He lifted his gaze. “I guess they’ve made their choice.”
“No—” Alex began.
“They’re right. My arrogance got people killed. My obsession with vengeance put us all at risk. I’m not fit to lead.”
“Who is?”
Alex had meant the question to be rhetorical—really, who was fit to lead?—but Julian’s smile had her heart clenching. “Oh, no. Uh-uh. You stay right—”
Julian threw back his head and howled. The agony in the sound—the fury and the pain—made her reach out. Her hand was only an inch away from touching him when he shimmered, shifted, and disappeared.
Alex had been right about the coup, just wrong about the new alpha.
That appeared to be her.
Julian left, and he didn’t come back. Sure, she sent wolves out to look for him; she went to look for him, but if Julian didn’t want to be found, he wasn’t going to be. He had magic on his side.
Sometimes late at night she heard him howling, the sound a long wail of agony for the brother he’d lost.
But he didn’t go far. Certainly she felt ill on and off, but it wasn’t too bad, and it always passed.
She imagined him loping beneath the winter sun, breath streaming out of his snout in a white mist
. He would run just a little too far, and he’d feel the pull in his gut, the bond with his mate, and he’d turn back. Then his stomach would ease, and so would hers.
In a few months the bouts of nausea subsided. Since this coincided with reports of “the master” being seen at the edge of the woods watching Barlowsville one day, Awanitok the next, she understood why.
She was lucky; the village practically ran itself. Alex didn’t have any trouble at all. Once the wolves had chosen her, she was theirs just as she’d been his, and they listened to whatever she had to say.
Still, Alex’s guilt ate at her. Her appetite faded, yet she seemed to be gaining weight. Finally she went to the café, found Rose, and asked, “Why didn’t you kill me?”
“Kill you?” Rose patted her cheek. “Julian broke his own rules by forcing you.”
Since they were in the center of the café during the lunch rush, Rose’s words were greeted with a dozen nods and just as many murmurs of agreement.
“We should have killed him.” Rose’s sweet face folded into a vicious scowl. “I still might.”
“I killed Alana. I didn’t understand. Until he made me understand.”
“Made being the operative word.” This from Daniel, who occupied a nearby table with Josh. “We don’t do that around here.”
“I was going to turn all of you over to Edward,” Alex announced to the room at large.
“No, you weren’t,” Rose said, and returned to work.
Alex still lived with Ella. She’d been told she could move into Julian’s house, but the instant she’d set foot in the door, she’d started to cry. Without him, the place was too big, too cold, and too quiet
Ella didn’t mind. She said she liked the company. Alex thought what the Frenchwoman liked was keeping an eye on her. Every time Alex turned around lately, there stood Ella.
“You’re starting to give me the creeps,” Alex said after it happened for the fourth time in as many days.
Ella had been frowning at Alex’s stomach, which was pushing uncomfortably at the seams of Ella’s best slacks. “We have to talk.”
Julian stayed in the wild for six months. His guilt haunted him. Alex haunted him.
He didn’t like the man he’d been, so he remained a wolf. He had plenty of residual anger at both Cade and himself to stay in his preferred form. But all that fury was exhausting.
He started sleeping each day, running each night. Eventually he started running to her.