Page 4 of Cold Moon

He was beautiful under the dirt and blood that I’d wiped away when we finished with his wounds. There was nothing striking or particular about him, it was simply that his features fit together in a way my brain liked. A square jaw, strong brow, and high cheekbones that made him seem dignified, despite the messy hair and week’s worth of scruff that looked less like a beard than a failure to shave. His hair wasn’t blonde enough to be dishwater, or brown enough to be chestnut, but... okay, maybe I’m easily impressed by a new face, but his was nice. Handsome. And in his relaxed state, I thought he might be in his early twenties, so mooning over him wasn’t as silly as having a crush on my much older—and mated—alpha.

Maybe it was the fact that I’d met all of five new people in the last six years, or maybe it was something deeper, some instinct I didn’t yet understand. Whatever it was, I wanted this wolf to get better. I wanted to meet him. Learn his name. Maybe lean on his broad shoulders.

Okay, that was weird, since I didn’t even know if he was actually a bad guy. Maybe “stir crazy” was becoming a real mental illness, and I needed to talk to someone about my problems. Either way, I had things to do. Kind of. I could certainly find things to do other than moon over unconscious strangers.

“I couldn’t help but notice that you didn’t bring anyone else to the clinic,” I pointed out.

He gave me a bright smile at that. “Nope. I looked everyone over who was injured, but nothing was bad enough to warrant forcing them to the clinic against their will. Some of them should come down for bandaging, but there was nothing serious. No one but him.”

And back to the Reid.

I wondered if the same could be said of his pack, that there were no serious injuries.

Or maybe, he was the only one who had survived.

3

Dante

It hurt to breathe. That was how I knew I was still alive—everything fucking hurt. Each rise of my chest tugged at the wounds on my torso, the pain sharp after every movement, but with a dull, pervasive echo that didn’t fade.

I tried to take shallower breaths, but expending effort on anything made my head spin. Looking for something to anchor myself to, I opened my eyes.

There was a sound—the scrape of a chair—to my right. Then someone leaned over, blinking down at me.

At first, I thought it was Brook. He had the same dark—almost black—hair, pale skin, and light eyes. But Brook’s were the clear blue of the sky in late spring. These eyes were the grayish blue of Crescent Lake—the only significant body of water on Reid territory—where I’d spent summers watching water bugs skate across the surface and caught little silver fish in a big paint bucket.

The face that framed these eyes was thin. Brook’s was square and broad, his paleness a matter of his genes. The omega—he smelled like an omega, deliciously sweet like vanilla and sandalwood—leaning over me now simply looked like he spent most of his time indoors.

Perhaps they were related but, whispering through the locked door when my father was out, Brook had only mentioned his sisters to me—Shiloh and Harmony. He loved them dearly, had wanted more than anything to get back home. The love he had for them had worn me down. That, and the sounds of pain that floated through the walls of my father’s run-down old house.

The looming omega shifted his glasses up the bridge of his nose and frowned down at me. “You really awake this time?”

“Unfortunately, I think so.” I tried to press my weight into my right hand and sit up, but the torn muscle of my shoulder protested and gave out. I grunted when my shoulder hit the pillow, even that feathery softness too much pressure for the wound. Before I could try with the other arm, the omega lurched forward.

“Hold on,” he commanded, and I went slack against the pillows, grateful for the help.

His hand was delicate and thin, but warm and surprisingly firm as he reached behind my neck, bracing between my shoulder blades to lift me up. I couldn’t place why he smelled so sweet, but when he leaned close, his neck almost brushing the tip of my nose, I sighed.

He didn’t seem to notice, probably taking the sound for the relief of switching positions. Just as well. I resented the warm spread of temptation that overcame my better senses.

With his free hand, the omega arranged the pillows so that, when he slowly guided me back, I was sitting up straighter.

“Thank you—”

“Skye.” He flashed a hint of a smile my way as he lingered close.

I returned it. “Thank you, Skye. I’m Dante.”

He blinked, fiddling with his glasses again as he stood back from the bed. “Dante, like, of the inferno?”

I laughed weakly. “My pack has a thing for Biblical nightmares. Could have been worse. My cousin’s name is Cain.”

Skye grimaced. I knew that look well enough. On the rare occasion humans wandered into Reid pack territory, they were quick to leave, thinking the very worst of werewolves everywhere. We weren’t a pack open to the world, welcoming of strangers. And our isolation had only crippled us faster when the Condition hit.

No way in hell a Reid would’ve allowed an omega like Skye out and unattended to work at a clinic or anywhere else. I’d watched my father stifle my mother, keeping her at home to stop other alphas from pawing at her, until she was climbing the walls. He made all her choices for her—clearly not the right ones, because she’d died just like the rest of the omegas in our pack, afflicted and wasting away.

But the Groves were different. They were better than us. That was why they were given TV spots and media attention, why they were tied to a US Senator, why their pack had survived the Condition all these years.

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