Page 63 of Cold Moon

Disentangling myself from Skye was the hardest thing I’d ever done, particularly when my wolf had decided the only path to happiness was spent curled around him, nuzzling his neck, licking the spot it so desperately wanted to bite.

Even when it meant helping him into a warm bath, bringing him a fresh glass of water and a plate of apple slices and peanut butter, I still wanted to hide away with him. But there was a new buzz in my head—not all fear and shame over being an alpha. The thought that there was a pack out there, relying on me, on us, to come out, had begun to matter. I didn’t want to let them down either.

So maybe I didn’t have to shut myself away with Skye to protect us both from the monsters of my past. But for a little while longer, I could keep him in my bed. Or my bathtub.

Or just, you know, with me, okay? I wanted to stay close.

He looked happy, smiling and self-satisfied, sinking down in the steaming water up to his collarbones. I’d never seen anyone more beautiful, and I couldn’t imagine wanting anything more than I wanted to see that smile.

“What?” I asked, dangling my hand in the water, slipping the loofah up his chest and across his neck. He arched back, leaning into me, his lithe shoulders lifting.

“Nothing particular. I told Linden I was coming out of it. He said when we’re ready, we should come by the clinic. I think he’s... done an Alpha Grove thing.”

The way he bit his lip then made me want to lean in and kiss him, and—well, why not?

He sighed, opening to the sweep of my tongue, and when I sat back on my heels on the tile floor, the loveliest pink color rushed into his cheeks. “I guess that means something good?”

Skye’s lips twitched. “With Linden? Usually.”

* * *

Only,I couldn’t have guessed that Linden had gone above and beyond forme. Okay, for his pack. Still, when we met him in the clinic the next morning, it was me he led with a hand between my shoulder blades toward what must’ve been a storage room of some sort before.

Now, it was clean, everything white and shining. Glass doors made up refrigerators and sample boxes filled with what I’d been testing out at the Hills’ barn. Every piece of equipment was new, every surface clean and shining. He’d had everything I needed brought over, replaced every piece of equipment—even bottles of chemicals and solvents that had been opened were now full and hermetically sealed.

I spun in the broad, open space, and stared up at the pack alpha, grinning in his white coat.

“I thought you could use a more appropriate space to work, and you wouldn’t mind that being here, in the clinic.”

With Skye.

He didn’t have to say it, but my eyes met Skye’s past the doctor’s arm. He was sitting on the edge of the nearby clinic bed, still worn out from his heat, but he was beaming.

“Is this safe?” I stared at Linden. “I mean, keeping all this here, where any omega could come in and—”

Linden held up a hand. “Perfectly safe. Pressurized entrances. The room is climate-controlled. I had them install a separate HVAC just for this space. Even if you sprayed the whole room down with that Sterling crap, so long as the door’s closed, the rest of the clinic will be safe.”

Okay, so no dragging Skye in there with me to do research, but I could still work near him. When I stepped away for lunch, he’d be in the next room over.

It felt like us against the world, and with the Grove alpha’s blessing.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t do more in the barn,” I blurted out. This—it was so nice, and it was too much.

Linden’s smile softened. He shook his head. “No, Sterling was right. If we want to accomplish anything, we have to take this seriously. And to protect our pack, a small renovation? No big deal.”

Our pack.

I swallowed hard. Nodded. “Of course.”

Maybe I wasn’t used to receiving gifts, but this wasn’t that. This meant he believed in my ability to figure this out, and that we had work to do.

Linden stepped back in the doorway, angled so he could look at both Skye and me. “When you said you could come over this morning, I called my colleague at the hospital. If you have time today, Skye, we could go, get some scans done. Nothing major. An MRI. Some bloodwork. A CT scan. Nothing you haven’t done before.”

Skye nodded, completely unbothered by the whole thing. No Reid wolf I’d ever known would’ve been so nonchalant about medical treatment, especially in a human hospital, but this was Skye’s life, and he was a lot braver than any Reid. “Sounds good.”

“I asked Colt to come too—and, hell, I haven’t seen my brain since med school. So we’ll all do it. Dante?”

I’d faded out, my gaze shifting back to my new laboratory. With a start, I looked back at them.

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