Page 11 of Cold Moon

Every wolf’s scent was stronger at their pulse points—on their wrists, that soft, warm spot below the edge of their jaw. And what I wanted to do was lean in, nuzzle my neck against Skye’s, and mix our scents together.

I’d settle for brushing a hand across his pale, svelte neck, but that wasn’t half as close as I wanted to get to him. I thought about wrapping myself around him, twining my arms around his waist and pulling him back until his ass fit into the curve of my hips. There, I could brush my lips across his neck.

Fuck it all, I wanted to nest with a near stranger, and that fucking scared me. I’d spent years honing my control, ensuring my instincts didn’t overcome my better judgement.

Now, I was scared that’d all been for nothing. The first omega who smiled at me, who touched me—yes, even just to help steady me as I hobbled around a clinic—and I was imagining piles of blankets and mingled scents and warm skin and the happy, low-throat sigh of someone content to be with me.

Oblivious to my absurd train of thought, Skye smiled at me and tilted his head to the side. I had to slap my wolf down before it thought he was baring his neck to me, and got the wrong idea.

“Do you want to try without the walker?” Skye asked, guileless support shining from his blue eyes.

I got the impression he liked helping people—not that it had anything to do with me specifically, but over the last week, I’d seen how some people flittered around him. He was slight, even for an omega, and young enough for people to still worry about him.

Truth told, I didn’t mind his help in the slightest.

“I could give it a go,” I agreed, as much to please him as because—

“In case you need a little support.” He offered me his hand, bracing his arm.

While I tried not to lean all my weight on him, I held fast to his hand as we walked the length of the room.

When we got back to the second bed, he put his hand on my back to steady me while I sat, and I got a whiff of his sweet, ripe strawberry scent.

Alpha Grove must have seen me lean in. I’d almost forgotten he was there, until he cleared his throat.

“Skye, it’s getting pretty late.”

With a pinched little frown, he checked his fancy fitness watch. “Right. I should start making dinner. Egg and ham tomorrow?”

This last, he asked me. Now that I was back on solid food, he’d been swinging by one of the local restaurants in the morning before coming over. They had this sandwich on a whole-grain English muffin. The thing was a little dry, but tasted pretty good, and I got the impression that Skye was a bit of a health nut.

Anyway, no matter how much I liked stuffing my face with greasy bacon, runny eggs, and thick slabs of buttery white toast, I wasn’t going to complain when a guy brought me breakfast. Hell, he could’ve brought me Raisin Bran with unsweetened almond milk and it still would’ve been damn kind of him to bother.

“That’d be amazing, Skye. Thank you.”

He pushed one finger against the center of his glasses and ducked his head—not quite a nod, but he wasn’t really hiding either. “No problem.”

“We’ll see you in the morning.” Alpha Grove brushed his hand over Skye’s neck as he passed—a subtle claiming that reminded me that Skye was a Grove. I wasn’t.

I’d been careful not to be too presumptuous—not look Alpha Grove in the eyes directly for long stretches of time, be quick to bare my neck to him, be careful where I put my hands. All said, good manners seemed to be working in my favor. Alpha Grove hadn’t kicked me out yet, hadn’t growled at me or chased me down to the edge of his territory.

Still, there was more tension in the air with Skye gone. I reached to fidget with the magazine on the little table at my bedside, dragging it over and opening it in my lap for something to do.

Alpha Grove came toward the bed. When I looked up at him, his arms were crossed. The second our eyes locked, he shifted his shoulders in a strange little wiggle and dropped his arms by his sides loosely.

“Scientific American?” He nodded toward the magazine I’d picked out of the stand in the waiting area by the door.

One corner of my lips tilted up. “Well, sure. I mean, after Miley and Liam broke up, I lost my taste forTeen Vogue. Nothing but heartbreak in those pages.”

Alpha Grove laughed. His smile was wide, his teeth straight and white. Pretty much everything about the guy was handsome, but, like, in aLand’s Endcatalogue kind of way. Like he was about to go fishing, but he wasn’t going to get splashed by murky pond water, because no fish would dare insult the immaculate stitching on his cashmere sweater.

“Okay, so whyScientific American? You interested in tech or something?”

I shook my head. “Not really. I mean, sure. But the first time I ever had a computer of my own was college, and I only started to get the hang of it before I dropped out. I am the proud bearer of one-third of a degree in biology.”

Alpha Grove’s eyebrows shot up. “Impressive.” Weirdly, he didn’t sound the least bit sarcastic. It was all the more extraordinary, because sarcasm was actually my first language. Somehow, Alpha Grove really did seem to think a year and a half of college was an accomplishment, probably just because I was a Reid who was destined for the gutter. “How’d you pull that off?”

The question was fair enough—Maxim Reid wasn’t the kind of alpha who’d encouraged a bunch of book learning. When I’d told him I was going away to school, we’d fought. I’d walked away bloody, thinking I wasn’t ever going to come back.

---