Page 22 of Hunter Moon

So I packed my shit, took it to my car, and got myself a motel room. Then, since it’s one of the perks of living like a human, I used the motel’s laundry room to wash my dirty clothes. And took a shower before changing into clean ones.

It was kinda nice. Not quite on the level of getting back from deployment, showering and sleeping for a full day nice, but nice.

Then, since he had always been the guy who helped me get my shit together, I drove into town, straight for Grove House. Maybe Lin was pissed at me, and maybe he would... maybe he would never be okay with me being back in the pack. But I had to start somewhere, and Lin had always been good at helping me get my head on straight.

The sound of my teeth grinding together told me quite clearly that I wouldn’t be fine with it if Lin sent me away, but this was on me now. I needed to prove to Lin that I was worth taking back. Worth forgiveness.

And the best way to do that was to talk to someone who knew me better than most, and who was practically a compulsive problem solver. Even if he was still mad at me, my brother had a deep-seated urge to help people in need, and if ever in my life I’d been in need of help, it was now.

My wolf was closer to the surface than ever, and it was easy to shake my head and say it was just the living rough for a while adding up, or stress adding up, but for fuck’s sake, I was an alpha werewolf. I knew better than to dismiss emotional instabilities in myself, to pass them off as something that would go away.

That way lay wandering into the woods on four legs and never coming home.

I didn’t think there was solid information about whether a were who went into the woods truly lost themself, forgot their humanity, or simply chose to ignore it. But that wasn’t because no one had ever tried studying it. It was because none of them ever came back.

I parked in my old place in front of the house and headed up the walk. I hoped Lin’s mate hadn’t claimed the spot, or Rowan, if he’d gotten a car. Oddly, not because I felt possessive of something I’d abandoned, but because I didn’t want to encroach on something that wasn’t mine anymore.

I looked up at the cheerful brick facade of Grove House, black-painted shutters and bright drapes hanging in every window, and felt... like a visitor. Unlike every other part of town, coming back to the house didn’t feel like coming home. It felt like going to a museum filled with relics of my own history.

Knocking on the door, I stared at the hedge as I waited for someone to answer. I didn’t know what kind of bushes they were, with their hard, shiny dark green leaves, but Mom’s rose vines still climbed the trellis behind them, dormant for the year, but no less familiar and perfect.

The door opened, dragging my attention back to it, and there was my little brother—just not the one I’d come to see. I smiled at him. “Hey, Ro. You wanna hit me?”

He chewed on his lip, looking at me seriously, but shook his head. “I mean, I’m a little mad at you. Maybe. Mostly I just wish you’d talked to us.”

That hit as hard as any punch from Linden could have. He was right. And he was hurt. And I’d been the one to hurt him, the very best person my family had to offer.

He took half a step forward, like he wanted to fling himself at me, so on a whim, I spread my arms. Just a little, a hint of a movement. It was enough, and suddenly I had a clinging baby brother wrapped around me.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered to him. “I know it doesn’t mean shit, but I’m sorry that I hurt you. That was never something I wanted to do.”

He nodded into my shoulder, but didn’t say anything for a long time. When he finally pulled away, it was with a deep sigh that felt somehow both content and dissatisfied. It was just like something Mom used to do when we were kids, and she loved us because she was our mom, but was also annoyed with us. How the hell did he do that?

“Linden isn’t here. He’s probably at the clinic. Or maybe on his morning rounds. He does a lot of house calls. I suppose you want to go look for him.” He was already looking down, shoulders slumped, like my wanting to see Lin was an insult, and hell, wasn’t it?

I’d been in town half a dozen times, seen Lin repeatedly, and hadn’t gone out of my way to see my baby brother even once. Yet another thing I needed to fix. It was beyond time to start getting things done.

“Actually, I’d rather talk to you,” I told him, because suddenly it was true.

His head snapped up, once again chewing on his lip as he stared into my eyes. “Really?”

“Yeah, really. How’ve you been, little brother?” At least Ro was never gonna give me shit for calling him little, since I had a good decade on him.

Somehow, his shoulders slumped even more, but it felt like relief, especially when he pulled me into the house and proceeded to drag me toward the kitchen while somehow leaning on my shoulder at the same time.

“How do you handle your alpha instincts when they get bad? I’d ask Linden, but honestly, he’s like a freaking saint. I don’t think he has the same instincts as the rest of you.”

I was still parsing the word vomit when we got to the kitchen, and he shoved me into one of the well-worn seats at the island. He headed right around the thing and went back to what he’d apparently been doing before I’d knocked: kneading bread dough.

Jesus. I hadn’t thought he could get any more like Mom, but there he was, taking out his anxiety on a lump of yeasty flour.

But what had he said? Alpha instincts. I wasn’t sure I was the right guy to ask, but I shrugged. “The navy taught us a lot of breathing exercises,” I offered. It had seemed silly when they’d slipped them into training, so new-agey and out of place, but the military both wanted alpha werewolves, and needed them to be able to control themselves. An alpha gone feral in a combat situation was a danger to himself and his unit, so control was important. I pulled out my phone. “There’s an app. Give me your number and I’ll message it to you.”

He rattled it off, and I sent the link, then stared at the program. I should go back to using it at night, like I had early on, when being away from Grovetown had been a fresh wound, keeping me up at night, my heart howling for pack. The number of times I’d been close to losing control in the last week alone proved that I needed to do something to dull my feral instincts.

“Does it really help?” he asked.

I leaned forward, watching him knead and resting my arms on the counter. “Some, and sometimes. It depends, what’s the problem?”

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