Marked by the Moon (Nightcreature 9)

Ah-ha!

Edward had his very own Dr. Frankenstein on the payroll—a virologist who’d spent a lot of time trying to cure lycanthropy. The main reason Alex had left the Jäger-Suchers was their edict that agents give werewolves a choice of being cured or being killed. In her book they didn’t deserve a second chance. Her father hadn’t gotten one. Hell, her mother hadn’t, either.

“You cured me?” she asked. Alex didn’t feel cured; she felt a little wolfy.

Edward shook his head. “I gave you a serum that removes the bloodlust, at least for a little while.”

“Handy. Why don’t I feel possessed?”

“It takes time for the demon to awaken. At first a new werewolf is confused, crazed. Most do not have access to this.” He lifted the syringe again. “The more you kill, the better you will like it. Soon there is no going back, and you do not want to.”

He pocketed the syringe, then removed a sheet of paper from another pocket and laid it on the table. “You will look at this.”

Though Edward giving her orders made Alex’s teeth ache—or maybe that was just because she was grinding them together with so much more force than she used to have—nevertheless she stood and crossed the tiny room, leaving the blanket behind. She didn’t like how it felt against her humming skin.

The sound that rumbled out of Alex’s throat at the sight of the drawing wasn’t even close to human. The man portrayed in the sketch wasn’t, either. He’d been a werewolf when he bit her.

“Who is he?” she asked.

“Julian Barlow.” Edward’s thin lips tightened. “One of the oldest I’ve ever known.”

Which explained why Edward had brought a drawing instead of a photograph. Werewolves didn’t show up on film. Any photos would have to have been taken before the people became werewolves, which made Alex wonder about Alana.

“Barlow isn’t one of Mengele’s wolves,” Alex concluded.

“No.”

According to Edward, whom she was inclined to believe since he’d been a double agent during The Big One, Hitler had demanded a werewolf army. His equally psychotic pal, Mengele, gave him one.

When the Allies landed and began to sweep across France toward Germany, the evil doctor panicked and released everything he’d concocted in his secret laboratory deep in the Black Forest. Edward had been trying to rid the world of them ever since.

What Edward hadn’t known then, but found out fairly quickly, was that there had been werewolves long before Mengele. A lot of them.

“What is he?” Alex asked. “From where? When?”

“No one knows.”

“You don’t? How can that be?” Edward knew everything, or at least pretended to.

“Barlow has more powers than any werewolf I’ve ever encountered. He can change in an instant. He can run so fast he seems to disappear. He can make things happen just by thinking of them.”

“He’s more than a werewolf.”

“I want you to find out what.”

“I don’t work for you anymore. And besides, I’ve got a little problem with my tail.” Alex wiggled her ass. It was still naked, and she still didn’t care.

“He could have killed you,” Edward murmured, “but he didn’t.”

“Dying would be too easy. He wanted me to suffer.”

Actually, he’d wanted her to understand, and she was starting to. She was still Alex but better—and that she believed she was better, not doomed, scared her.

“I know you can fix me,” she blurted. She just wasn’t sure how.

“Barlow has been following you,” Edward continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “He’s had this planned for a while.”

As the words sank in, fury rolled through her, a wave of ice just beneath the surface of her overheated skin. It felt…glorious. She wanted to leap across the table, grab Edward by the throat, and—