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“In,” she said without a moment’s hesitation.
Julian’s plan had been to infect Alexandra Trevalyn with the lycanthropy virus, gift her with a man who deserved very much to die, then leave. She would shift; she would kill; she would have no choice. Then, when she changed back, maybe she would understand a little better what she had done when she had murdered his wife.
That was the part he would miss seeing. The ecstasy followed by the agony. The unbearable hunger, then the quenching of it. The inevitable realization of what had happened beneath the moon and the horror that would result from it.
Most werewolves were evil, but some were not, and all the wolves in Julian’s pack were of the latter variety. He’d heard of others as well, though he’d never met them.
Julian was different, and because of that, those he made were different, too. Instead of being consumed by a demon that urged them to kill at every opportunity, Julian’s wolves retained their humanity. They valued their lives and the lives of others. Certainly human blood was required beneath the full moon. But blood and death were two very different things.
Unfortunately a kill was still inevitable after the initial change. It was the only way to come back from the edge of insanity. After that, however, Julian’s wolves were loath to kill again. The core of evil that characterized other werewolves did not exist in his.
Once upon a time Julian had attempted to prevent his wolves from making that original kill—supplying them with fresh human blood instead as he did on all of the full moons that followed. But it didn’t work. For reasons he couldn’t fathom, not killing that first time turned them into killing machines ever after.
A fate he didn’t want for Alexandra. No, he wanted her to regain her humanity and experience the anguish of being unable to stop herself from killing, then live with it as they all did. He wanted her to understand that once the initial change and kill were behind them, some werewolves were just like everyone else. When she’d shot Alana, she had murdered a person; she had not rid the world of a monster.
He could have stayed and watched but he hadn’t survived for more than a thousand years by remaining at the scene of any one of his crimes. He did not plan to be at this one when all hell—now known as Alexandra Trevalyn—broke loose.
Julian had no doubt that a Jäger-Sucher would show up eventually and put her out of her misery. And while he’d love to see how she liked it, he had no desire to run into any of Edward Mandenauer’s superior hunters again. He’d already had to dispose of far too many, and Edward was not a man who forgot such things. The old warrior would do his best to exact vengeance, but Julian did not plan to give him the opportunity.
After exiting the abandoned apartment building, Julian drew on his ability to move faster than the human eye could track—with age came many advantages, and this was one of them. He was several miles away when a strange, cold, somewhat sick feeling invaded his consciousness. He slowed and nearly knocked over a kid running in the other direction.
“Jeez, dude,” the young man said.
“Pardon me,” Julian muttered.
“Pardon?” The boy laughed. “Man, where you from?”
Julian didn’t bother to answer. He was both history and legend, from a time and place so far away there was no one left of it but him.
And one other.
The kid eyed Julian’s new clothes, clean hands, and expensive shoes. A spark of avarice lit his eyes, and his grubby paw disappeared into his pocket.
“You don’t want to do that,” Julian said.
The young man glanced up, and Julian let him see what lay beneath his smooth human veneer. Next thing he knew, the boy was scurrying back in the direction he’d just come, leaving Julian alone to examine what had caused him to stop running in the first place.
The sick sensation still lodged deep in his belly, and the breeze, which he knew to be hot, slid across his skin like an ice cube. He’d think he had a fever, the flu, except he didn’t get sick. Not since he’d become a werewolf.
He’d learned to listen to his feelings. In wolf form they would be called instincts, and they were as reliable as the sun at dawn.
Julian continued to walk in the direction he’d been headed. Immediately he began to shiver, and his stomach cramped.
“Knull mæ i øret,” he muttered. The only time his native language came naturally anymore was when he cursed.
Slowly he turned in the other direction and retraced his steps. As he did, the pain lessened. He was unable to move very quickly, but the closer he got to where he’d left Alexandra Trevalyn, the better he felt.
Which made no damn sense at all.
Julian sat on a crumbling cement stoop in front of a half-burned ware house. He breathed in and out, ignoring the scent of soot as he calmed his roiling belly. He managed to get past the nausea, but he couldn’t make himself stand up and go. Eventually he faced the truth.
He couldn’t leave her here. She was pack now.
“Knull mæ i øret,” he said again, then he laughed.
He’d made other wolves in his lifetime. But he’d never tried to leave any behind as soon as he’d made them. That would have been a recipe for disaster.
New wolves were…a problem. Until they became accustomed to the changes, Julian always remained close. Because of that, it had never occurred to him that he would be physically unable to let Alexandra fend for herself.
