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He pulled his attention from the past into the present where his people stood naked in the dawn’s hazy light. No one cared. They were pack. They had nothing whatsoever to hide

“I told you to shift,” he murmured. ,“If you’d have listened, you could have grabbed some clothes before I ca them.”

“I’ll shift when I want to,” she said. “Or when I have Not when you tell me to.”

He’d been right about her defying him.
And
about enjoying it.

“Besides,” she continued. “They don’t have clothes:

don’t have clothes. Why should I have clothes?”

“Frostbite?”

“I’ll heal frostbite easier than I healed—” She glanced at her ribs. The bruises and the scratches were gone. She met his eyes and shrugged.

His people began to shuffle impatiently. The initial. left them warm enough to withstand the extreme cold. But the longer they were human, the more human they were, and while frostbite could be healed, it would have to wait until the moon rose to do so completely. A day of frostbite on tender extremities would not be a day full of sunshine.

“Everyone welcome Alexandra Trevalyn,” he said. “Alex. She is one of us.”

He felt her swift glance. Had she thought he woul4 reveal her past? If his pack knew she was the hunter who had killed his wife, they would kill her.

If he’d wanted her dead, he would have ended her himself.
Before
he’d made her a werewolf.

Everyone moved closer, welcoming her. Pack members were touchy-feely, and that made Alex uncomfortable.

Julian crossed his arms over his chest and watched as she tried not to squirm.

A sudden insight stunned him. He had not planned to bring her here. Therefore, he had not brought, along the se-

rum that would allow her to touch anyone but him in human form. Which meant she should now be writhing on the ground in agony along with everyone who had touched her.

“Enough,” he barked.

His people turned to him in surprise. Welcoming a new pack member meant getting to know their scent, their touch, and letting the new member get to know yours. They believed Alex had taken her medicine, as they all had.

So why was he stopping them?

Since he couldn’t tell them that something very strange was going on, he chose to tell them nothing.

“Ella’.” Julian addressed the oldest female in the pack—a dark, thin Frenchwoman who appeared the same age as Alex but in truth had narrowly escaped the guillotine during
la révolution.
“See that she gets settled.”

Ella moved forward, hand outstretched. Alex frowned,

staring at Ella’s palm as if she had no idea what the woman wanted. She wasn’t afraid; she must have come to the conclusion that since she could touch Julian, she could touch everyone.

Alex backed up a few steps. “I’ll—uh—be right back.” She moved out of the crowd and came to Julian. “Where will I stay?” -

“With Ella.”

“But I—” She broke off, biting her lip. “I just met her.”

“You just met everyone.”

“Not you.”

Julian blinked. “You want to stay with me?”

“I don’t
want
to,” she said at the same time he said, “That wouldn’t be smart”

“Because of yesterday?” she asked.

The instant the words left her mouth, Julian remembered the taste of that mouth, the feel of it on his body, the scent of her all around him, and his penis leaped.

“Faen,”
he muttered.
Shit!
He was naked. If he got a hard-on now—

He didn’t want to think about that. In fact, he’d

better
not
think about it or he’d definitely get one.

Her eyebrows lifted, and her lips twitched as if she knew his every thought. “What if! promise not to jump you?”

“You’re admitting that you did jump me?”

“No.”

Her defiance caused amusement to flicker, quickly followed by annoyance at both his reaction and the sight of her face. How could he be both attracted and repelled by her every minute of every day? He wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake her, at the same time he wanted to throw her down on the ground and take her.

“Ella,” Julian snapped, and strode away without bothering to reiterate his orders. It was a sign of weakness to repeat himself, and Julian could not afford to be weak.

Just because he was their leader, and had been for close to a century, did not mean a wolf wouldn’t challenge him if given the opportunity. Julian had managed to keep the peace because he was the strongest, the biggest, the baddest when he chose to be. No one dared question him.

Except Alex.

He sighed, wondering if he might have to kill her after all.

Following a long, hot shower where Julian both warmed’ chilled skin and jacked off to ascertain he would not h; any surprise erections later that day, Julian dressed, checked his messages.

