Page 63 of Black Moon

With a high, tight sound in the back of my throat, I pushed into him. If he wanted to talk, it was completely unfair for him to touch me like this—all firm, confident strokes—not quite possessive, but not disinterested either.

I tucked my chin down, and despite myself, I tilted my head, exposing my neck to the alpha again. God, the wolf inside me loved that—submitting to Linden, giving him everything he wanted. We didn’t even have to talk. My wolf didn’t care what he said, just that he kept holding me.

But that wasn’t right. With a sigh, I shut my eyes. When I looked up at him again, some of my anger had cooled.

“Okay, then talk.”

Linden smiled indulgently. His nose brushed against the tip of mine. “First, I think I should remind you that you askedmefor help during your heat.”

I flinched, but before I had a chance to take offense to that, he dragged me in and nuzzled my ear.

“That’s not to say I wasn’t thrilled to be of service, Colt.” There, so close, his breath tickling against my skin, I shivered when he said my name. “But I haven’t tried to push you. With everything happening in the pack, I’ve been too distracted to think about starting anything serious.”

“Sure. You’re distracted because you’re Alpha Grove.”

Linden hummed. “Because my father died, and my friend—a guy I grew up with–was kidnapped by a volatile pack.”

I shrank into my shoulders, and his hands slid up to my waist. With them there, at least, I could clear my brain up a bit.

“Okay, yeah. That’s...fair enough.” He had plenty of reasons to be distracted, plenty of things on his plate, but a fragile little part of me that I wanted to snuff out still needed to hear him say he didn’t just want to use me.

“Mmhmm,” he agreed. I glanced up to see him raise one dark blond eyebrow at me. “But I know one thing that’ll make you feel better.”

He took a moment and led me over to his office chair. He sat me down in it, and when he knelt on the hard linoleum in a parody of a guy proposing, I sank back into the leather, still warm from his body.

“What?”

“I never meant to try and become Alpha Grove.”

I rolled my eyes. “Whatever. You totally are pack alpha here.”

“No. I’m not. The pack hasn’t decided, and while, yes, Skip Chadwick seems like he’d be a terrible choice, I’m not sure I’m much better.”

See, that was bullshit. Linden was perfect.

Which, admittedly, made it pretty ridiculous that I’d come at him the way I had. Skip had just worked me up, triggered a worry that even in this strange pack, I wasn’t anything more than a political tool. So far from home and the Doherty household, I still wasn’t more than a pretty face and a bit of extra clout.

At my scoff, Linden only shook his head. His thumb traced the line between my lips.

“I’m serious,” he said. “When Dad died, I started looking for my brother. Aspen’s supposed to come back. He should be alpha of this pack. I guess, if it’s not him, and the pack chooses me—I care about these people. I wouldn’t turn my back on them. But the life I want? I’m a doctor. Not a warrior or a politician or any of those things great alphas are supposed to be. And that’s fine. But, Colt, the least interesting thing about you is whatever political value Skip thinks you have.”

I bit my lip against a smile. “You really do know how to make a man swoon, Doctor Grove,” I teased. It was easier to joke with him and ignore the sting in my eyes from feeling so small.

Rather than let him see me cry, I grabbed the front of his sweater vest and pulled him in for a kiss.

33

Linden

Once, when I was ten, I got into a playground brawl with another kid for making fun of one of my friends. It was the only time in my entire life that I’d ever hit anyone with intention to hurt them, let alone a pack member.

But right then, I was tempted.

Yeah, Skip Chadwick was more than a decade my junior, and he could probably take me down in a fight.

Yes, Colt was a grown man who could fight his own battles and didn’t need some big muscle-brained alpha jumping in to protect him.

But if Skip had walked into the clinic right then, I definitely would have slugged him. It took malicious intent to press someone’s buttons the way he’d pushed Colt’s. There was no way he’d have managed to work him into such a lather if he hadn’t meant to hurt him.

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