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“How could you?” Ella straightened and stepped back, as if she could no longer stand to be near him. “The poor thing.”
Poor thing? Alexandra Trevalyn was not a poor thing.
“There are countless women in this village who would be happy if you looked their way. Women in Awanitok as well. You didn’t have to—”
“Hold on.” Julian lifted his head. “Why do you think I brought her here?” His eyes widened as
her cheeks flushed and she glanced down. “You thought I saw her, wanted her, and took her?”
“You’re a Viking,” she said simply.
“I haven’t raped or pillaged in at least a decade.”
Ella gave him a look that only a true Frenchwoman could give—one that made Julian want to apologize not only for being sarcastic, but for every transgression he’d ever made in all his lifetimes.
Julian sighed. “You know why I went to LA.” Ella was the only one he’d told.
“You had a lead on Alana’s killer. But you came back with—” Ella’s mouth continued to open and close, but no sound came out for several seconds. “Julian,” she finally managed. “What did you do?”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
She smacked him in the back of the head as if he were a recalcitrant student and she a teaching nun from the Dark Ages. “Why would you make the woman who killed your heart, your soul, your wife like us? That’s a gift.”
“She’d consider it a curse. She does consider it a curse. Which is the whole point.”
“You had better explain your point, because I am not seeing it.”
“She believes she killed a monster.”
“But she did not.”
“She’ll never understand that until she understands—”
“Us,” Ella finished, comprehension dawning in her eyes. “You made her like us so she could see what she’d done and agonize about it forever.”
Julian spread his hands and shrugged.
“Fool,” she snapped.
Julian pulled back quickly before she smacked him again. But Ella was so furious, she began to pace like a caged…wolf.
“You brought the enemy into our midst. You think she won’t tell Edward where we are and how to get here.” Ella stood and turned toward the door. “She’s probably halfway to Juneau already.”
Julian caught her hand, holding on when she tugged and snarled. “When I get too far away from her I get physically sick.”
She stopped struggling, and her frown returned. “Why?”
“She was the first one of my wolves I ever tried to leave behind before she was able to fend for herself.”
Ella gave him another look that would have melted metal and muttered a word that sounded suspiciously like “Ass” before continuing: “You believe the same thing would have happened if you’d left any of us too soon?”
“I did, until I went running the other night and had to stop because of the pain.” He took a deep breath, then let it out. “I think it’s only her.”
“There’s something different about Alex,” Ella murmured. “You need to find out what it is.”
Julian was already on top of that. He stifled a wince at the innuendo and the predictable image it brought to mind.
He’d meant to tell Cade about this development when the two of them were alone—call him foolish, but he hadn’t wanted Alex to know that the absence of her company turned him into a weak, writhing wimp—but he hadn’t done so yet. Now would be a good time.