Between traveling, locating Alex, following her, and ting up his plan, he’d been away over a week. He had a lo deal with. Julian was not only the mayor of what had co to be known as Barlowsville—a joke at first, but the name stuck

—he was also the chief of police, the judge, and, when necessary, the executioner.

The latter was rare. For the most part they lived in harmony. But when dealing with nearly two hundred werewolves. . . well, shit happened.

Thankfully none of the messages awaiting him spoke misbehavior so severe that capital punishment would be necessary. Just the usual minutiae of village life—boundary disputes, nonpayment for services or goods—and the minutiae of werewolf existence—the snatching of a rabbit ft someone’s very jaws, the taking of more than one’s share a larger kill—elk, deer, moose.

He put aside his duties until later. He had one duty he must attend to first.

His house, a two-story log cabin at the farthest edge of the village, backed a squat, white edifice that blended into the landscape during the majority of the year when snow covered the land.

Presently the snow reached Julian’s knees, but the distance between the rear of Julian’s house and the rear of the building was only a few hundred feet and wasn’t that difficult to traverse, especially for someone with the strength of ten.

Inside, the air was cool—though not unpleasantly so. Silence reigned, broken every so often by the click of electricity or the whisper of the wind through the eaves.

“Cade?” Julian called, but no one answered.

Typical. His brother often became engrossed in his work to the detriment of all else. If it weren’t for the full moon that forced the issue, Julian thought Cade might forget to shape-shift altogether.

Julian walked through the silent halls, ducked his head into Cade’s empty living quarters, then followed his nose to the laboratory where he found his brother boiling what smelled like death over a tiny blue flame. For a few minutes Julian just watched him.

As a Viking, Cade had been a bust. Without Julian to protect him, he would have died long before that fateful day in Scotland.

Cade was a gentle soul, a healer by trade. He’d been indispensable when they’d gone a Viking, his knowledge of the human body and the herbs and potions necessary to mend ii, vast.

Whenever they’d invaded a new country, Cade spent his time talking to the local healers, gathering knowledge from every corner of the earth. He fought, but not eagerly or well. which meant Julian always fought at his side.

Except for that one time.

“Hey,” Julian murmured, and Cade looked up, blue widening when he discovered his brother in the room.

He frowned at the clock, then the calendar, then back Julian. “What day is it?”

“Friday.”

The frown deepened. “But you left on Thursday.”

“I’ve been gone over a week, Cade.”

Cade glanced at the calendar again, then shrugged ai murmured, “Huh. Is it morning or is it night?”

“I told you to put a window in this place.”

The laboratory was more like a fortress. The single window in the entire building existed in Cade’s living quarters, and that only because Julian had gone behind his brother’s back with the builders. He wasn’t sure Cade had even noticed.

“It helps me to focus,” Cade said. “If there are no

windows, my only world is this.”

“Your only world has always been this.”

“True,” Cade agreed, and returned to his work.

Julian’s brother was shorter than he—though at six feet Cade was by no means short. He was also slim instead of muscular, pale instead of tan, and his hair, which had been as blond as Julian’s, had darkened to a dusty brow.

While Julian’s brushed his shoulders, straight and s:

Cade’s reached halfway down his back, the length mo cause he forgot to cut it—hell, sometimes he forgot to it—than for any fashion statement. He’d attempted
t*
fine it in a ponytail, but strands had come free and bill curling into his face.

“You never said where you were going or why,” murmured as he mixed a bit of this and a tad of that.

With good reason. Alana had not made friends easily, but she’d made friends with Cade. Her loss had hit him hard. If his brother had known why Julian was going, there would have been no leaving him behind, and Julian had needed to do this alone.

“I went to LA to follow a lead on Alana’s killer.”

Cade knocked one of the test tubes onto the floor as he spun. “Did you find anything?”

Julian stared Cade directly in the eye. “No,” he said.

Cade sighed, then he began to clean up the mess on the floor.

