Neil and Julian had joined the Northern forces to fight. Cade had joined to heal.
“Cade was an army doctor,” Julian said. “That day he’d just gotten back from visiting an Iroquois woman. He always talked to the healers in every culture we…visited.”
“Sometimes it helped,” Cade said. “They knew local herbs. Back then, that was all we had.”
Julian waited for Cade to take over the tale, but when he turned again to his window—what was so blasted interesting out there anyway?—Julian continued. He felt better when he was talking. When he was talking about the past he wasn’t thinking about the present.
“Like Joe said, gut-shot is gut-shot.”
“Why didn’t you magic him back to health?”
“The only way I can heal a human is with a bite.”
“So you bit him.”
“He wanted me to.”
Julian had liked Joe. Hell, he still did. He’d never regretted saving the man’s life, and he couldn’t say that about every werewolf he’d made. Anyone could become damn annoying after a few centuries.
“I don’t see how this is explaining…” Alex moved her hands in a semicircle to indicate Joe and Rose, her and him.
Julian didn’t, either. He wasn’t sure he wanted it to.
“Once Julian saved Joe’s life,” Rose continued, “Joe brought him to me.”
“Why?” Alex asked.
“We’re soul mates. Joe wasn’t going to leave me behind.”
Alex’s eyes widened. “You made her a werewolf so they could be together?”
Julian shrugged. “Why not?”
“I insisted,” Rose said. “So did Joe. Without each other eternal life would have been hell.”
“It didn’t bother you that another human being would give their life for your immortality?”
Rose frowned. “Of course it bothered me. But Julian took care of that. He found a very—”
“Bad man,” Alex finished, staring at Julian all the while.
“Yes!” Rose agreed. “I’ll always be grateful to him for assuring that Joe and I would be together forever.” She grasped Julian’s hand and squeezed it. “But we discovered that being soul mates as humans meant we were mates as werewolves.”
“What does that mean?” Alex asked, her voice a little louder than necessary. Neither Joe nor Rose had ever been deaf, and they certainly wouldn’t be anymore.
“Wolves mate for life, child. Some humans do, too. And when you have humans that are soul mates and werewolves that are mates, you have the strongest bond of all.”
“I tried once to leave her,” Joe said. “Just-a to go to wine country and choose a few places to do business with. Before I even reached the cave where we rest, my stomach cramped. I could-a not move. I thought that I would die of the pain.” He gazed at Rose, everything he felt evident on his face. “I have never tried to leave her again.”
“Why would you want to?” Rose murmured, and kissed him.
“This is nuts,” Alex murmured. “I don’t even like you.”
Rose tsked. “That’s not true!”
Alex stood so close to Julian he could touch her, yet his stomach roiled and his head ached. That he wanted to touch her, would apparently always want to, was no doubt the cause.
“How did you know you were soul mates?” he asked.