Page 81 of Hunter Moon

Cain went slack then. Aspen broke his spine and let go, leaving him bleeding out and panting in the dirt.

And that was it—the violence was all around us, but in that small circle of Aspen and Reid and me, it was done.

I stayed flat to the ground, staring up at my fearsome mate, panting. Asp was slow when he walked over to me, nudging my neck to sniff at the wound on my shoulder.

For once—for just a minute or two, at least—I was satisfied to stay exactly where I was and let him take care of everything. To Aspen’s wolf, that meant stepping one front leg over my shoulder and pressing me down into the ground, nuzzling my neck and licking my bleeding arm, oblivious to the blood on his own snout or any wounds he had.

Didn’t care. Didn’t matter. Mate was warm, and I buried under him with a whimper. One more monster was dead, or dying, and all that was left that I needed was my mate.

Linden’s voice rang out above the sounds of battle, “Enough!” It was, and with me close and protected, Aspen didn’t move, and I didn’t want him to.

53

Aspen

Just as I’d always imagined, when Linden shouted in the middle of chaos, everyone listened. The whole fight simply stopped, every wolf in the clearing pausing, turning to look at him, Grove and Reid alike.

He towered over where Brook and I sat in the bloody grass, slowly turning to lay his judging eyes on each wolf, each fight.

With one of his—really inappropriate for a fight in the woods—loafers, he nudged Cain Reid’s limp body. “Your alpha is dead. Again. It’s time to stop this farce. The Reid pack is no longer viable. You can’t continue.”

A Reid wolf took a step toward him, growling, but Harmony’s lithe wolf form lunged at him, teeth bared and snarling like the little hellion she was. I’d never seen that side of her. She was just mad at me, after all. I wasn’t the actual villain. Those, she wasn’t willing to just glare at.

I wouldn’t have been the least bit surprised to find that Harmony was one of our pack’s best enforcers. She was small, sure, but that meant fuck all in a fight.

Showing a shocking amount of sense, the Reid backed down.

Could her omega nature have brought him back to his senses, I wondered, even when she was snapping her teeth at him, ready to tear his throat out?

Lin waited for a long while after Harmony had put the wolf in his place, meeting his eye patiently. When the silence had become so tense that it felt like we were swimming, pressure coming from all sides, he continued. “Given what you’ve done today, you’re not welcome in the Grove pack. We’re not rabid animals. We’re not going to hunt you down. But you need to leave. All of you. The Reid pack is no more, and Reid lands are forfeit. Find other packs, or don’t, as you like. But if we catch you on Grove land again, we won’t be so kind.”

Like dense morning fog, the Reid pack withdrew, slowly and carefully, melting away into the woods, in all different directions. Some continued to watch us, balefully, and some hit the tree line, turned, and bolted. There was nothing that unified them, except for the fact that they left.

Brook leaned hard against me, panting, his tongue lolling out to one side, looking exceptionally self-satisfied.

It hadn’t been what I’d wanted for him, obviously, Cain Reid taking advantage when two of his packmates jumped on me, and going to threaten Brook. It had been the very last thing I had wanted. But that just made it more apparent that I didn’t know a damn thing, because sitting there next to me, Brook smelled positively content. His wolfish grin, his lax muscles, the way he leaned against me.

He had faced his demons, and he had emerged triumphant. My own hero.

Then his nose scrunched up, like he’d smelled something awful, and his head whipped around, scanning the clearing. Another Reid, come back to cause more problems?

I didn’t see or smell anyone unexpected, and the Reids—those left alive—were all gone from the clearing.

But Brook stood, heading off toward the north end of the clearing. The area the Reids had come from to begin with. Pulling myself to my own four paws, I followed, sniffing the air, searching for whatever it was that had gotten Brook’s attention.

All I could smell on the north end of the clearing was Reid, and the farther we went, the more pronounced the scent became. Nothing Grove mixed with the smell of Reid after the tree line there, no Groves having bothered to go north of the clearing.

Needless to say, that made the naked, bleeding boy something of a surprise.

Brook had shifted back in an instant, leaning over the young man, eyes wide with terror as he tried to make it make sense, talked to the man whose eyes were rolling and unfocused. Except, the area smelled of Brook, myself, and the Reid pack. The boy was no one I knew.

“Dante?” Brook whispered, his voice trembling with the emotion he had only just managed to excise. With gentle hands, he turned the boy onto his back to reveal a horrific set of claw marks, opening the boy up from his chest, to nearly his groin. “Oh no. No no no no no, this can’t—Dante. Please don’t be dying. Please—”

He cut off with a choked whimper as he pressed his fingers into the boy’s neck, searching for a pulse.

It was there, the pulse. I could hear it, slow and fading, the boy having lost too much blood to be able to survive without immediate medical attention. I glanced back toward the clearing, where immediate medical attention stood, in the form of my little brother, but crept closer to where Brook sat, searching for the boy’s pulse.

The closer I got, the more unquestionable the scent was. Reid, and alpha.

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