“What did you drop?” Julian asked.

“Human blood derivative.”

Julian straightened away from the counter. “You found it?”

“Not yet.”

“You will.”

“Sometimes I wonder.”

The need for human blood on the night of the full moon necessitated some fancy planning on Julian’s part. The amount id human blood necessary to satisfy the cravings of his entire village was copious, which was why Cade spent the majority of his time searching for a substitute. That and the fact that Alana had
hated
taking human blood.

She’d said it made her feel
ew-ky.

Julian smiled at the memory, but his smile faded as he recalled that her dislike of that basic need had eventually grown into a dislike of a whole lot more. -

“You invented the serum that allows werewolves to touch In human form,” Julian blurted, doing his best to make the unpleasant memories go away.

And speaking of unpleasant memories.

“I brought a woman back with me.”

Cade, who had been choosing a new test tube from the

shiny selection near the sink, nearly bobbled and broke another. “You what?”

“She was.. . dying,” Julian muttered.
Liar, liar, pants on

fire,
his mind taunted.

“What happened to the no-more-werewolves rule?”

“That isn’t the rule,” Julian said.

“Fine. You didn’t ask
permission.”
His voice twisted sarcastically on the final word.

“Since I’m the one who gives permission, I figured I’ save a step.”

Cade rolled his eyes, and Julian stifled a smile. His brother was the only one who dared stand up ‘to him—although r’ often or very well—the only one with whom Julian could truly himself.

Alex’s face flitted through his mind. She stood up to him. And if he wasn’t being himself with her—evil, murderous beast that he was—then who was he being?

“You’re growling,” Cade observed.

Alex seemed to have that effect on him, even when she wasn’t around.

“You said it’s dangerous to create a new wolf,” Cade

pointed out. “That it should only be done by one who’s done it before, for a damn good reason, with the new wolf’s consent and preferably here.” Cade jabbed a finger at the floor

“I say a lot of things,” Julian muttered.

“Besides, the village is packed. Where is this woman going to stay?” His eyes widened. “With you?”

“Hell no!” Julian erupted before he could stop himself.

His brother’s expression became contemplative. “Who is she?”

“Just some woman.” Julian put his hands in his pock and became vastly interested in the ceiling. “She was lying there bleeding. What was I supposed to do?”

“You said yourself that we can’t save everyone.”

“I suppose, but there was something about her—”

That little matter of murdering my wife.

“Wait a second,” Cade began. “You were in LA?”

“So?”

“You made a wolf in LA? A place with the population of mainland China shoved into a shoe box. You know how a new wolf is the first time they change.” He walked away muttering. “Kill anything. Everything. Anywhere.

Doesn’t matter.”

Cade booted up his laptop, typed a few quick commands, then peered at the screen. “No mass murders by unknown perpetrators. No wild dog packs loose in the suburbs. No rogue coyotes down from the hills munching on unsuspecting preschoolers.”

Julian lifted his eyebrow and let his brother rant on. Sometimes that was best.

Cade continued to scroll and click, Google and search, his mutterings lapsing into Norwegian now and then.

“Ah-ha!” Cade pointed at the screen. “Known child molester found with his throat torn out in a nasty area of LA.

No suspects?’ He cast Julian a glance. “That has you written all over it.”

Julian didn’t answer. Cade was right.

“Except..
?‘
Cade tapped his fingernail against the keyboard. “If you found this woman and she was dying, then you bit her and she shifted, she’d be ravenous. So how did you have time to find a child molester and take him for lunch?”

Good question.

Cade’s eyes narrowed. “It’s almost as if you’d planned it.”

His brother was too smart for anyone’s good. Especially Julian’s.

“I didn’t have to plan anything,” Julian said. “I’m magic, remember?”

“You use that as an answer to everything.”

“It’s a pretty good answer.”

Julian waited for Cade to call him a liar, but he didn’t. He couldn’t prove anything, and when it came right down to it, why would Julian lie?

“This woman,” Julian said. “I didn’t plan to make her.”