Page 44 of Hunter Moon

“Oh. I’m fine. I—I know I don’t owe Aspen anything. But I missed him too. It’s nice to have him back, no matter how complicated that makes things.”

Slowly, Linden nodded, but he was still looking at me with narrowed eyes.

Finally, he sighed and leaned back, reaching for the clipboard with my chart on it. “You haven’t had a heat since early June?”

I nodded.

“And you were on a steady four-month cycle before—”

Before Reid. I swallowed, tucking my chin down. “Yeah.”

“You’re a little late. Understandable, given the stress you’ve been under lately, but... you might want to keep an eye out. If you want, I could prescribe you a suppressant?”

But he sounded hesitant, and hell if I didn’t get it. I’d tried them before, a few months after Aspen had left, thinking it’d make it easier to go through my heat without him for the first time ever.

And it hadsucked. There hadn’t been a lot of time or technology put into developing heat suppressants for omegas. The few medical conversations around us had been about the Condition for the last twenty years, and before that, well—

Well, let’s just say, it’s a lot easier to get treatment for erectile dysfunction than it is to get attentive healthcare as an omega.

We were lucky in the Grove pack to have Linden, but he was caring for the pack, not developing pharmaceuticals for werewolves the world over.

“No, thanks,” I said quickly. “I can totally handle it.”

“Okay, just keep an eye out and let me know if anything changes.”

I was all too happy to let the subject drop. Hell, after Reid, I was pretty certain I was over the whole concept of heats. I’d moved past them. Wasn’t happening to me. Nope.

And just then, like he always knew the worst moment to walk into a room, Aspen stuck his head in the clinic door. “Lin, you around?”

Linden stood back, walked around the curtain that blocked me from sight of the clinic waiting room. But there was nothing for it—Aspen would smell me. And I could smell him, all pine trees and outdoor air and fresh bubbling streams and—

And Reid.

My shoulders jerked up around my ears, and I hopped off the bed and followed Linden, staying behind him.

Because that put two Grove alphas between me and whatever was out there. Whatever smelled like the Reid pack and stank of threat.

25

Aspen

How the hell had I missed Brook’s dad’s old truck parked in front of the clinic? I was a complete fucking numpty.

Because the second I opened the door to the clinic and took a breath, there it was, the scent of Brook. And mild discomfort, that spiked at my presence, so fuck, even better.

Lin came around a curtain, eyes narrowed and jaw tight, looking like he was going to take my head off. Shit. I’d interrupted in the middle of something.

“Or not,” I backtracked. “I can just go wait at—”

Brook poked his head around Linden, pale, eyes wide and breaths short. “Where are they?” he whispered, his voice as thready as his heartbeat.

Jesus. I hadn’t realized Brook’s sense of smell was that good, to pick up the Reid on me, when I hadn’t even touched the man, just breathed his air for a few minutes.

But no. Brook’s sense of smell probably wasn’t that good, was it? It wasn’t that he’d have been able to pick someone’s scent out of a lineup. It was that that scent was more to Brook than the rest of us. To me it was just one guy, irritating and dangerous, but ultimately forgettable.

For Brook, the smell of the Reid pack was the smell of the worst moments of his life.

I met Brook’s eye, lowering my head and squaring my shoulders. “I told him to get the hell out of Grovetown. Linden said for him not to bother anyone in town, especially you, and I told him his presence was breaking that request. So I told him to leave. I followed the scent of his car all the way down to the county highway to make sure.”

---