Page 7 of Black Moon

Maybe it was naive of me, but I hadn’t spent much time thinking about who would be alpha after my father. Like Dad, I’d always assumed that eventually Aspen would grow up and come home. That Aspen would be the next Grove alpha.

I mean, we were the Grove pack. The notion of someone who wasn’t a Grove becoming alpha was odd. It wasn’t ridiculous or unheard of for someone outside a family line to take over a pack. Heck, our pack had been founded on breaking away from a bad alpha and his immediate line, and the rules we had in place for succession—which included a vote—meant that succession wasn’t purely a blood-based decision. But it stuck in my chest and twisted in a way I didn’t like.

Still, what choice was there? Aspen was gone. He couldn’t be counted on. Rowan was a beta, and sweet and soft. As much as I adored my baby brother, he was no kind of leader. Juniper was an alpha, and had a lot of Dad’s harsher personality traits, but I thought she could do the job. I also thought she’d laugh at me and tell me to fuck off if I asked her to take up the mantle. She’d taken over the family business, and that was enough.

Which left me, and well...I hadn’t even been able to save the single life I’d been called on to save for the pack. My father had never seen me as a proper alpha, or even a useful member of the pack. I’d been his spoiled second son with the useless degree, who sat around polishing his equipment and taking care of the pack’s elderly members.

No doubt all those older pack members would love to see me as alpha, but they were the same people who’d have backed Aspen simply because he was the old alpha’s eldest son. Traditions for the sake of tradition didn’t do anyone any good.

Zeke would be a great alpha, but I knew he wouldn’t do it. Not without my father there. He’d done his job out of loyalty to my father, and now he’d earned his rest. I wouldn’t ask him to give it up.

I turned to look at Birch as we worked. “What about you? Claud’s already a leader in the pack. All the omegas come to her with their issues. You could work together.”

He snorted and didn’t even bother looking up from the dirt. “Oh no you don’t. My life is perfect the way it is. Don’t think you’re going to drag me up there to do your job.”

My job?

I stopped shoveling for a moment to look at him. He was smiling, like it was funny. Zeke was nodding, as was Claudia. When she noticed I’d stopped, she turned to look at me, one eyebrow quirked. “What? I don’t have another job, so I’ll give the pack my time, but don’t think I’m just going to hand over my husband. He’s got a job already, and his free time is mine. You can’t have him. Sorry, Linden. You’re stuck.” She patted my back with a dirty hand and a grin on her face, clearly not understanding that she was shocking me. “Don’t worry. It was always you anyway, no matter what your dad said. You’re the guy, and we’re behind you. Now get back to work before I push you into the dirt.”

So I did what any good alpha did when his pack omega gave him an order, and I did it.

4

Colt

If you’ve never driven the side roads off Virginia highways, let me tell you, you’re missing out on a whole bunch of fields. Hours and hours of trees and farmland. Endless, mundane hours.

Before I even got to Grovetown, I lost patience with the audiobook I’d been listening to, slammed it off, and turned on an old Blink-182 album, shouting along with lyrics worn familiar by a youth spent pissed the fuck off.

Finally—fuckingfinally—I wound my Prius up hilly roads, passing what looked to be an apple orchard with a sign out front that said, “Grove Apple Grove.”

Right, the Grove pack had been founded around an orchard, wolves rushing in from the coast back in ye olden times and settling where they could grow fruit plentifully.

Sounded kind of nice, all those sweet apples. A whole pack’s hopes and dreams growing deep with tree roots in soil.

Hey! Maybeappleswere the key to overcoming the Condition. An apple a day and all that shit. You never know, but I was already looking forward to heirloom apples and cider donuts.

Whatever the case, I was surprised by how much I liked the sound of a pack with a place to belong. There was, of course, a pack in DC. Dad was alpha, but we were spread out through the whole district, and everybody had drives and intentions outside of the good of the pack. There wasn’t much communal about it, just, if two wolves had a problem, if an alpha got out of hand, Dad was expected to delegate someone to handle it.

That was the kind of pack I was used to, not the kind who looked after each other, settled in close to their neighbors, and worked together.

As idyllic as it sounded, it was just a nice thought. Like the drive through the countryside, there was no damn way that kind of life wouldn’t bore the ever-loving shit out of me thesecondI was done writing about the Grove pack’s weird traditions and backward habits.

I had to tap the breaks when I rolled into town. I’d never been much for driving in small towns with narrow streets and cars parked parallel on both sides. Envisioning car doors swinging open, big alphas tumbling out into the pavement so I could dent my shiny car on their big, muscly bodies, I drove slow and parked outside what looked like the town hall where I was supposed to meet the alpha who’d written thePostwith my invitation.

When I’d gotten back to the office after Dad’s gala and seen the letter of invitation from the Grove pack, I was surprised to see it wasn’t Alpha Grove who’d invited me, but a man named Skip, who’d signed off:

Skip Chadwick

Alpha

I didn’t know if that meant he wasthealpha now, or if he just had an alpha’s presumption and assumed he was allowed to speak for everybody in his pack. Maybe he’d married into the family.

Still, an invitation was an invitation, and even if it hadn’t come from the Alpha-alpha, Aspen Grove, my responding to it was completely appropriate.

Once I parked, I got out and opened the back door to grab my leather messenger bag from the seat. It made my life easier to have my laptop, tablet, and recorder close by. My suitcase was in the trunk and would stay there until I checked into the local motel that evening.

“Colt?” someone called as I straightened and shut the door again. “Colt Doherty?”

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