Page 46 of Hunter Moon

Fishing wasthe worst. I liked it in video games, when I was pretty much guaranteed to get a bite eventually. But with Aspen? Fuck, I didn’t mind spending a whole day just watching him cast a line, even if he didn’t catch a single thing.

He was everything.

I’d just gotten him back.

“I have to go.” Suddenly, I couldn’t get enough air. I gasped. My chest shook, spasming in panic, but I forced my way past Linden. Past Aspen.

“Brook, wait!” Linden called after me.

“I’ve got this.” Aspen was right on my heels, following me out to the parking lot.

He caught up to me right by Dad’s truck and grabbed my shoulder. When he spun me around, my back hit the truck’s side, not hard, but the old metal made a deep, hollow sound. I flinched down, not because he scared me, but because out in the open air, I was vulnerable, and he was big enough to hide behind.

Despite the chilly October air, Aspen’s hand was warm against my shoulder. His fingers stretched behind, curling around the base of my neck. “What’s going on?” He leaned close, his body pressed against mine, and I wanted to stay there, pressed in small and safe with my dad’s truck at my back and Aspen all down the front of me.

I shut my eyes against tears and shook my head. The pressure of swallowing had nothing to do with Aspen’s hand, but he must’ve felt the movement under his palm.

When I opened them again, he was staring down at me, fear dilating his pupils until I was staring up into black, stricken pools.

I reached up, felt his firm stomach through his jacket and the ridiculously thin shirt he wore under it. His whole body was warm. My fingers twisted in his shirt and held him tight.

“I need you to know if something happens to me—”

“If something happens to you? Brook, nothing’s going to happen to you.” The pad of his thumb chafed the corner of my jaw.

Something already had. And if the Reids were back, if they were here...

It wasn’t just Maxim alone who’d thrown me in the back of a van and taken me away. He’d come with enforcers. They’d held me down and bound my hands and he’d snarled and sniffed my neck while someone else drove along the dark country highways back to Reid pack territory.

They’d tied my legs and two people had carried me inside his home. Locked me away in a dated bedroom with a window on the wall too high to climb out of. There was a bed in there with old sheets that still smelled like someone else’s sweat.

And Reid. He’d smelled sharp and wild and metallic, like blood. In time, some of that—it was mine. My blood on his teeth and under his nails and on his skin.

And his was on mine. If the Reids were here, they’d scent me out. They’d find me. Didn’t matter how many times I’d bathed since then, water scalding hot. I knew they would.

I swallowed again and squeezed my eyes shut, but that just brought back memories of pain and gleaming, murderous eyes in the dark.

I gasped, and when I looked up, it was just Aspen there. Aspen, touching me gently with fear in his eyes. I had to hold it together. For him. For a minute.

“Okay, but if it does, I—I need you to know”—I tugged on his shirt so hard the cold air must’ve been creeping under it—“I need you to know that I amso happyyou’re home. I’m so happy I got to see you again, and you’re here, and I, just—” I searched his face, absorbing it like it was now. He was older than the Aspen in my memories, sure, and if he’d been there every day of my life, I’d have gotten to see all those little transformations—the gray coming in at his temples, the little lines by his eyes, even the tattoos he’d chosen appearing on his skin, developing with inspiration and hours of work.

It broke my heart to have that gap in the evolution of Aspen Grove, but stitched it right back up to have him there and close again.

“Brook—” His voice was a thick whisper, like he didn’t know what to say.

I shook my head. “And I need you to take care of Harmony and Shiloh, okay? You can’t let them come after me. Shiloh can be reasoned with, but Harmony—you’ll have to stop her. And she’ll yell at you, might say she hates you. You’ll just have to deal with that. For me. It’s what I want.”

“No one’s going to have to come after you.”

My breath escaped in a rush. There was no way to make him understand, but it didn’t matter. I did.

“I have to go.” I let go of his shirt, the funny peaks and folds stretching the fabric from my tight grip. I reached behind for the door of the truck. “I’ll see you around.”

“We’re going apple picking this weekend,” he reminded me firmly, like he needed to confirm plans. Like there was a point in making them.

“Yup.” My voice was high pitched. False.

But he let me slip into the car, stepped back to let me out of the parking lot.

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