Page 59 of Cold Moon

It was all I could do to cover a gasp when everything came together in my head. Linden was right. Dante was... Dante was smitten. With me.

I grinned at him. “That sounds perfect, Linden, if you could.”

Dante didn’t even look away from me, just nodded and ducked his head a little at Linden’s voice.

And that, right there, was the moment I decided. If he let me, I was going to marry that wolf. Make him a full Grove. Johnson. Whatever.

35

Dante

It took everything in me not to growl at Linden the whole way over to my place. He was doing us a favor, making sure Skye didn’t have to walk to my apartment, or his, or anywhere. Wasn’t like I had a car. And Linden would’ve been well justified in making me race down the street behind them, sprinting and snarling at the very idea of another alpha providing for Skye.

That was the influence of his heat. I wanted to be the wolf who gave him everything he needed, who made him feel happy and safe. All the fucked-up experiences I had with alpha-omega relations said there could only be one alpha who provided, and as often as not, they’d do more damage than good.

And if I stepped back and looked at things clearly, I wanted Skye to be surrounded by people who made him feel safe, who supported him and protected him, even from me if it came down to it. That was pack, and my own screwed up idea of what that looked like wasn’t a justification for my wolf to want to drag him away and keep him sequestered with me. That’d never be good for anybody.

Fuck, I hated alpha instinct, feeling beholden to thoughts that weren’t logical and didn’t match up with values I’d had to fight to cultivate after being raised by monsters.

I’d slipped into the back seat with Skye, sat pressed against his side, our legs pressed against each other as he leaned against my arm. That soothed my wolf. Some.

When I took a deep, shaky breath, he turned his wide blue eyes up at me and frowned, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his pale nose. “You okay?”

“Absolutely. Yes. Great. I’m great.” I must’ve sounded as harried as I felt, but Skye only slid his hand down my arm and threaded his fingers with mine.

“Good.”

The alpha’s SUV was quiet, the sound of music playing in the background low on the radio. He didn’t seem to want to draw attention to himself, though that was impossible, considering he was, you know,the alpha.

Thank god the drive to my place wasn’t long. I hopped out and went around to the trunk while Skye got out the other side. Linden came around to open the trunk hatch.

“I’d help you bring all that in, but I get the sense I should just get out of the way,” he said. I pulled my four enormous grocery bags out of the back, hanging them off my arms, and when I straightened, I saw the good humor in his slate-gray eyes.

“That might be for the best, yes,” I hedged, but his smile only grew.

He clapped his hand on my shoulder and gave me a serious alpha nod. “Trust your wolf. And trust him. Skye knows what he needs.”

I swallowed hard, feeling like nothing so much as a child getting advice from his father before he went out and tried to be an adult on his own—only, my father never would have been so nice. And you know what? Absolutely no part of me wanted to think about what my father would’ve done if he’d gotten within sniffing distance of Skye.

I shook the thought off and nodded. “Thanks, Linden.”

Something in his smile eased then, and he let me go. “Call if you need anything.”

He got back in his car, leaving me to shuffle past Skye to the duplex and unlock the front door with no small amount of shifting around awkwardly to get out of his way.

“I just need a second to put these away—” I lifted my arms and went past the open counter through to the fridge. Not everything needed to go straight away, but I didn’t want the cold stuff to go bad.

For a couple minutes, I focused on putting groceries away. That wasn’t something I could fuck up too miserably.

But when I looked up, Skye was standing there just inside the closed door, chewing his lip again. He had his phone in his hand. Was he calling a cab because I was being too weird? Calling Linden back to save him because I actuallyhadfucked up miserably?

“Everything okay?” I asked.

He nodded. “Just setting an alarm.”

“Something I need to know?”

Quickly, he shook his head. “Not really. I just need to check my blood pressure every few hours. No big deal.”

---