Page 74 of Hunter Moon

And poor fucking Cliff, the man whose weakness they knew all too well, from any time they spent looking in the mirror. A man whose wolf always ran too damn close to the surface, whose control was a struggle on the best of days. No doubt they knew just the kind of things that would drive someone like him over the edge. But they didn’t count on the fact that unlike their fractured mess of a pack, a pack that was as likely to turn on each other as anyone else, we were there to support Cliff.

We would always be there for each other, because if I’d learned anything from the gaping hole in my life during my years away, that was what pack was for. And hell did it feel good to be back with it.

Fortunately for me, Reid hadn’t caught on to the pack’s real weakness in time to use it: me. An alpha right on the edge of stability. If he’d been smart, he could have driven a wedge between me and my pack, driven me out of town, or worse, made me a liability.

But like most people who only valued traditional alphas, Reid had seen me as the threat, never the weakness. And by treating me as the threat, ignoring the things that made the pack truly strong, he’d strengthened us further.

Because Lin agreed with me. He hadn’t even taken convincing. Just listened to my story about what had happened, and nodded, looking like he’d eaten a lemon. “You’re right. He’s testing for weaknesses.”

And me? I was a fucking contributing member of the pack, because that had reminded me. “There were strangers in the woods the other week. South side of the valley. Humans, camping. I tried to dismiss it as being paranoid, but maybe while things are tense with the Reids, I should go back to patrolling every morning, looking for signs of intruders?”

At that, Lin had reached out and grabbed my shoulder, right at the juncture of my neck, and squeezed hard. He met my eye with his soft blue-gray gaze, and nodded. “I’d appreciate that, Asp. Let me know if anything else out of the ordinary pops up.”

So there I was at five in the morning, as the sun rose, making my circle around the whole valley. It was a good run, and I enjoyed making it, especially being allowed to do it in my wolf skin. I hadn’t had enough opportunity to wear my fur in the navy, so feeling the wind in my fur, my paws against the dirt of my family’s grove, well... I couldn’t help but feel completely at ease for the first time in a decade.

This was where I was meant to be. What I was meant to be doing.

That was when I smelled the humans.

Another day, I might have ignored it. Heck, I’d barely paid much attention the first time, just checking it out and making sure they’d gone, then never following up again. This time, with the Reids testing our defenses, the second I smelled humans camping in the valley, I changed direction, headed for them.

I could hear them moving around, quiet and subtle, but still there nonetheless, unlike last time. The slither of waterproof fabric, the crinkle of food wrappers, the crunch of disposable water bottles, they were all there, and more disturbing than if they’d been blasting music on a radio—because it was quite clearly more than one person, but not a single word was said.

They were trying their best to be quiet.

I slowed down as I approached, circling around, trying to get a quick look between trees. Two men. Camping. In what looked like old-fashioned surplus army fatigues, the kind from the nineties or earlier, with the pattern that looked almost hand-painted.

There was no sign or scent of a fire, despite the fact that it was very nearly winter, and we’d had some damn cold nights.

As I came around between them and Grovetown, one of them froze, his hand shooting up to stop the other. For a moment, they both stood there, silent, waiting.

I stood still, as much as I could while still panting from my run, breath puffing out in little white clouds, and tried to hide myself behind a tree, despite the fact that there were maybe half a dozen trees in the whole valley as wide as my bulky ass wolf.

The one I was hiding behind was not one of them.

I took half a step to the side, trying to shield a little more of myself, and that was when I felt a sting in my left hindquarter. A fraction of a second later, I heard the shot. Then another.

“Go, go, go,” one of the guys whispered, and they ran, leaving behind their camping gear in the rush, peppering half a dozen more shots behind them as they went. They only would have hit me by a miracle, since they weren’t aiming so much as trying to stop me from chasing.

I tried it anyway, but less than a hundred yards in, my stomach gave a lurch, and suddenly everything felt far away.

That wasn’t a reaction to being shot. I’d been shot before. I’d been shot way the hell worse than one in the ass.

I’d also felt this before.

Fucking aconite poisoning.

I was still in the middle of their camp when the dizzy spell hit me, and it was all I could do, simply to keep from collapsing. Giving chase, fighting, were out of the question.

Home, the wolf whined.Den. Need to escape, lick our wounds.

The tiny part of my human brain still functioning knew damn well that if I didn’t get to someone who knew how to treat aconite, licking my wounds wasn’t going to do a damn bit of good.

Ears plastered against my skull, dragging my right leg, which was going numb, I turned to limp in the only direction that my brain associated with safety. I turned to Brook.

48

Brook

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