Page 25 of Hunter Moon

“What are you talking about? I mean that you’re an asshole, and you abandoned him. You don’t deserve to have him back.” He put down the clipboard he’d been holding and took a step toward me, then seemed to think better of it. Most people did that when they thought about trying me, and considering that Joey was trying to put himself between me and Brook, it was a damn smart thing for him to do.

Under normal circumstances, I was as harmless as an alpha werewolf who’d gone through my training could be. I didn’t go looking for fights. I never started them.

Right now, though, I was ready to vibrate out of my skin, my wolf pacing just beneath the surface, ready for me to pounce on this asshole and tear him to pieces just for being physically between me and Brook—let alone thinking he had some right to Brook’s time and I didn’t.

I slid my hands back into my pockets, curling them into balls and trying to fight back my claws as I answered. “People can’t be won, or earned, or deserved, orhad. People get to say what they want. You wanna say I don’t deserve to be forgiven? Sure, probably not. But don’t put a value on Brook. What hedeservesis better than that.”

He glared at me, but didn’t take another step forward. “You’re nitpicking words.”

“Words mean things,” I said with an insolent shrug that my CO had occasionally called “fucking douchey, Grove.”

His response was to clench his teeth so hard that they squeaked.

Fortunately for him, Brook came out of the back before he could do anything we would both regret. He had a bag over his shoulder, and shot both of us a narrow-eyed stare as he came to join me by the door.

“I’ll see you the day after tomorrow, Joseph,” he told Joey as he passed him. Then he waved a hand in front of him, as though ushering me forward. “Let’s go.”

He didn’t say “start talking,” or “you’ve got five minutes,” but it wouldn’t have been a surprise if he had. Brook was not accepting shit today, so I’d better start talking, and say something worthwhile in the next five minutes.

14

Brook

It wasn’t lost on me that Joseph and Aspen wanted to bare their teeth and snarl at each other, maybe tumble into the street for a good-old alpha brawl. Thank god, they managed to tamp that impulse down, because there was no damn way I wouldn’t throw myself in the middle of it—growl and snarl and throw a couple punches of my own just to work some of this tension out.

I could fight an alpha. Totally.

It wasn’t like I’d tried and failed to protect myself only a couple months ago. Wasn’t like I felt smaller and less capable than I had in my whole life.

Ugh, whatever. Aspen was walking me home, and no fights were happening anyway, so there was nothing for me to fixate over.

For too many steps, we were quiet. I was too mad to talk, and Aspen didn’t seem to know what to say.

“Well?” I snapped when my patience wore out.

“I got a room at the motel,” Aspen offered up, seemingly out of the blue.

Except I knew him, and Aspen was doing exactly what he always did—responding to the needs of the people around him. I’d been disappointed that he’d been living out in the woods in some strike of hairshirt, self-flagellating fancy, and so he was trying to show me hard evidence of his improvement.

He’d always been like that—less of a leader than most people expected Aspen Senior’s first-born alpha son to be, but eager to follow, provide, and support the people around him.

“Good,” I said shortly. “Nobody wanted you out cold in the woods.”

His nose flared. He breathed in deep, nodded once, and we went on in silence.

I could’ve helped him, told him what I wanted, but I liked watching him struggle to figure it out. More than that, asking felt like an admission that I needed him. And him giving in? That would’ve been the move of a man who pitied me.

I didn’t doubt that Aspen Grove was sorry for hurting me, but I didn’t want him hanging around, trying to mollycoddle me just like everybody else, when clearly, his focus was elsewhere and had been for years.

“I’m sorry,” he said, trying again.

“For?” I sounded brittle, but I didn’t care. Aspen had a million things he could apologize for, and I wasn’t even sure they meant anything to me.

“For leaving. For leaving you behind. For not talking to you back when I had the chance, or asking you to come with me.”

I scoffed, hanging my head to stare at the sidewalk.

How would that have worked?

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