Page 57 of Black Moon

“Do you need me to go down and stay with him? I can do that.” There wasn’t an ounce of irritation in it. He wasn’t feeling put-upon by someone asking a favor of him while he was still trying to shake off the last vestiges of his heat. If anything, he’d spent the whole time apologetic that he needed the time to deal with it. Like the demands of his body were something he had control over, and he wasn’t doing it well enough.

Maybe it wasn’t generous of me, but it made me wonder what kind of alpha Senator Conroy Doherty was. Anyone who had made kind, good-hearted Colt feel as though he wasn’t enough was going to get my hackles up.

“He’s got Claudia with him right now, so I think he’s okay.” I let my hand slip off his chest, running up his neck to cup his face. “But you saved his life, and it made an impression. You make him feel safe. So I wondered if maybe you’d consider staying for a while. In, um, in Grovetown. For Brook.”

Could I sound any more like a ninny? Not likely.

He didn’t suggest it was a case of the lady doth protest too much, just gave me a languid smile and leaned his face into my hand. “Okay.”

Just like that? It couldn’t be that simple.

But it could.

It wasn’t like he was agreeing to stay with me. To stay permanently. To see what we could build between the two of us, given half a chance.

No, he was staying for Brook, for a little while. Because he was a good person, and that was what I’d asked him for. But the answer wasn’t likely to be as sweet and perfect if I asked the question I wanted to.

I ignored the fact that I was setting myself up for a disappointment. The alpha instinct stirred inside me enough to rumble its disapproval, stand, turn its back on me, and go back to sleep. Like I was a kid making too much noise while it tried to rest, it wasn’t interested in my antics.

It wasn’t interested in hearing about how modern society actually worked. It had what it wanted, and that was enough.

My omega.

Colt took another nap after the bath, then we dressed and went down to the clinic together, smelling like nothing so much as a mated couple. It was an intense, agonizing sort of bliss. Like a momentary picture of the life I wanted, accompanied by the awareness that it was only temporary—even if my alpha instincts refused to believe that.

“Do you have a local therapist?” Colt asked as we walked. “I know a lady in DC who specializes in victims like Brook.”

I hated to imagine Brook’s situation was so common that therapists specialized in it, but Colt probably meant sex crimes, not kidnapped omegas. We had all been trying very hard to avoid thinking about what the Reids had done to Brook, but all the pretending in the world wouldn’t change what had happened.

Wouldn’t change the fact that Brook needed help, or that he would probably refuse it.

We didn’t have a therapist within twenty miles, let alone one who specialized in helping people in Brook’s situation.

Colt and I let ourselves into the clinic, and for a second I thought I’d come just in time for Brook to be asleep—something that had happened a few times over the previous days. But no, it wasn’t Brook curled up on bed two, snoring softly, it was Claudia. That was odd. It wasn’t like her to fall asleep in the middle of taking care of pack business, let alone something as important as Brook.

But if Claudia was in Brook’s bed, where was Brook?

The bathroom door was sitting open, so I almost dismissed it, but no, he was in there.

“Brook?” I whispered. I mean, I could have called out, but if Claudia was asleep, there was a reason for it. I went to the bathroom door and found Brook staring at himself in the mirror.

All things considered, he looked great. There were dark circles under his eyes, yes, and he’d lost a few pounds over the last week, but he was alive and whole and—well, mostly unscarred.

And the scar was all he could see.

He was standing there, holding his T-shirt aside, staring at the horrible gouges in his neck. It had clearly been done against his will, and I couldn’t imagine how much it had hurt. It wasn’t a simple ring of teeth, as a mating mark was intended to be. It was all red slashes and tearing and made him look like he was the survivor of a shark attack.

Brook wasn’t a man I thought put a lot of stock in his physical appearance, but this was different. This was part of his identity, and he was trying to assimilate it into his worldview. Or wishing he didn’t have to.

He glanced at my reflection in the mirror, but didn’t meet my eye. “Silly to worry about it, right? To think no one will want some other alpha’s marked omega?”

“There’s nothing silly in this. Wrong, maybe. Anyone who doesn’t want you because of this is an asshole who isn’t worth your time.” I leaned in the doorway, as though we were having a casual conversation, and not one that had Brook tensed to bolt. “But that doesn’t mean you should have to live with it. I can’t take it away, not entirely, but we could make it less noticeable.”

He spun to look at me, eyes wide. “You could—you would?”

“Of course, Brook. I’m no surgeon, but I know how to do it. And it would be a relatively simple procedure. You’d have to heal again, but—” I held out a hand in his direction, raising a brow in question and waiting for his nod to touch him. As gently as possible, I pulled the scarred skin together, hiding the scar in my hand. “It would be here, like this. A line.”

Before I even finished saying it, he was nodding. “Yes. That. I want that. Can you do it now?”

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