Julian straightened so abruptly, Alex had to force herself not to back away. “I don’t make wolves lightly, Alex.”
“Except for me.”
His teeth ground together, the sound reminiscent of a bulldozer rolling over gravel. “That was hardly done lightly. And I knew all about you before I did it.”
Not all, Alex thought.
“Who’s the most likely candidate for psychotic killer of the week?” she asked.
“You,” he muttered.
Alex didn’t bother to comment. She could claim she didn’t kill people. He’d swear she did. They’d start to argue and blah, blah, blah.
“Think back on who you’ve made,” she said. “Did you know all of them as well as you knew me?” Or thought you did.
“None of my wolves were killers when I made them,” he insisted. “Why do you care? It’s my Indian village that’s being targeted, my people who are being accused.”
She couldn’t tell him the truth—that she believed his rogue and her father’s killer were one and the same—so she told him a different truth instead.
“I’m good at finding murderous werewolves. It’s kind of what I do.”
“Did,” he muttered.
“Just because you made me one, too, doesn’t mean I lost the ability to track them. You should let me help.”
“Help?” he echoed as if he didn’t know the word.
“I’ll find the rogue for you, Barlow. You can count on it.”
She sounded sincere, and for an instant Julian felt something like hope. She was one of the best hunters Edward had ever had, second only to the man himself now that Leigh Tyler had gotten pregnant and retired. Although that rumor was so bizarre Julian had a hard time believing it. Still, there’d been no whispers lately of Leigh blasting her way through more than her share of werewolves. So something strange had definitely happened.
Julian had never understood why Edward allowed Alex to leave his agency and run rogue. He thought the old man was up to something there; he just couldn’t figure out what.
“You never answered my question,” Julian said. “Why do you care?”
“I live here now. Sounds like I could be living here for the foreseeable future.”
Julian stifled a growl. Not if he could help it.
“I don’t want to find myself in the middle of a Barlow family civil war.”
Might it come to that? Would his Inuit relatives begin to hunt his werewolf offspring? Could the peace he’d found here deteriorate into another war?
Julian sighed. Yeah.
Despite her obvious skill at the job, and his need for it, Julian just couldn’t set Alex loose on his people. There was no telling what she might do to get her answers.
“We’ll search together,” he said.
“What?” The slight smile on her lips froze. “No. I work alone.”
“Not anymore.”
Julian nearly laughed as Alex sputtered and stomped. She couldn’t seem to find her words, and that suited him just fine. He liked her best when she wasn’t talking.
An image of what she was usually doing when she wasn’t talking—him—flitted through his mind, and for the first time that he could remember, it didn’t make him angry and horny. It just made him horny.
The woman was the best lay he’d ever had.