Page 42 of Hunter Moon

Trying to keep my voice calm and steady, and to hold back the claws threatening to push their way out of my fingertips, I met his eye evenly. “You have orders from our alpha, Reid. You don’t belong here.”

“Brook Morgan isn’t here. Grove asked me not to bother him, and I’m not.” The smarmy little shit was trying to pussyfoot around orders to me? I’d spent a decade in the military. I knew the damn difference between the letter and the spirit of a thing. Maybe Reid needed a lesson in it.

“Alpha Grove told you not to disturb Brook. You being here would disturb Brook. You being anywhere in Grovetown disturbs this pack.” In my peripheral vision, Harmony nodded, glaring daggers at the little prick. Though she’d willingly hidden mostly behind me, the tension coiling in her body made me wonder if, in a moment, I was going to have to hold her back from jumping at the asshole. I ignored that and pointed at him. “You want my alpha, you call him on the phone. I don’t want to see your face in my town without his explicit permission.”

His little smirk almost made me lunge, and Harmony did step right up against my shoulder, like she wanted to push past and was barely holding herself back. “Funny. I always thought you were supposed to be the Grove alpha. That the Groves were supposed to be something special. A strong pack, with a strong alpha. And they went and picked the practically human one.”

Suddenly, I couldn’t close my mouth around all the sharp teeth, and my carefully controlled claws sprung free. “They picked the best leader, you ignorant little fuckwit. Our alpha is so much more than any alpha in your pack that you don’t even recognize it.”

Harmony’s grip on my wrist went painfully tight, and I wasn’t sure if I’d actually tried to step forward, or if she’d assumed I would and held me back. Either way, the reminder was grounding. I couldn’t just leap into a fight in the middle of the bar, even if he was trying to pick one with me.

It was usually so much harder to pick a fight with me than just tossing out a few petty words, but... fucking Reids.

“Hmm,” he said, pretending to consider. “If you say so. I do worry, though. What happens if your pack faces a real threat? Do you think the good doctor can defend the pack from something scarier than a single, pitiful, feral alpha?”

“What, like you?” Harmony spat. “Linden wouldn’t even dirty his claws with you.”

He went back to the gracious, sweet act. “Oh no, not me. Never that. We’re neighbors, after all. We should be friends. Defending each other from outside threats.”

“Outside threats like packs of wild alphas who go out kidnapping people?” Harmony taunted. “We’re good, thanks. Linden can handle them on his own. And since we’ve also got help from muscles, here, I think we can defend ourselves okay.”

Damn. I should keep the girl around in case I wanted to pick a fight, because the taunting seemed to get under Reid’s skin in a way I hadn’t. His eyes flashed as he turned to look at her, and this time she really did step up beside me, back ramrod straight, glaring at him.

Talin took a step forward as well, holding out a small piece of paper. He snatched it from her, still glowering at us, and when he took a moment to glance at it, frowned. “What the hell is this?”

“That’s Alpha Grove’s phone number. If you want to talk to him, you call it. But if the alpha’s brother says you aren’t supposed to be here, then you aren’t supposed to be here.” She waved at the door behind him. “So shoo.”

He ripped the paper in half and tossed it on the floor. “You don’t care what he says, you just want to kick me out when I’m here to try to further pack relations.”

“You’re not trying to make friends, you’re here picking at an open wound, looking for weaknesses,” Harmony shot back. “Well we don’t have anything you can exploit, so get lost before you end up like your predecessor.”

Talin motioned to the pieces of the paper she’d handed him. “If you wanted to talk to our alpha, you had a path to that. You didn’t want it.”

“Now get out,” I said, infusing my voice with the alpha wolf’s anger and dominance.

Reid reared away, taking a few steps until his back hit the door, and then he spun to stare at it, like he was surprised it was there. He gave me a snarl that looked more like an impotent sneer, and slammed his way out.

“Well,” Shiloh said, pretend cheer in her voice. “Doubt we’ll see him again.”

I turned back toward her and the bar, shaking my head. “No. Harmony is right. He’s picking at us. Looking for weaknesses. He’s up to something.”

“What do we do?”

“I talk to Lin about it.” I slid back into my seat at the bar, looking at Harmony and motioning to the seats nearby. “But he’s not a threat right this minute. Right now, I invited Harmony to have a drink and yell at me, so for now, we’re gonna do that. Then I’ll drop by Grove House and talk to Lin.”

24

Brook

Itook a long lunch to go see Linden at the clinic. We didn’t have much work at the garage that day, but things would probably start to ramp up soon. There weren’t many wolves in the pack that traveled for the holidays, but the humans of Grovetown did. Once Halloween was over, everybody would remember they were overdue for an oil change and needed to squeeze it in before making the three-hour trek to Granny’s for Thanksgiving.

Linden kept scheduling follow up appointments, and I wasn’t sure I needed them. Well, I was sure, physically, I didn’t. Werewolves healed fast, and Linden had been with me the night I’d come back from Reid territory. I might have scars, but the only wounds that still troubled me were mental.

He’d mentioned seeing a therapist a few times, even had a card Colt had collected from one of his trips back to DC, but I’d kept dodging the subject, and so he kept saying, “Well, I’d like to see you in a couple of weeks if that’s okay...”

Like I’d ever tell him I didn’t want to see him.

Still, every time I came now, it was becoming more and more apparent that he was just going through the motions of being my doctor to, you know, check in on me. Give me something to do. An appointment outside the house or work.

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