“It’s the price we pay for immortality.” Daniel laid his hand atop hers, and Alex’s throat went thick. She must not be as over the choking fit as she’d thought. “It’s a very high price.”
“What if the guy—” Daniel lifted a brow. “—or girl you killed deserved to be dead?” A thousand times over.
“Ah, Julian’s method,” he murmured. “A very—”
Together they said, “—bad man.”
“You still killed a human being,” Daniel continued. “Your soul is no longer white.”
“It ain’t black, either.”
“Perhaps,” he said, though he didn’t sound convinced.
“You agonize over who you killed,” Alex murmured. “So you have no peace of mind.” If that was the case, it was going to be a very long eternity for Daniel.
“No,” he said. “Well, yes. I do agonize over the person who ensured my immortality, and I always will. But that isn’t the loss of peace I’m talking about.”
“What is?”
His eyes met hers and within them she saw a stark fear that gave her an unpleasant little jolt. “We’re hunted, Alex.”
“The Jäger-Suchers.”
“We can never be completely at peace because there is always someone—” He took a breath. “—many, many someones, and they aren’t all Jäger-Suchers, who live and breathe to kill us.”
You’d think Alex would be happy to know that she’d struck fear into the hearts of werewolves everywhere. Strangely, she wasn’t. She felt like Godzilla, stomping on all the little racing ant-people.
“You’re safe here,” she said soothingly.
His dark gaze seemed to bore into hers. “Are we?”
Chapter 18
Did he know?
That was impossible. If Daniel thought she was working for Edward, he certainly wouldn’t be this nice to her. No one would be.
The reminder of the second reason that she was here, and what she was supposed to do once she had what she’d come for, made Alex’s stomach pitch and her skin crawl.
She had a sudden image of Edward Mandenauer and a posse of J-S agents descending on Barlowsville, shooting wolves like fish in a barrel.
Alex gave a mental wince. She should probably stop being so buddy-buddy with the enemy.
“You don’t think you’re safe?” she asked.
Daniel shrugged. “I know Edward.”
“Personally?” Alex’s voice lifted with surprise, and the older man smiled.
“Unfortunately, yes.”
Alex opened her mouth to ask for this story, forgetting her resolve to stop befriending every werewolf that sat in her station, and Daniel’s smile bloomed, happiness lighting his eyes and causing his slightly slumped shoulders to straighten. However, the expression wasn’t for Alex but for the young man who’d just walked through the door.
“Wow” was all Alex could manage before the new arrival’s gaze went to the counter, zeroed in on Daniel, and the same smile blossomed all over his face.
The guy was Calvin Klein model handsome—with feathered black hair, deep blue eyes, chiseled cheekbones, and a body that would make a werewolf jealous. Hell, she was.
He wore a blue, white, and black plaid flannel shirt over what appeared to be an extremely tight white wife beater. She had time to wish it was warm enough in here to take off the flannel before she was distracted by how he filled out his jeans.