Marked by the Moon (Nightcreature 9)

Julian’s fingers clenched on the steering wheel. She was still sad. He could smell it.

It had taken him a few centuries to hone his human senses until they were nearly as sharp as his wolf’s. Trust a Norseman to adapt. It was one of the many things they were good at.

Of course he’d never adapted this well. He could smell anger, violence, fear. That was easy. But he couldn’t recall ever smelling sadness before. Even with Alana.

Julian drove to the crappy motel near LAX, parked around back, and got out.

Alex got out, too. “What gives?”

“You can’t get on a plane like that,” he said.

The blood on her body had seeped through the T-shirt and the sweatpants he’d given her, creating a gory polka-dot pattern. The fight had torn a few holes, added another level of dirt. She still wasn’t wearing any shoes.

Alex followed him into the dingy, dank room he’d rented when he’d arrived only a few days ago. The place smelled of a hundred others. He couldn’t wait to get home.

“Use the shower,” he ordered.

“What if I don’t want to?” she asked, but she was already headed that way.

As soon as the lock clicked on the bathroom door—foolish on her part, no door would keep him out if he truly wanted to get in—Julian pocketed the key and returned to her van.

He sat on the passenger side, slid his hand beneath the seat, pulled out the photo she’d hidden there. A man—same eyes, same smile, hair closer to chestnut than Alexandra’s shade of light brown. He was of average height, thin and rangy, with gold-rimmed glasses and big, hard, capable hands.

Charlie Trevalyn—Alex’s missing father.

Julian knew the man must have been killed, most likely by werewolves considering Alex’s loathing for them. Of course there was no record of such a thing. Just as there was none of what had happened to her mother. Why would there be?

Werewolf kills were sometimes written off as rabid animal attacks, but usually people just disappeared. When they did, Edward Mandenauer was often involved.

Julian put the photo of Charlie back where he’d found it and returned to the hotel room. He placed a call to the airport and let his pilot know when he wanted to leave. By the time he hung up, sweat had broken out on his brow, dampened the back of his shirt, and begun to run down his neck. Sometimes werewolf senses were a gift and other times, like now, a curse.

He heard every drop splashing against her body, swirling downward, cascading over her shoulders, her breasts, belly, thighs. He could smell the soap, the shampoo, hear the swish of her hands as she washed.

If he closed his eyes he could see the water, the bubbles, the stroke of fingers against skin. His tongue darted out to wet his lips, and he tasted her—that mouth, her neck, the blood.

“Shit. Fuck. Hell.” Sometimes if he cursed in English he managed to draw his mind away from whatever he was cursing about. But not this time. He could still see her naked body, hear her rapid breathing, smell the soap mixing with her tangy scent.

He opened his eyes. Steam trailed out from beneath the door, snaking toward him like a magical mist, enticing him to do things he should not. He’d taken several steps forward before he stopped, turned, and forced himself to retreat, to stare out the window at the coming dawn and once again count to ten, then fifty, then a hundred in Norwegian, trying to shake the bizarre sense of destiny from his brain.

Alex had closed the door behind her—locked it, too—then turned on the shower. When she’d stepped beneath the water, she’d discovered that the usual just-short-of-scalding temperature she preferred was something she preferred no longer. Tepid was all she could stand against skin that felt like she’d been lying naked in the tropical sun for hours with no respite—or sunscreen.

She easily scrubbed off the blood and the dirt, but no matter how hard she tried, no matter how long she rubbed, she couldn’t get rid of the scent of werewolf. That scent was part of her now.

She had a sudden flash of Barlow’s hands on her breasts, his tongue in her mouth, and everything she’d felt in that small clip of time she’d spent in his arms rushed back. Despite her hatred of werewolves, and him in particular, she’d wanted the man more than she’d ever wanted anyone else.

There was definitely something hinky about Julian Barlow.

Mind control? Witchcraft? A magic spell? Maybe all three. She’d find out of course. Finding out was what she did best—along with killing.

His brush lay on the sink; Alex used it even though the mingling of his golden strands with her light brown made her edgy. After wrapping herself tightly in a scratchy hotel towel, Alex opened the door. A fresh set of clothes lay on the floor just outside.

She snatched them up without even looking around. The clothes, obviously his, fit badly. The jeans were huge—she threaded a length of what appeared to be telephone cord through the belt loops to hold them up—the tank top, too. She didn’t really want to wear his boxers, but what choice did she have? The long-sleeved shirt, heavy socks, and bulky, tree-hugger sandals were also too large. She managed by pulling the straps as tight on her feet as they’d go.

When Alex stepped into the room again, the first thing she saw was Barlow staring out the window. The night had turned gray as dawn approached. In the distance she caught the twinkling lights of LAX, so numerous and bright they seemed like stars that had fallen to the earth.

The room smelled of smoke—but not cigarettes—reminding her of the small towns she and her father had passed through, places where they’d burned their garbage in the backyard. The scent made her ache with the echo of loneliness.

Every dusk had brought another monster; every dawn had brought another town. They never got friendly. It didn’t pay. Who knew when the kid you’d struck up a friendship with might turn out to be the next werewolf victim, or perhaps the next werewolf.