Page 10 of Cold Moon

The two of them broke away from their giant pile of wood that seemed to be growing daily and came over, all smiles and holding hands, and it was all I could do to hold back the wave of poison-green jealousy that threatened to drown me.

Brook deserved this. Aspen... well, he seemed like a nice guy, and if he was good enough for Brook, then I guessed he deserved it too. I didn’t really know him, since he left town when I was a kid and too wrapped up in my own problems to think about his, but he seemed nice enough.

“Hey Skye,” Brook said as they sat down across from me, Aspen pausing to roll up the papers and move them out of my way. “What’s up?”

“I saw you guys working this morning,” I answered as I started to pull out containers, jerking my head in the direction of my mom’s house, a few doors down. “Thought maybe you could use a lunch break.” I glanced around shiftily, then hung my head. I couldn’t blindside him with my nosiness, since it was about something so close to the Reid pack disaster that had hurt him so badly. “And I wanted to ask about Dante.”

Aspen sat down next to Brook, wrapping an arm around him and nuzzling into his neck, making Brook giggle like a man half his age and shove his mate’s head away from his neck. “That tickles, ya big jerk.” Then he looked up at me, eyes serious, but not nearly as dark and empty as when he’d first returned from the Reids’. The smile he offered me was small, but genuine. “Sit down already. We’re not going to chase you off because you want to ask about something bad. Dante isn’t bad.”

Aspen huffed but didn’t offer up an opinion; he just reached in and moved to help pass the food around. But then he opened a container to find my salad with vinaigrette on the side, and stared at it, head cocked like it was a foreign object and he’d never seen anything like it before.

“That’s mine,” I explained. He looked oddly relieved and passed it to me without comment. When the next container held a greasy burger and fries, he smiled and passed it to Brook.

It looked delicious, and I wanted it a little... but at the same time, looking at it made me queasy. I’d been tracking every ingredient that went into my mouth for too long to just jump off the deep end and eat a giant slab of beef and melted cheese on a bun. Plus, the Grille probably still used Sterling foods. Everyone did. Isaac at the grocery store had been eliminating them from his stock, and it had taken a lot of work to find replacements.

Oddly enough, the container Aspen settled on, happily, had the other thing I often got from the Grille for lunch; their turkey apple wrap. I’d asked Wanda for Brook and Aspen’s favorites, so I guessed that was his. Was it weird that I was proud of my usual lunch order being the same as a giant freaking alpha wolf who could probably bench press three of me?

“I love that wrap,” I told him, and he grinned.

“It’s the best, right? Fuck, I missed these apples.” Brook pushed their shoulders together, and Aspen winced a little, but turned to Brook with a private smile. He leaned in and kissed Brook’s cheek, whispering, “Missed these apples even more, though.”

It was the sappiest thing I’d seen in my life, and I was an avid fan of Hallmark Christmas movies.

Brook blushed and leaned against him. It was odd, but he looked more comfortable that way than I’d literally ever seen him before, even before the Reids had kidnapped him. Not that Brook hadn’t been awesome before, but maybe like... like Aspen was a part of the puzzle that made up all of Brook. He’d been okay without him, but somehow together, they just fit.

Not that I was jealous. Wretchedly, pitifully, ridiculously jealous, as only a lonely sad sack can be.

But really, Brook was six inches taller than me, with actual muscles. Not only could he fix cars, he could damn well drive them.

“Dante is the only reason I got away,” Brook said, turning to me as he swallowed a huge bite of burger. “I’m not saying the pack wouldn’t have gotten me out, but Dante got me out without anyone having to fight. He picked the lock on the room where Maxim was keeping me, and snuck me out into the woods, where Colt found us.”

For the first time since his return, Brook didn’t look small or hunched as he talked about the experience. Sad, yes, but not as though he was worried about the response from the people around him. And Aspen—Aspen didn’t even react. He just left his arm casually draped around Brook’s waist and took another bite of his wrap.

It was easy enough to see the tightness around his eyes and the twitch in his jaw that said he wasn’t thrilled with the subject, but he kept it to himself. He let Brook be Brook, and say what he needed to, and when Brook looked at him, he smiled, wide and guileless.

“So Dante is kind of... a good guy?” I asked. As much as I hated when people tiptoed around talking to me about the Condition, I figured maybe serious trauma like Brook’s warranted a little tiptoeing.

Brook looked up at me, and then sort of through me, eyes unfocused and staring into the distance. “Honestly? I think—I think I was there for a week, and it was the worst week of my life. And maybe Maxim wasn’t as bad to Dante as he was to me, but—”

“But he was a monster,” I finished for him.

His gaze sharpened again, focusing on me, and he nodded. “Yes. Frankly, I think Dante’s life has probably been hell, and it’s a wonder that he came out of it the kind of person who would help a stranger escape from that misery.”

Aspen sighed heavily, but then nodded. “Too many people out there who think that because they’ve suffered, other people should too.”

Brook looked up at him, and they looked steadily into each other’s eyes for a moment, before Brook nodded. “That’s it. I’m not going to pretend Dante isn’t a packless alpha, and maybe dangerous for being that, but I think in his heart, he’s a good man. And he deserves the benefit of the doubt from us.”

It took longer for Aspen to nod in agreement with that, but he still did.

I sighed and picked at my salad. I wanted an alpha who loved me so much that he battled down his angry protective instincts in order to think things through and back me up. “That’s kind of sad,” was all I could think to say.

Neither of them had a response to that.

7

Dante

As much bellyaching as I did when Skye walked me around the clinic, he didn’t give up on me. He didn’t let me wimp out either. Three times a day, for the past two days, he’d walked with me around the room, there to guide and support me when I stumbled, close enough that I could smell the warm rush of his sweetness with every heartbeat.

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