Page 57 of Cold Moon

I squeezed his hand. “I know. But I’m riding a little close to the edge, and maybe I need to be around you.” I bit my tongue, even while I grinned, and shrugged. “Who knows. Half an hour.”

I saw Linden outside the clinic, gave him a nod, and double-timed my way to Ambrosia Grocery. No one on the sidewalks registered. What I needed was to provide for Skye; nothing else mattered.

Only, when I got there, I realized that I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. Provide? What the fuck was I supposed to provide?

I stood there like a statue in front of the sliding glass doors until someone needed to get out, and Mr. Tartt came up to me. “Everything all right, Dante?”

It was like I’d never had a conversation with sentient bipeds before.

“Mr. Tartt, sir, I—” Fuck, I didn’t know how to say what needed saying. I didn’t have any right to lay claim to Skye. He was a real Grove wolf. My father had attacked his pack, tried to take an omega—the comfort and support Skye offered me so freely now—and I was terrified that someone would realize I was there and make sure to smack me back to my place the very second I began to trust that I was safe. Strangely enough, it wasn’t the Sterlings that scared me—it was the Groves, because they had something I wanted, something—someone—that they could take away from me if I stepped out of line.

The grocer was frowning, his cheeks a little soft, lines carved on either side of his mouth from smiling, but now his lips turned down. “You can wipe that scowl off your face and tell me what you need, Dante.”

His voice was soft, easy. And still, my shoulders snuck up toward my ears.

“You’re an omega,” I announced.

Mr. Tartt’s lips twitched like he was holding back a smile. “Indeed I am.”

“Skye’s heat is coming,” I blurted out, immediately feeling like a dick for sharing something private. That wasn’t my business to tell people, even if it was the only thought left in my head. “I don’t know what he needs.”

His expression softened, and though I felt like a complete fool, he nodded sympathetically. “I can help you with that.”

He took me through the store, pointing out food that would be sustaining with so much physical activity. Shockingly, that included a dozen apples, but when in Grovetown...

My cart stuffed full, I wandered the back aisles. I hadideasabout what heat might be like, had heard things, but, well, you could never be too prepared.

Isaac’s chocolate-brown brows shot up when he saw the huge bottle of lube I picked up, but all I could do was shrug. I wasn’t entirely untested, and with humans, you could never really have enough lube. Even if Skye got slick on his own, well, he’d been sick. I just didn’t want to count on it. If we had sex, it—it had to be good. I wouldn’t be a regrettable alpha.

Thankfully, Isaac didn’t comment, and he checked me out himself.

When I got back to the clinic, my arms were laden with four huge canvas grocery bags, stuffed full of everything Isaac Tartt had even glanced consideringly at.

Linden and Skye both turned to stare at me when I shuffled awkwardly through the door, kicking it open on the way.

“Half an hour and you got all that?” Skye asked. “That’s impressive.”

34

Skye

Linden came into the clinic a few seconds after Dante left, and I wouldn’t lie, I felt better having someone there with me. Even with the assumption that the Sterling people had left town, I didn’t really want to be alone.

Despite my mother’s voice in my head, pointing out how weak I was, how unable to protect myself, I was determined not to see it as a failing. So I relied on my pack. Wasn’t that what it meant, to be a wolf?

The pack was there to protect.

“Everything okay?” Linden asked, watching Dante rush off. “I figured he’d be here a while. He was a little on edge.”

I frowned, pulling my lip back between my teeth. Should I not have asked him? “Too on edge to help me with... something?”

Linden scoffed at that, finally letting the door fall closed and turning to look at me, expression disbelieving. “He could be working sixteen hours a day and still not too busy for you, Skye. The boy’s smitten.”

My mouth fell open, and all I could do was gape.

Smitten?

With me?

---