Marked by the Moon (Nightcreature 9)

Once the thought of being a werewolf had horrified her. She’d have eaten the last bullet in her gun to avoid losing her humanity. Now she understood—

She hadn’t really been using it anyway.

A door opened. Alex’s breath caught as she turned toward Julian’s house. But the place remained silent, and her heart fluttered and stilled.

“Psst! Alex!” Cade hung out the back entrance of the lab. “You want to run with me tonight?”

Alex glanced once more at Julian’s. They needed to talk, but it didn’t have to be right now. Besides…

She turned toward Cade and waved. She could use a little cheering up.

Julian awoke to a pounding on the door. He reached for Alex, confused at first that she was there, then equally confused when she was not.

The moon poured into his bedroom, making him yearn. He’d find her, and they’d run together, just the two of them. But first he had to force whoever was at his door to shut up.

He found his pants in the corner with his shirt, but Alex’s clothes were gone. He checked in the bathroom on the way past, the kitchen too, but she wasn’t there. Considering he wasn’t clasping his stomach and writhing in agony, she hadn’t gone far.

Julian yanked open the front door. The man on the other side nearly knocked on his nose.

“Knut.” Julian jerked his head back just in time to avoid the huge, hamlike fist.

“Neil,” the man corrected with a scowl, lowering an arm the size of the logs in Julian’s cabin walls.

Neil did not appreciate being called Knut, and Julian couldn’t say that he blamed him. But it was difficult sometimes for Julian to remember. They’d grown up together, fought together, lived as werewolves together. He’d known Knut as long as he’d known Cade.

“Joe said you were searching for me.”

Not actively. Not yet. But he would have. If he could keep his mind on the issue at hand and his hands out of Alex’s pants.

“Where have you been?” Julian asked.

“Fishing.”

“For two weeks?”

“I like fish.” Neil drew himself up to his impressive height of six-five. It did take a lot of fish to fill up Neil. “Since when do you care what I do?”

“Since Inuit have been dying daily.”

Neil’s wind-burned face creased. “Why would that have anything to do with me?”

“Perhaps I should have said dying nightly.”

Neil caught the innuendo right away. “One of us is doing it.”

“Unless you’ve caught a whiff of an unknown werewolf in your travels.”

“None.” Neil’s pale blue eyes narrowed. “You thought it was me.”

Many had made the mistake of believing that Neil’s calm demeanor and large stature meant he was slow, in both body and mind. They had died badly at the end of his sword.

“You were gone,” Julian said, “and they did die.”

Neil drew in a breath, glanced to the side, then back at Julian. “Who died first? Was it the wise woman?”

Julian blinked. “How did you know that?”

Neil’s lips tightened, and he rubbed a big hand through his shorn dirty blond hair. No matter how many centuries he lived, no matter how short he cut his hair, or how many flannel shirts he collected, Neil would never look like anything but a Norse raider.