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“I wouldn’t boink anyone.”
She snorted.
Except you.
The thought floated through his head and nearly out of his mouth. He bit his lip. Hard.
“Don’t say it.” Alex narrowed her eyes. “Just don’t.”
Could she read his mind? Or merely his face?
“Explain how the old guy…Jorund?” Julian nodded. “Could be your grandson.”
“He isn’t. Not technically, as in son of my son, because—like you said—that’s impossible. But he’s a descendant.”
“Of yours?”
“Yes.”
“They’re all descendants?”
“In a way.”
Alex rubbed her head as if it ached. He had no doubt it did. Though her wound had begun to heal, her hand came away bloody. She scowled at the red slash, began to wipe her palm on Ella’s pants, then thought better of it. Knowing Ella, the garment probably cost more than the snowmobile.
Instead she bent and picked up a loose handful of snow, held it between her palms until it melted, then rubbed them together until they were clean again.
She was adapting quicker and better than any of his others. But she’d had a lot of practice. Dragged from city to city all her life, blending in, making do, as she hunted monsters that would gladly kill her if they knew that she was there.
Sympathy sparked, but Julian squelched it. If she saw that expression on his face, he didn’t want to think where she’d kick him next.
Alex waved a damp hand. “Go on.”
Julian really wanted to get back to town and start questioning people. He needed to find out if anyone had gone crazy on him before another Inuit died. And if no one had, then he needed to find out how a rogue wolf had invaded his territory and no one had noticed. Had they lived safely for so long that they’d lost any sense of approaching danger?
First he should explain things to Alex. He didn’t blame her for being worried. He should have considered what she might think before he’d brought her to a village where every third inhabitant had his eyes.
“I sailed here long ago. Back when I was called Jorund the Blund.”
Her head came up. “Jorund? Like the old man?”
“Yes. Although he was named after me, not the other way around.”
“How did that happen?”
“A lot of the Native American tribes believe that once a person dies, their name must never be uttered again for fear their spirit will haunt the speaker. But the Inuit believe that the good aspects of the dead will inhabit those who are given the same name.”
“But you aren’t dead.”
“They didn’t know that when they started naming a child in every generation Jorund.” Julian shrugged. “It’s become a tradition.”
“So you sailed here back in what…8000 BC?”
“The Viking era was a thousand years ago.” He tilted his head, wondering what he could get her to tell him if he played dumb. “Didn’t you study that in school?”
She looked away, across the wide expanse of tundra that rolled on and on, acres of snow that resembled a perfectly white sea. “When would I have gone to school, Barlow? Maybe after we chased down that nahual in Mexico. Or while we were hunting the Scottish wulver in the Blue Ridge Mountains.”
“I don’t know what those are,” he admitted.
