“Nothing for you to worry about,” Julian said, at the same time Cade answered, “He gets sick if you’re too far away from him.”
Julian glared at Cade, who spread his hands. “How could she not know this?”
“She doesn’t get sick,” Julian said between clenched teeth. “I do.”
“You sure?” Cade asked, turning to Alex. “Any desire to throw up? Headaches, dizziness?”
Alex shook her head. “I thought that being a werewolf cured all ills.”
?
?For him,” Cade grabbed a pencil and scribbled on a yellow pad. “Apparently not.”
Julian crossed to Alex. “Where were you?”
“Didn’t Cade tell you? He sent me to Rose for a job.”
“You’re working?”
“I can’t wear Ella’s clothes forever.”
“Of course you can.” He waved his hand regally, dismissing Ella’s charity as only a man could. “There’s no reason for you to get a job. You’re not—”
“Staying? From what I heard, you’d better hope that I am. Unless you’re a big fan of puking.” Alex squinted. “Is that steam coming out of your ears?”
He glanced over his shoulder at his brother, who was busy talking to himself and making notes on his yellow pad, then grabbed her elbow and half dragged, half led her down the hall and out the back door.
“Why are you here?” he asked.
“Two reasons.” Alex yanked her arm from his grasp. “Why did you tell Ella about me?”
“I didn’t.” Alex raised her eyebrows, and he shrugged. “She figured it out. The way you behave, as if you hate me—”
“I do,” she said, but there was no heat behind the words.
“She figured that I’d made you against your will; then she added the fact that I’d gone to LA to look for Alana’s killer, and come back with you and—” He shrugged. “She’s pretty damn mad about it.”
“Why didn’t she kill me before I knew that she knew? I’m going to be ready for it now.”
“Ready for what?” Julian asked, even as understanding spread across his face. “She isn’t going to kill you. She was mad at me. She called you ‘poor thing.’” He made a face that revealed what he thought of that statement.
Alex had to agree. She did not much care for being called “poor thing.”
“You said two.” Alex glanced up. Barlow leaned against the building watching her. “You came here for two reasons.”
“Oh.” For an instant Alex couldn’t remember what the other one had been. Discovering her secret revealed, yet still being alive to worry about it despite Barlow’s threats to the contrary, had thrown her off her game. “We are what we were when we were made, right?”
“Yes,” he said slowly. “That’s what this—” He waved a hand at her, then himself. “—is all about. You’re still you, despite being marked by the moon.”
“Marked by you,” she muttered.
“Same thing.”
“There’s a rogue wolf.” He seemed startled by the change in subject, but he nodded. “If I’m the same at heart when woman and wolf, then so’s this rogue.”
“I’m not following.”
“A psychotic killer in both forms.”