“It wasn’t her,” Barlow said.
His defense surprised Alex. She would have figured he would love to have her chased up and down the Arctic coast by a band of Inuit armed with silver harpoons. Although, considering the Smart Car and the Ugg boots, they probably had silver bullets and automatic weapons, too.
“No?” Tutaaluga murmured, still staring at Alex as if she were a bug on a pin. “New wolves are always the most vicious.”
“She’s only just arrived. With me.”
“Hmm.” The old man turned his gaze back to Julian. “You ran right past us in the depths of the night. Yet you saw no evil, heard no evil, smelled no evil?”
“Do you think it was her?” Julian’s eyes flared. “Or do you think it was me?”
The old man shrugged. “I don’t know what to think. There is new wolf vicious and there is alpha wolf vicious. Sometimes they can be very much the same.”
“The wolf is brown,” Julian said. “I’m not.”
“You are a shaman,” the elder pointed out. “I think you could be anything that you wish.”
Chapter 12
Julian sighed and lifted his face to the sky. The old man had a point. Julian probably could change the shade of his fur just by thinking of it.
But he hadn’t. On the other hand…
He looked at Alex. She was staring at him, obviously wondering the same thing about him that he was wondering about her: What had she been doing during the time they’d been running separately last night? He doubted she’d been snacking on the local wise woman, but who knew?
Turning back to the elder, he murmured, “I swore to protect this village.”
“For a price.”
“There’s always a price.”
The Inuit inclined his head in agreement.
“I will discover who’s done this, and I will make sure they never do it again.”
Julian strode toward the snowmobile without another glance in Alex’s direction. If she wanted to return with him, she could move her ass. If she didn’t, he’d leave her behind.
He barely registered her climbing on as he started the machine, barely felt her hands at his waist as he sped away. He was so damn mad.
His village had existed for over a century unharmed, undetected, because they had one simple rule and it was this: Never eat the people.
Now someone had broken it—at least once—and who was to say that someone hadn’t ranged farther and wider and broken that rule again and again in a place over which Julian had little chance of damage control?
In no time there would be representatives of this or that government agency detached with guns and orders to kill the rabid wolf. They’d have a bit of trouble with that, of course—he doubted they’d bring silver bullets—which only meant that Edward would hear about it.
Edward would have no trouble at all.
Julian wasn’t aware that he was driving faster and faster until Alex’s fingers dug into his side as they bounced far too high over an incline, then came down far too hard on the other side.
“Brown wolf,” Julian muttered. He should have asked what shade. Dark as mud at midnight? Or light as the sand beneath the dawn? That might narrow it down.
Anger flared, and Julian imagined himself as a wolf, chasing down another wolf—dark brown, light brown, didn’t matter. He would leap; he would land on its back; they would roll over and over in the snow, but the golden wolf would come out on top; then he would grab the traitor by the throat and—
Julian jerked his head to the side with a ripping motion.
Ahhh. He could almost taste the blood.
His fury surged, and the next thing Julian knew both he and Alex were sailing through the air and skidding across the frozen tundra.