Page 58 of Black Moon

It wasn’t the kind of thing I’d generally want to do at the office, and I could imagine every human general practitioner cringing at the notion of doing it themself instead of sending him to a plastic surgeon. But I wasn’t a human doctor, I was a pack doctor. And Brook would never agree to see a plastic surgeon. The moment that became a requirement, he’d see it as frivolous and unnecessary, and assure everyone he didn’t really need it done.

But he did. I could see it in his eyes, how much he needed that reminder of Maxim Reid gone.

So I nodded. “Let me just call Skye and get things ready. We’ll have it done in an hour.”

30

Colt

Turned out, having the hots for a doctor did not all of the sudden give me nerves of steel. I was as squeamish as ever, and while Claudia slept in Brook’s bed, Linden prepared a whole collection of sharp and pointy implements that I didn’t want to think about one bit.

Spending a bunch of his life in a doctor’s clinic, then working in one, seemed to take the edge off for Skye. Still, he was entirely too impressive, sweeping back into the clinic soon after Linden called him and moving to assist him with a warm, accommodating smile on his face.

I wassonot that omega, caring and eager to please, but the wolf in my head didn’t like one bit that Skye was. Another omega smiling at my...Linden, like he’d give him the world? Unacceptable.

Only, reason barged in and reminded me that Skye Johnson was barely more than a kid, and Linden wasn’t the creepy kind of alpha who went after the freshly legal. All that was instinct—annoying instinct that I couldn’t overcome while Linden was still wrapped in my scent—and the feeling disappeared like so much smoke as Skye led Brook to the bed farthest from the door.

Squeamishness totally overruled this alien possessiveness I’d developed for Doctor Grove.

I sank into the seat behind Linden’s desk, positioned as it was so that the patients in the clinic would have some degree of privacy if they were in there with him for a while. They pulled the curtain closed too, and I did my best not to think about what was going on beyond.

It was fine—would be good for Brook, even, to have a common scar instead of a mating mark he’d never asked for. Linden knew what he was doing, and accelerated healing of werewolves meant none of this was a big deal. And coddled as I’d always been, I still didn’t like the thought of it.

Sitting behind the desk, twisting back and forth in his swivel seat, I shuffled through magazines on his desk that he hadn’t put out yet. He had some literary magazines, some with celebrities on the covers, and most of the ones for kids were already out for them to peruse, stacked on a small play table in the waiting area near the door.

I’d lost track of time thumbing through an article about—of all people—my sister, Cait, which got approximately nothing about werewolves right, but soon enough, Linden and Skye came out, and Skye opened the curtain.

I got out of my seat, way more interested in talking to Brook than reading a human’s take on Senator Doherty’s perfect alpha daughter and what designers she liked best for the upcoming fall season.

“Hey, Brook,” I said, leaning over the end of the bed, my hands braced on the foot of it.

Linden was in the back—I could hear him washing his hands, Skye sanitizing and putting things away. This part, talking to Brook in the aftermath, I could do.

“Hey,” he said, avoiding my eye, picking at a thread on the blanket over his lap.

Linden had patched up Brook’s shoulder, a few inches of bandage taped to his skin, visible at the neckline of the sweater he’d borrowed. It hurt to think about, but I hoped it’d get better.

It would get better.

“So—” I swept around the side of the bed and sat on the edge of the mattress. None of the Groves seemed especially jumpy when anybody touched them, but I still made sure I moved slow when I put my hand over Brook’s. After what he’d been through, the last thing I wanted to do was startle him.

“You smell like Linden,” he said out of the blue, his bright eyes meeting mine. “Likejustlike Linden. And he...smells like you.”

Well, I’d been thinking I was going to talk to him about that therapist I knew in Washington. I’d been seeing a therapist in the same practice for years, and I’d absolutely needed an understanding ear after growing up in the Doherty house of perfection and peak alpha-ness.

But that could wait for when my face wasn’t turning the precise shade of a bright-red beet.

“Yes, well, I—”

I wasn’t sure what to say, really. I didn’t want to talk about catching the train to pound town while Brook was sitting there with a scar on his neck. I didn’t want to lie, either.

Why the hell wasn’t Linden the one to deal with this?

Well, because omegas dealt with things that alphas didn’t. The fear of the Condition, the pressure to put everyone’s needs ahead of your own, to stay quiet and not make trouble—those things all meant that even if Brook and I had only recently met, there was an understanding between us. And as good as Linden Grove might be, centuries of alpha posturing weren’t wiped away with the good behavior of one pack.

Before I had to find the words, Brook turned his hand over and squeezed my fingers. “It’s your heat, right?”

I cleared my throat and nodded. “Bad timing on my part...”

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