Page 69 of Cold Moon

All the times my father had been drunk and out of his mind, all those times I’d hid in my bedroom closet and hoped he’d forget I existed at all, rushed back in.

“Find something heavy, something you can hit him with. If there’s a door, push something against it, okay? Stay quiet.” Maybe Sterling would forget he was there.

I had a horrible, sharp fear that this was punishment—the universe getting back at me for what’d happened to Brook. Someone had taken Skye, and if Archer was there, it—it had to be Sterling. Had to be.

I wasn’t sure if that was better or worse than someone like my father, because I didn’t know what Sterling was capable of.

“I’m going to call Linden. Will you be okay for a minute?” I asked.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’ll be fine.”

“And this number, you can pick it up if we call you there?”

“Yeah.”

My mouth went dry. I didn’t want to hang up on him, terrified that this would be the last time I ever heard his voice. I’d only gotten a taste of him, a handful of weeks.

It wasn’t enough. I wanted forever.

“Skye?”

“Uh huh?”

“I love you.”

He scoffed. “Don’t say thatnow!”

“Sorry. Had to. Hold on.”

I hung up and snapped a picture of the caller ID with my phone. Before I had a plan, I was crashing out of the clinic into the parking lot. The door locked behind me, but I had my cell phone in my hand.

Shaking, I raised it to my ear and called my alpha.

He picked up on the first ring.

“Dante, hi. I don’t suppose you’ve seen Skye, have you?” There was a tightness to his voice, constrained by years of being a doctor who delivered bad news gently. But he was tense. Worried. He knew something was wrong.

“He’s been taken. Sterling. He has a house somewhere—old, Skye said. Maybe out of use, like a vacation house. It was dusty. Maybe toward the mountains? There were evergreens.”

An awful beat passed. I heard him draw in a slow breath on the other end of the line.

“Okay. You have Aspen’s phone number?”

“Yeah.”

“I need him here, and Skye needs you. So can you call my brother? He’ll bring you here. We’ll find him.”

The stubborn confidence of the pack alpha washed over me, and I trusted we would be all right. It was the only option. “Linden, Archer’s there. He’s been shot. He’s not conscious. Skye called from another number.”

“Send it to me. Call Aspen.”

With directives, my head cleared. Once I hung up on him and called Aspen, the older Grove brother was outside the clinic in minutes, Brook beside him in the front seat.

I opened the back door, and he twisted to grin up at me, gripping Brook’s hand across the center console. “Figured another set of teeth wouldn’t hurt anything.”

The ride to the hospital was too long, silent and tense. From where I sat behind Brook, I could see the muscle in Aspen’s jaw working.

That was deeply fucking relatable. Pack was in danger, and even if Skye wasn’t Aspen’s mate, there were bonds that were every bit as important. Aspen wanted to protect the Grove pack. Brook wanted to protect his friend.

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