Page 32 of Cold Moon

Whipping her head around to glare at me, she threw up her hands. “Fine, your new friend is a veritable saint straight from a family of monsters. Is he entitled to our omegas now because he returned the person his father stole?”

I reared back in shock. “Wh-what? What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about the fact that you weren’t at home last night when I went to see you,” she answered acidly, glaring at me. “Talking about the fact that he took you home with him last night.”

And oh boy, did I not want to discuss that with my mother, but I wasn’t going to have her badmouthing him based on a few hours of television. “Someone stole his clothes and destroyed them during the run, so I walked him home. We talked and watched TV. He’s a good guy and I like him and I hate that a Grove bullied him. Nothing happened, Mom.”

Her shoulders uncoiled a tiny bit, but she didn’t immediately throw a counterargument back at me, so I figured that was as close as I would get to winning.

I closed my eyes and took a deep, cleansing breath, trying to let the tension go out of my body, and when I opened them again, I met her gaze steadily. “Is there anything else, or can I get back to work?”

She turned half away, arms crossed and lips pursed. “You’re right, I suppose.” Whoa, what? My mother, admitting she was wrong? There had to be a trick. Some awful proof that Dante was actually a super-villain and kitten-kicker in his spare time. But no, she replaced her pout with one of those falsely pleasant faces and turned back to me. “I’ll leave you be, then. I have to get to knitting circle anyway. I don’t know why I was worried. There are a dozen healthy omegas around. What would he want with you, even if he was trying to infiltrate the pack?”

And with that gut shot, leaving me gasping for air, my mother turned and left me standing there, alone.

What would Dante want with me, when there were so many healthy omegas around?

Nothing.

19

Dante

When Skye came back into the clinic, he was strangely subdued. His chin was tucked down, his teeth were pressing into his deceptively plump bottom lip. He gave us one bewildered stare, then retreated to Linden’s desk.

The alpha got off his stool. “Everything all right with your mom, Skye?” he asked gently.

But it wasn’t. Nothing was right. That was clear in every rigid line of Skye’s body.

And still, he gave a quick nod. “Absolutely. Everything’s fine.”

Skye opened a laptop on the desk, avoiding looking at either of us. After a moment, Alpha Grove’s scowl disappeared. “You headed back to the farm today, Dante? I can give you a ride.”

I went for my shirt, tugging it back over my head. “I’d appreciate it, Alpha. Thank you.”

When I got off the bed, I drifted toward the desk Skye was hunched over. He looked even smaller than normal, and he wasn’t a big guy to start with. Something had hurt him, and I wanted nothing so much as to curl around him like he’d done to me on the run, make sure things started to look better.

But he didn’t even glance up at me when I came over.

“See you soon?” I asked.

“Yup.” I saw the tendons in his neck when he swallowed. When I took another breath, I smelled his distress. My wolf said we shouldn’t leave, whined in my head, but our alpha was there at the door, waiting.

“Okay, good.” That sounded pathetic to my own ears.

The rest of the day, I talked to Alexis. He didn’t let long silences lapse like his mate did, but he didn’t seem to mind doing most of the talking either.

He told me about how he and Ridge had come to Grovetown and why, about Claudia’s pregnancy and the conditions under which she’d started showing symptoms.

The next day, Skye wasn’t at the Grille in the morning, and after I ate breakfast alone, I headed over to Claudia Wilson’s house for the first time.

She was Alpha Grove’s second, and an omega. I could just imagine my father’s scoff at hearing that, but I thought that sort of balance was probably good for a pack.

And maybe I was being a little starry eyed about the Grove pack, but it seemed to me that Linden Grove was the perfect pack alpha, so if this was a choice he’d made, it was the right one.

We’d made arrangements the day before. Alexis and Ridge were living with the Wilsons while they got their new house fixed up at the edge of the Hill farmland, but Ridge would be at the farm that morning. I expected Alexis would’ve followed him out, or he’d be taking advantage of some of the last milder days to work on his podcast.

But when I rang the bell and the door opened, Alexis was right there, grinning at me. “I’m crashing this party. Claudia got pie for breakfast.”

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