Page 73 of Cold Moon

Not his alpha or his mate, but a scared kid who’d been shot.

Skye’s arm wrapped around the ruff of my neck, his fingers combing through my fur as he pressed his face against my shoulder. “Archer saved me,” he whispered into the curve of my neck.

With a rush of air, I plopped down on my back legs, my tail giving a thwack against the dusty floor for good measure. If Archer saved Skye, he was as good as pack, even if Ihatedthe idea that Skye needed saving in the first place.

There was nothing for that shivering, snarling anger like my omega pressed against my side. Linden checked on Archer, his eyes full of concern, his voice soft. Aspen, bare footed and in nothing but jeans, checked Jedidiah Sterling’s pulse, but he left him facedown on the floor.

It was only that—the other alphas in the room, the knowledge that Archer and Skye had brought Sterling down already—that let me sit with my mate. Pack would handle this. The Groves would keep us safe.

And me? I would give Skye a place to lean, warm fur and good scents and tongue licks until he felt safe.

And if that man on the floor moved, if he so much as twitched, I’d tear the loose folds of his skin with tooth and claw and leave him bleeding on the floor like the monster he was. Once, the Reid pack had treated me the same, and I had done far less to deserve it than Sterling had.

I stayed like that for a long time, pressed against Skye, nudging into him with worry. Linden called the authorities. Aspen put on a shirt. And finally, when the police arrived, I stepped into another room to shift and dress, leaving Skye to answer an officer’s questions.

I rushed, still buttoning my shirt when I came back to that dusty old room. They’d taken Mr. Sterling away in an ambulance, but with Archer’s account of what’d happened and the bloody hole in his shirt, he’d be in a cell soon enough.

Skye was leaning against the wall out of the way, one of the officers talking to Colt, Linden at his side. There was a frown on Skye’s face as he listened to Colt’s account of how we’d found him, how I’d taken off running at the edge of the winding country roads, and they’d followed in Aspen’s red Mustang.

I dropped against the wall beside him, my arm against the wood paneling. Skye’s teeth pressed into his bottom lip.

“You found me,” he muttered softly. He was looking down at the worn floorboards.

“Yeah.” I swallowed hard, glancing at Colt. He met my eye past the arm of the officer. “It’s a mate thing, I guess? Colt suggested I try shifting, and—and he was right. It was like the whole world blew apart, and there was a line straight from me to you. Knowing you were in trouble, you needed me—Skye, you’re the only thing that matters to my wolf.”

Finally, he looked up at me, color flooding his cheeks. When I reached out and gripped his nearest hand in both of mine, he spread his fingers then gripped me tight. “And to you?”

I couldn’t stop the grin that tugged at my cheeks. Once upon a time, only a handful of hours ago, I’d have been all too happy to pretend my wolf and I were different things. I’d seen only the worst in alphas—how we could hurt people and how needy we were, not how we could protect them and support the ones we loved, how I could run miles on unfamiliar land directly into the open arms of the man I loved.

Now, I knew the beast and I were of the same mind. My wolf wasn’t evil, not any more than I was on two legs. And sure, sometimes I’d be selfish, but what I wanted more than anything right then was a kiss from my mate.

“Oh, we’re in agreement that you’re the most important person in the world,” I swore, leaning in to press a kiss to his temple.

“And you, uh—you know I can still take care of myself?”

I leaned back, searching his face. He was frowning, nervous.

Duh. I felt like a buffoon. Of course he was. He was Skye, a chronically ill omega who’d been coddled by his pack all his life, whose life had just been in danger. No doubt the cavalry would circle and people would fret over him, and—

And he wanted to make sure that wasn’t going to be me, as if I could ever imagine him to be anything but the most capable, competent, incredible, loving man I’d ever met.

“Well, from where I’m sitting, you just saved Archer Sterling from a fatal gunshot wound, pulled off the kind of stunt with that bite that most people think is a complete myth,andyou beaned a real asshole and knocked him the fuck out. All I really managed to do today was find you. You’re the guy who saved the day, Skye. Hell, you’ve been saving me from the first minute I opened my eyes in the clinic and you were there, an angel with a distressingly nutritious breakfast sandwich.”

The longer I talked, the more Skye’s smile grew, until it was huge and luminous and genuine. Damn if that didn’t make me feel like a hero too, knowing I could make Skye Johnson so damn happy.

He rocked forward on the balls of his feet, grabbing me by the front of my shirt and pulling me in. He lifted his face, his head tilted, and the second I sighed, his tongue slipped into my mouth, laying a claiming streak between my lips to tangle with my own.

It could’ve been minutes, hours, maybe even seconds that stretched out deliciously, until time lost all meaning, but eventually, Brook’s sharp cough pulled our attentions away from each other. “So we can, like, leave now. The cops’ve got our contact information, and I’mdeeplyready to evacuate this little house of horrors.”

Archer flinched, but Linden kept a hand on the young man’s shoulder.

“I can give you a ride to—”

“Back to the hospital,” Linden offered. “And we’d appreciate it, Archer, if you don’t mind.”

Between Aspen’s car and Archer’s, there were plenty of seats for all of us, but Linden stopped me before we could slip into the back seat of Aspen’s Mustang.

“We found something in the tests. The remus gland—might be something there. I know you two need some time, after today, but when you’re ready, you and I will go through it. Get to work.”

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