Page 6 of Black Moon

Maybe he hadn’t seen a reason to have a doctor, but in most packs, Skye’s mother would never have lived to give birth to him, let alone have both of them still alive almost twenty years later. Dad had been calm, patient, and when she’d started getting sick, he’d made sure the pack provided and took care of them right off.

No member of the Grove pack got left behind, and if that meant caring for a bedridden packmate forever, then that was what we did.

My father had been a deeply flawed, sometimes downright infuriating man, but a good one. An honest one. A loving one.

Neither I nor the pack would be the same without him.

“Y’all know Aspen wouldn’t have wanted this to be a drawn out thing,” Zeke said, as he took the shovel from the last mourner, standing it upright in the pile of dirt next to the grave. “No long-winded speeches or bullshitting.” He sent a sharp look into the small crowd as he said the last, but I didn’t catch who the glare was meant for. Then he turned to me. “Linden? Junie? Ro? Any of you want to say something about your daddy?”

Rowan shook his head, his face buried in his boyfriend’s shoulder as he cried.

Juniper pulled an apple out of her pocket, tossing it into the grave. “I got your back, Dad. The grove’ll be fine, just like you taught me.”

And then everyone looked at me. Like somehow, in Aspen’s absence, I was the guy all responsibility fell on. Fuck my entire life. I sighed.

“Dad would be the first person to tell us that we’re one of the strongest packs around. We’ve been hit harder than this and survived, and this time isn’t going to be different.” I looked around the group. First to my brother and sister, and then my pack brothers and sisters. There were lots of tears, and red eyes even from the people who bought into Dad’s old-school “alphas don’t cry” silliness.

“We take today to mourn. To howl for our lost packmate. Eat some of Rowan’s donuts, drink a cider for Dad. But tomorrow, we have to do what Dad would’ve wanted us to do. What he’d have done himself, if he were here. We make a plan and we get Brook back, because no one gets left behind in the Grove Pack. Every single one of you is my family. Every single one of you was family to Dad. As far as I’m concerned, nothing has changed in that.”

“Damn right,” Zeke agreed, thumping his fist against his heart. “Now y’all get down to The Cider House and drink one for old Asp. I’ll be along as soon as I’m done. Nobody tell the story about the time he streaked the football field back in high school till I get there.”

There were a couple of wet chuckles as the crowd dispersed, headed for the pack bar like Zeke had suggested. I patted Skye on the shoulder and motioned for him to follow them. He didn’t want to go, but I supposed I had worried him. I’d been his doctor since he was nine, and he’d seen me practically crumble the day before. It had to be disconcerting.

“I’ll be fine,” I whispered. “But Zeke and I have work to do.”

“And us,” Birch Wilson said, coming up beside me, holding out a shovel in my direction. “Don’t worry, Skye. We’ve got his back.”

The young man nodded, gave the shovel a strange longing look, and headed after the crowd. It was odd to imagine fantasizing about hard labor, but I supposed that as someone whose disability wouldn’t allow him to do it, it felt incredibly important to Skye.

Claudia smacked me on the back as she came up to stand on my other side, opposite her husband. “Skye’s fine, Linden. Just worried about you, like everyone.”

Birch snorted. “Well, not everyone.”

She groaned. “Oh, for—don’t remind me.”

“Is there something I should know?” I looked between the two of them, and when they continued to look pained and put upon, turned to Zeke. “Anyone?”

“It’s that jackass Skip,” Zeke answered as he took off his jacket and tossed it aside, twisting his neck to each side to pop it before grabbing the shovel up again.

“Skip...Chadwick? Wanda’s son?” Wanda Chadwick had been running the only local diner since I was a kid, and most of what I knew about her son, Skip, was that she found him eternally disappointing. He’d been one of those guys like my brother Aspen—fucking Aspen—who’d been a big man in high school. Good at sports and good looking. Then he’d left high school, but he hadn’t really, still clinging to past glory because he was afraid to try and fail at something new.

My little brother, Rowan, was about his age, and also drifting a bit. I always thought it had something to do with the Condition. So many of the werewolves under twenty-five seemed lost, like they were eternally looking for someone who wasn’t there. Or as in Rowan’s case—sweet, nurturing beta that he was—like he was trying tobesomeone who wasn’t there.

Zeke didn’t seem to have that optimistic a view on Skip. “Poor Wanda,” he muttered as he dug into the pile of dirt. “Such a little turd for a son.”

Ouch. Okay, well, Zeke had always been a lot like my father. Harder on the younger generations than they maybe warranted.

“No kidding,” Claudia agreed. “Dunno how such a hardworking, sweet lady got saddled with that prick.”

Huh. Well, Claudia was the ranking pack omega since she’d married Birch, but she was no jellyfish. She always had strong opinions, and she could be as sharp as a knife when she was in the mood to be. I’d always suspected that was why the omegas picked her; she was stubborn as hell and not afraid to speak up.

“Beats me, but the little asshole actually thinks he’s going to be the next pack alpha. Fat damn chance,” Claudia’s husband, Birch, said as he stepped up beside me, the four of us digging in to finish burying my father.

Silence fell over us, and it gave me a moment to think. Birch...was nothing like Claudia or Zeke. There was not an ounce of curmudgeon in him. He was a calm, kind, patient elementary school teacher. He was the alpha I thought all alphas should aspire to be. I’d never heard him curse before, let alone call someone a name.

Skip seemed like he’d be a little young to become pack alpha, but my father had been in his early twenties when he’d taken the job. It was possible to take the responsibility that young and do well with it.

But if Birch didn’t think it likely, it probably wasn’t.

---