned to have her speak like that to him.

  And because he did, Julian turned and walked away.

  Barlow disappeared into his house. The slam of the do
or echoed in the still morning air. Alex understood the sentiment. Anger, hatred, lust—that she could get behind. But when he’d gone gentle on her, kissing her forehead, mur-

  muring into her hair...

  What the hell had just, happened?

  “He was marking you,” Cade murmured.

  Alex turned her attention from Barlow’s house to his brother, who seemed far more amused than he should be.

  “There’s a mark?”

  Cade lifted his hand, and his fingers brushed the place on her neck that still burned from Julian’s mouth. “Not anymore?’

  Cade’s touch was all business—like a physician during an exam. Nevertheless, Alex stepped out of his reach, suddenly uncomfortable. “Why would he do that?”

  “You’re his. He wanted me to know it?’

  Alex didn’t bother to correct him. Right now, she felt his—chosen, branded. . marked.

  “It’s a wolf thing,” Cade continued. “Sometimes we pee on trees.”

  “I guess I should be glad he wasn’t a wolf when he decided to mark me.”

  Cade’s lips quirked. “I guess.”

  “Is everyone in town going to think I’m—”

  “His?” Cade’s smile deepened. “They already do.”

  “What?”

  The word erupted, loud and confrontational, causing a middle-aged man who’d just come out of his house to glance across the street in their direction.

  “Morning, Barry!” Cade lifted a hand, and after a few more seconds’ contemplation Barry bent, picked up his newspaper—The Werewolf Gazette?—and went inside.

  Cade tilted his head and observed Alex as if she were a fascinating new specimen. “Julian hasn’t brought a new wolf to town since—” He paused and unease flickered over his face.

  “Since Alana?” Alex asked.

  Cade’s eyes widened. “He told you about her?”

  Alex shrugged. He had; then again he hadn’t.

  “If he didn’t bring you here for himself,” Cade murmured, “then why did he bring you?”

  She wasn’t going to touch that question with a ten-foot pole.

  “You’ll have to ask him,” she said. “You wanted to talk to me?”

  “I heard they were looking for a waitress at the coffee shop.”

  “And this is something I need to know why?”

  “Thought you might want a job. I know you said you weren’t a cop—” His forehead creased. “But Julian said you were.”