Page 94 of Black Moon

I shouldn’t have been surprised that Colt, Juniper, and the Dohertys ignored my request and followed me to the corner in front of The Cider House.

At least Harmony had done as I asked. I’d gotten a text from Zeke on the drive over saying the two of them had things under control, and he had a handful of enforcers on the way to the Morgan house to back them up.

Okay, I wasn’t shocked that Juniper and Colt had come, but what did the Dohertys care about what happened between two “redneck alphas”? Maybe the senator thought it would be easier to drag Colt back to Washington if I were dead.

Everything in me wanted to go grab Colt again, sweep him into my arms, and beg him to never go back to Washington. And not just that, but to stay in Grovetown, to stay with me, forever.

It was funny how facing your mortality made you realize what was important.

I parked my car a block away from where Maxim Reid stood, in the middle of the damn street, yelling for me. What? I didn’t want him to hurt my car. Assuming I survived, I needed that car.

He spotted me from a distance and turned to stare at me. I probably didn’t look like much, in my button down and sweater vest, but the feeling was unquestionably mutual.

He looked like one of those people who ends up on the news when they get rescued from being lost in the woods for days. His hair was sticking up in every direction, and even from across the street, I could see the whites of his eyes, so wide and wild that I was afraid he was going to launch himself at me without a word. He wasn’t even wearing a shirt, exposing a crisscross of scars over his chest, some old and silvery, some fresh and still pink.

His knuckles were bloody, and that, finally, made me stop in my tracks.

I looked behind him, to where Talin was standing in the door to The Cider House, arms crossed over her chest and looking like an old-fashioned bouncer. “Did he hurt anyone?”

She shook her head but didn’t move from her position in front of the bar. Protective alpha instincts, no doubt, driving her to defend both her business, and Shiloh within.

If he hadn’t hurt a member of the Grove pack, he must have been brawling with his own. Still not good, but at least my people were safe.

“You don’t need to do this to impress anyone,” Senator Doherty called from a distance, where he’d brought his whole family to watch the morning’s entertainment. He expected me to get my ass handed to me, no doubt.

I mean...doctor in slacks and a sweater versus wild feral alpha. It wasn’t much of a contest.

Still, I didn’t have to put up with that. “Fortunately for me, I’m not trying to impress anyone. The people who matter don’t need me to impress them. The people who think I should be more impressive don’t matter.”

I could hear his frustrated scoff from all the way across the street. Likewise the mutter of, “Damn fool’s going to get himself killed against a madman like that.”

It took everything in me not to stop and tell him everything wrong with that statement, but I managed. I’d been right. The senator didn’t matter.

I turned to Reid instead. “You need to leave Grove Pack territory. You’re not welcome here.”

“You stole my omega, Grove whelp.” His voice was hoarse, like he’d spent the week and a half since we rescued Brook howling. “Give him back and I won’t gut you like I gutted your father.”

I stepped one foot apart from the other, widening my stance, and cracked my knuckles. I knew I wasn’t going to earn any points for menace in my clothes, with my mild expression and general manner—I wasn’t doing it for him. I was doing it for me. If I was going to get in a fight, I needed to loosen up and be ready for it.

“Fortunately for everyone, especially Brook, you can’t own people. No one’s been stolen, because that’s not possible. No one is being held in Grove territory against their will. As I said, you should leave. Now.” I crossed my arms over my chest and waited. I didn’t think he was going to listen, but it was the right thing to do.

Yes, even in this case, with this man. He was a monster, but I didn’t have to stoop to his level and make myself one as well.

He howled then, and it was a pitiful thing in his ragged voice. “You look even softer than your father, Grove. I won’t warn you again.”

“This isn’t a warning, Maxim. You’ve come here to start a fight. You came onto Grove lands, kidnapped one of our own, and tortured him. Then you murdered my father in cold blood. Now you’re back on my land. Pack laws say I’d be within my rights to kill you.”

Maxim threw back his head and laughed as he started to circle me and I moved to match. “Can’t kidnap your own mate,” he told me. “I marked him. He belongs to me.”

“That mark is gone,” Colt yelled from where he stood with Juniper, who had an arm around his waist preemptively, in case she had to hold him back. Or maybe she already was. “Linden removed it. Brook is free, and he owns himself, like every omega.”

And that, apparently, was too much for Maxim Reid. He roared and charged me. Behind him, Colt had gone ashen, apparently stunned by the feral alpha’s violent reaction. Or maybe he’d been trying to lure the man away from me with his taunt.

But all Reid had heard was that I’d taken his omega away.

Time and choices removed, I took a split second to mourn my poor clothes, and let the wolf ripple over my skin.

48

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