They’d been silent all the way back. He didn’t know about her, but he’d been fighting the response he seemed unable to stifle whenever she was near. She touched him, even without meaning to, and he was lost.
Alex rubbed her hands against her pants as if she was trying to rub the sting from her palms. He knew the feeling.
Julian lifted his chin to indicate the dark and quiet house. “Will you be all right?”
“Why? You think Ella tried to kill me?”
“No.” He frowned. “Do you?”
She spread her hands. “Someone did. Right now, the only one off the hook for it is you.”
“And George.”
“And George,” she agreed.
“If Ella wanted you dead,” Julian began, “she could have killed you in your bed.”
“A little obvious.”
“I doubt anyone would have been calling for her blood once she told them who you really were. In fact, if she wanted you dead, all she would have had to do was tell the truth, then stand back and watch.”
“Maybe it wasn’t Ella.” Alex smiled. “I’m glad.”
“Someone tried to kill you, Alex.”
She shrugged. “I’m used to it.”
Her nonchalant attitude about that situation made Julian twitchy, anxious. He wanted to stay and protect her. But he knew what would happen if he did.
“No one should want to kill you at all,” he said.
“Don’t you?” she asked, then she strode up the steps and into the house.
Julian was left staring after her, wondering when in hell the answer had become no.
He parked the snowmobile at the back of Ella’s house, covered it with a tarp, then went searching for his brother.
Dawn was fast approaching. Cade would either be hard at work in the lab or—
Julian frowned and glanced into the night. Out there somewhere, like the others.
If he was honest, any one of his people could have taken those shots at Alex. But why would they? The only ones who knew who she really was, what she’d done, were Julian and Ella. And probably Jorund now, too.
They’d already established that Ella didn’t need to shoot Alex. There were easier, less dangerous ways to get rid of her.
Besides, Ella thought Alex was the victim. She’d be more likely to take a shot at Julian.
Jorund hadn’t done it. He’d been channeling Hugh Hefner at the time.
Julian hadn’t done it, so—
He opened the door to the lab and stepped inside, pausing to rub at his eyes. None of this made any sort of sense.
Julian glanced into Cade’s room. He wasn’t in bed.
He wasn’t in the lab, either, and he wasn’t in the bathroom that Julian checked on his way out.
Julian stood in the yard between his building and his brother’s, watching the moon die. Then he walked to Ella’s, and he sat on the porch until the murky light of the sun tinted the sky and his werewolves began to trickle into town.