Page 87 of Harvest Moon

Naked, I slid into bed beside Alexis. I didn’t want a damn thing between us, just his skin on mine and his steady breathing comforting me all night long.

“In the morning, I need to go into town. Want to talk to Isaac at the grocery store—good place to start if we’re going to test this theory. And I want to talk to Skye too. Just—we’ll figure this out.”

“I know we will.” Alexis wrapped his arms around my waist and snuggled in, nuzzling his soft cheek against my chest. “But in the morning, right?”

I traced my fingertips down the back of his arm and hummed. It’d been a long day, and staying up all night worrying wasn’t going to fix anything, though it was exactly what I wanted to do.

Thankfully, I had Alexis there, warm and sleepy in my arms. “In the morning.”

53

Alexis

By the time I woke up, I knew what I had to do.

Yes, Sterling was the kind of company that would sue the pants off me, and any pack that dared to back me, if I started slinging around unproven rumors about them causing the Condition. Even if it was probably true, they were too powerful for me.

But.

They were a huge company. Surely there were major reasons people did boycott them, some of which I couldn’t be sued for talking about. And if I happened to talk about them on my podcast, whose listenership was mostly omegas, what could they do?

Silly question. They could find sneaky ways to destroy me if they couldn’t just drag me into court. But it didn’t matter. I understood why Linden wanted to stand back and get proof before doing something, but he had responsibilities that I didn’t. He had a whole pack to think of.

I just had me. Well, and Ridge.

I sat on the edge of my bed, still naked, as he dressed, biting my lip. He’d already struggled so much with his student debt and his parents selling the farm. Did I have any right to make his life harder by bringing down the wrath of the Sterling corporation on us?

When he finished pulling on his shirt, he caught my eye, and immediately, he was on his knees in front of me, arms wrapped around me. “What’s wrong? Do you feel sick?”

“No, I—” I sighed and leaned down to kiss him on the forehead. “You’re already dealing with so much crap about money, and I’m thinking... I have to do something, Ridge. I have to try to get omegas to stop eating stuff from Sterling. If there’s even a tiny chance it’s what’s making us sick, Ihaveto.”

“ ’Course you do,” he agreed instantly.

Obviously, he didn’t get it, because he just watched me, waiting for an explanation.

“Even if I don’t say anything that can get me sued, Sterling could make my life difficult. And like I said, you’ve got enough trouble. I shouldn’t be adding more to it.”

He tightened his arms around me. “Don’t think you’re getting away that easy, Lex. If you go broke, we go broke together. Besides, if Sterling goes out of their way to ruin you when you start talking, that just proves your point, don’t you think?”

And he wasn’t wrong. Maybe it was time forOmega and the Great Outdoorsto increase its profile on social media platforms. Then if Sterling pulled something, people would see it happen. They’d see that I’d been speaking out, and suddenly disappeared.

No, I didn’t think Sterling was going to murder me, but they could probably pull strings and get my podcast deplatformed.

But I wasn’t nobody. Thousands of people listened to me every week. Someone would notice.

I leaned in and pulled him against me. “You’ve been through enough of this.”

“I’d go through anything for you, Lex. And it would be nothing at all, because you’re with me.”

We sat there like that for a long time, me pretending not to sniffle, and him manfully pretending not to hear it, until finally, he pulled away with one last kiss on my cheek. “Now let’s get downtown and get started at the market.”

I nodded and set to dressing. He was right. Sterling hadn’t won yet. Werewolves still existed, and just maybe, for the first time in twenty years of fighting the Condition, we knew what we were fighting.

Finally, we had a chance.

When we got down to the market, Isaac didn’t seem surprised to see us. More, he seemed curious. He passed a clipboard off to the older lady who worked in the store with him, and came over to us. “The alpha said you’d be coming over this morning. And that it was important, and I should take you seriously.”

I couldn’t hold back my pleased smile. It was good to have an alpha backing us up.

---