Page 71 of Black Moon

Well, most everyone.

Jack McKesson was still staring at me over a basket of fries, his eyes narrowed thoughtfully.

Zeke, too, was still staring at me.

“Cider?” Talin called, and it took me a moment to realize she was talking to me.

Almost instinctively, I went to shake my head. As many years as I’d been going to The Cider House and drinking the same fresh cider, everyone still regularly offered me the hard stuff. It seemed to be half joke and half test at this point, but much of the time, Shiloh still made me turn down the hard stuff before giving me my mug.

This time, Talin was holding out a mug that didn’t smell of alcohol at all. I led Colt to the bar, taking it with a nod. “Thank you.”

She gave me her usual inscrutable nod and turned to Colt. “What was it? Vodka tonic?”

He glanced around at everyone, pint glasses in hand, then mine, and finally turned back to her. “Just a pint of cider, I think. Claud tells me it’s the best.”

Talin gave him a little smirk as she grabbed a new mug, filling it from the tap it and setting it on the bar with a thunk. “It should be. Groves have been making cider in this town for over a hundred years. They know what they’re doing by now.”

Colt’s secret smile in return almost made my alpha rear his obnoxious head, but I knew damn well Talin was for Shiloh or no one at all. There was no competition there. I didn’t want her omega and she didn’t want mine.

I paused and blinked down at my drink. Had I seriously just thought something so utterly ridiculous?Myomega? I rolled my eyes at the antiquated notion. More the other way around, really, considering the fact that I was even there. Colt said jump and I asked how high. He said The Cider House at seven because of political shenanigans, and I went, even though I hated political shenanigans.

I turned and headed straight for my usual spot at the end of the bar, but stopped short when Colt didn’t move. When I looked at him, he nodded toward the center of the room. Toward the table where Zeke and Claudia and Birch sat, Claudia giving me her usual “you thought you’d try it, didn’t you?” expression.

She set her mug down and knocked on the table next to her. “Come have a seat, Linden.”

“We were just talking about what comes next,” Zeke said aloud, clearly pitched for the whole bar, as he lifted his drink in my direction. “I figured a Grove ought to be in on that conversation for the Grove Pack.”

“My ancestors don’t give me any special say in things,” I answered by rote.

My father had told me that so many times in my youth, I couldn’t hope to count them. I didn’t get to fall back on being a Grove. We weren’t some kind of fancy old money family who rested on their laurels and didn’t work. We were part of a community, and we served it like every other member of the pack, or else we knew right where the road out of the valley was.

“Right,” Zeke agreed. “We know the story of the founding.”

There were a couple of groans, and at least one set of rolled eyes as Zeke popped up to his feet, hand pressed to his heart.

In the tone of a man who’d told the story a thousand times—because he had—he continued, “Ezekiel Lancaster, of the New York Lancasters, was a third son. Back in the day they’d have called him the ‘one for the church,’ but instead of becoming a priest, little Ezekiel became a lawyer.”

“And when his father tried to force his omega sister into an arranged marriage, Ezekiel used his knowledge of the human legal system to get her out of it,” Claudia added, sounding bored, but eyes sparkling with amusement. She reached out and squeezed her husband’s hand. “So that his dear sister could marry a certain Wilson ancestor, and make sure my Birch was born.”

Zeke gave her a half-hearted scowl. “You done?”

“The storyis done,” Birch pointed out. “Ezekiel got his sister out of the marriage, but got shunned by his rich family for his trouble, so he took his friend and sister, moved to Virginia, bought half the apples in the state, and changed his name to Grove.”

“Then took to naming all his descendants after trees,” Claudia added.

“That ain’t all,” Zeke insisted, frowning at the two of them, but sitting back down anyway. “Point of the story is that they started a new pack. A new kind of pack. Where it wasn’t just one asshole telling everyone else what to do. A kind of pack where everyone gets a say, even if they’re a damn tool.”

“And,” I took up the end of the story to remake my initial point. “That means everyone gets a say in the pack, so I have exactly as many votes as anyone else as to who becomes the next alpha.”

“Gonna vote for yourself?” Jack McKesson asked, killing the pretense that the five of us were having a private conversation.

I looked over at him, cocking my head. “I hadn’t really thought about it. We’ve been so busy with the Reids, I think everyone else has put more thought into this than I have.”

He leaned forward, meeting my eye. “Brook’s been back a week, and nothing’s changed.”

Claudia gave a little hiss, turning narrowed eyes on him, and both Birch and I reached out to put a hand on one of her shoulders.

Jack was unimpressed. “Gotta have an omega fight your battles? I mean, we all know you’re too soft to become an alpha the old-fashioned way.”

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