Page 81 of Black Moon

I met his eye before speaking, holding his gaze. “Aspen doesn’t get a say.Nodecent alpha would want you any more or less because of anything that’s happened in the last month. And maybe I don’t want you like that, but I want you here. I want you with us. You’re a member of this pack, and my friend, and we all love you.”

“I’m broken.”

“You’re Brook.” I wasn’t qualified to speak on being broken. Who was I to tell him he wasn’t, if he said he was? Colt had mentioned a therapist in the city. I needed to see to that. To get Brook someone objective to talk to.

Whatever it was, something about the simple statement was what Brook had needed in that moment. He dove at me, wrapping his arms around me as tight as a python trying to make me his dinner. I didn’t pull away, just held him right back while Ginger nosed at us, trying to worm her way into the embrace until Brook relented and pulled her in as well.

42

Colt

“You seriously thinking about staying?” Zeke asked as we walked over to the Wilsons’ house. “I know you and Linden are all hot and heavy now, but I mean for good.”

I frowned. “I don’t know. He hasn’t asked me to settle down, exactly. And really, wouldn’t he be better off with—” I waved my hand around. “A pack alpha needs an omega who’s going to strengthen their position in the pack. I’m an outsider.”

Zeke scoffed. “We don’t turn away wolves for no good reason. If you want a spot here, Linden or no, you’ve got one.”

“That’s...something to think about.”

Zeke’s scoff turned into a laugh, but he didn’t say anything else, so I really did have nothing to do but think about it.

When we got to Claudia’s, she was already heading out the door, locking it behind her.

“Something happen?” Zeke asked, his hands on his hips at the base of her front stoop.

Claudia unlocked her car with the click of a button. “Talin’s offered up The Cider House as a base of operations. Guess nobody’s in the mood to drink with Brook missing again.”

“Be nice not to have the whole damn pack descending on your house at once.”

With a quirk of her lips, Claudia shrugged. “You said it first. Want a ride?”

We got to The Cider House, and there were already a dozen cars in the parking lot. Inside, Talin was passing out bottles of water, and Shiloh helped Claudia drag a table around to set up like a desk.

Harmony Morgan was pacing along the wall.

Rhonda, their mom, was apparently back at their house in case Brook showed up there, but I got the impression that, after sitting around for days, waiting for news on their missing brother while Brook was with the Reids, the Morgan sisters couldn’t stand being at home anymore.

At least at The Cider House, Shiloh and Harmony and everybody else felt like they were doing something, even if that something was pacing back and forth against the wall, growling.

“Jack, you take Ford and run the edge of town. You pick up anything weird, I want to know about it,” Claudia said, seated behind a table once she sat down, her phone face up beside her in case any news came in.

The McKesson kid nodded. After backing Skip so long, I was surprised how quick the beta wolf fell in line when it was Claudia calling the shots.

Maybe he had really wanted nothing more than change and had underestimated how much Linden was willing to give it to them just because he was another Grove in a long line of Grove pack alphas.

He went over to a burly alpha by the wall—a big, gruff guy with the same brown hair as Jack’s, who was a head taller and sporting hollow cheeks and tired eyes.

“Anything I can do?” I asked when she’d given out a few more orders, sent Zeke out to check in with the alphas at the mechanic shop where Brook worked.

She pursed her lips as she looked up at me, no doubt weighing how best to deploy another omega—and one who barely knew the town.

She never got to answer.

“I’m going to kill him,” snarled Harmony suddenly.

Shiloh grimaced, the plastic bottle in her hand crinkling with the pressure. “Who?”

“I don’t know! Everyone. That Reid motherfucker, to start.”

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