Page 55 of Cold Moon

And he wasn’tmyalpha.

I swallowed hard, trying not to think of Dante, but it was nearly impossible.

Particularly when the man himself slipped into the clinic right then, looking positively hunted. Brook’s hand fell away from my cheek as we all turned toward him, searching for some indication of what had happened.

He didn’t meet anyone’s eye, but slunk over to my bedside, leaning in farther than he usually did, taking a subtle, but deep, breath. There was tension in every line of his body, his muscles practically thrumming with the need to move, but instead, he held unnaturally still.

The whole room fell silent, everyone staring at poor Dante, me biting my lip so hard I was surprised it didn’t draw blood. Because biting holes in my lip when I was sick, and heading into heat, was a fabulous plan. It wasn’t like my body had enough to deal with already.

Dante, like he could read my mind, lifted his hand toward my face. He paused halfway there, hand hovering in midair, before inching it forward, till he could just reach my lip with his fingertips, and softly pulled my lip from between them. His smile was hesitant, nervous, and absolutely beautiful.

I leaned into him, like iron filings drawn to a magnet, taking a deep breath of his air. He smelled like anxiety, like frustration and anger, and it made my skin prickle, made me feel like I was a prey animal who should be hiding from the predator. But beneath that irritation, the woody scent of the man himself had the opposite effect. His warm, steady presence, and the scent of pine and alpha, well... I didn’t think the warmth in my chest was only a result of an upcoming heat. It was all Dante.

A lot of humans think that heat makes omegas act drunk, makes us incapable of making decisions, but the truth—at least for me—is something a little less drastic. When I had the urge to lean forward into Dante’s space, to wrap myself around him and not let go, the surging hormones just made me more likely to give in to those instincts instead of checking myself and pulling away.

So I leaned in and lay my head on his shoulder, letting my eyes drift closed and breathing in his calming scent.

Without a second’s hesitation, he wrapped his arm around my waist and stepped even closer, resting his head atop mine. He breathed deep again, like he needed the scent of me as much as I needed him.

“It didn’t go great, I take it?” Aspen asked, breaking the silence.

Dante let out a tiny growl, cut off, then rolled his shoulders back and took another deep breath. “About as well as you’d expect from a company who’s doing what they’re doing. Assuming they’re doing it on purpose.”

It was what we’d all been thinking. What I’d said outright. Somehow, having Dante back up my opinion didn’t make me feel better. Yes, fine, what I really wanted was for someone to tell me that no, there was no monster under the bed.

Unfortunately, that simply wasn’t the truth, and asking Dante to lie to me would just make me more of a child than my mother kept telling me I was.

A throat cleared, soft and prodding, and when I opened my eyes, it was to Brook’s clear blue ones. He looked at me for a long time, then glanced up at Dante, and back. Then, deliberately, he ran his knuckles over my cheek again.

Was he suggesting that I... my cheeks flamed at the notion that I should—but I could, couldn’t I?

I was an adult, with a job and a life and... I could actually ask an alpha to spend my upcoming heat with me. Most omegas I knew, when they mentioned it, said that it was easier to go through with an alpha. And there I was, with an alpha I’d been spending all my time thinking about.

Why shouldn’t I ask him, then?

I bit my lip, and when Brook raised an eyebrow at me, gave a tiny little nod. He smiled and turned to Aspen, making little shooing motions with his hands. “We should leave them be. They’ve got a lot to talk about.”

A moment later they were gone, the clinic door closing with a snick behind them, and I was alone with Dante. Perfect. Now all I had to do was muster the courage to ask him.

I waited a while, but every moment I put it off, I ran the risk of someone popping in, for the doctor, or a visit, or any reason. People did it all the time, and I did not want an audience. Especially if Dante turned me down, the last thing I wanted was someone hearing it.

I took a deep breath, swallowed hard, and without moving my head from under his—all the better to avoid meeting his eyes while I asked—spoke. “So it looks like—that is, I’m—I guess I’m about to have a heat.” The last word came out as a squeak, which sounded super sexy in a cartoon-character kind of way, and I had to work not to cringe away from him. He’d gone still, so still he wasn’t even breathing. Too late to back down now, though. If I didn’t finish it, I was just going to be the creepy over-sharer. I could only force out a whisper, but in the silence of the clinic, I didn’t doubt he’d hear me. “I was hoping maybe you’d help me with it.”

And then, well, I held my breath.

33

Dante

Linden was right, the only thing that gave me any relief after fighting back the urge to break an old man’s nose was seeing Skye. Ihatedthat he was stuck in the clinic, but the whole place smelled like him, not because of his recent relapse, but because he spent his days working there.

I hadn’t been to his home, but I’d seen him fill this place with his sweet smiles and quiet footsteps and the click of his fingers flying over his keyboard while he wrote for his blog.

More than any other place in Grovetown, this place was home.

Strange though, how potent his scent was, all warm and full. Maybe he was finally feeling better. I’d gotten used to how he smelled when he was sick, his heartbeat thready and fast, his blood pressure too high.

Now, I hoped he was starting to feel better, his warm-sugar scent stronger with a steadier heartbeat.

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