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“This werewolf is a rogue,” he insisted. “Probably isn’t even from here.”
“You keep on believing that,” she said.
Chapter 13
A few moments ago, Julian had felt sorry for her. A few moments after that he’d touched her, and it had felt so…perfect, he’d kept his hand right where it was.
Now he wanted to take that hand and wrap it around her throat until her smirk died, and she did, too.
Of course she wouldn’t stay dead—and he had only himself to blame for that.
“Why don’t you finish telling me why, if you can’t make baby Barlows, there are all sorts of people with your eyes running around calling you Daddy.”
“Grandfather,” he corrected.
“Whatever.” She tilted her head. “George called you Ataniq. Sounds a little like asshole, but I doubt he’d have the balls.”
“Unlike you,” Julian returned.
Alex spread her hands and shrugged.
“Ataniq means—” He paused, realizing that once he told her she’d only smirk again.
“You may as well spill it. I can borrow the Internet as well as the next werewolf.”
“Boss, president, king, master,” he blurted.
She stared at him for several seconds, while he discovered he’d been wrong. The smirk didn’t come back; instead a look of incredulity spread over her face. “You raped and pillaged your way through that village and now they call you grandfather and master?”
“No.”
“You just said—”
“We didn’t. I mean I didn’t—”
“You were a Viking, Jorund. You didn’t sail here to teach the natives about Jesus.”
No, they’d come here at Julian’s insistence. He’d had a sudden urge to sail west, though very few ships did. Such a trip had been a danger at the time considering the belief in sea monsters and a flat, flat world. The waters were uncharted, the land beyond the horizon a mystery. Naturally, he couldn’t resist.
Julian had always remembered the beauty of the place they had found. The ice, the snow, the freedom that swirled in the air. He’d wanted badly to come back. About a hundred years ago, he had.
“There weren’t any sea monsters,” he said. Alex blinked, then frowned. “They said there’d be sea monsters, and I wanted to find one.”
“Were you twelve?” she asked.
“Twenty.” And in command of his own vessel. “I think the sea monsters they spoke of were actually whales. Great beasts that rose up from the ocean, blowing huge gusts of water out of their heads.”
She was beginning to stare at him as if he’d lost his mind. “The sea monsters were whales. Check. And you sailed past them, landed…” She wiggled her fingers in the general direction of the ocean. “Then marched into Awanitok and took whatever the hell, and whoever the hell, you wanted.”
“No.”
She sighed impatiently. “Barlow, your eyes don’t lie. Well, your eyes do. But all the eyes, in all the faces, all over that village don’t.”
“I led a raiding party,” he began, then went silent, remembering.
It had been summer. If it hadn’t they’d never have been able to sail near the land since the water in the Arctic froze solid.
The Inuit village had been small at the time, perhaps sixty people. They’d lived in homes dug into the ground, the earth providing natural insulation. Anything aboveground was fashioned with sod over wood or whalebone frames. Julian had thought the method ingenious.
