Page 28 of Hunter Moon

I didn’t really blame them. What the hell good was I, a guy who’d already proven that when things got tough, I got going? But to come home, and have no one want me there, that was... My wolf howled, demanding and miserable, wanting a thousand undefinable things.

It was hard, to be a wolf inside a man’s head. The man wanted money and intangible stuff like promotions and respect. The wolf just wanted safety, food, and family. When the intangible bullshit got in the way of those three important things, well, it had to be really fucking confusing. What did it matter if Dad wouldn’t let me take a step back and be me, instead of some ridiculous idealized notion of me as a leader? There’s no reason to walk away from family.

But right now, the scared wolf was the problem. The wolf had to understand that. Respect that. Brook didn’t feel safe, and for Brook to feel safe, it had to stay beneath the surface. No claws, no flashing eyes, no sharp teeth. No violence.

With just that, the urge to run and howl and hunt died inside me. The wolf never wanted family to be frightened, and even if he never agreed to talk to me again, Brook was that.

Because no matter how far I’d run, or how much I’d tried to forget, Brook was always my wolf’s other half. Our perfect mate. Whether he’d ever be that in practice or not, he’d always be that in my heart. There would never be room for anyone else in there.

So instead of shredding my clothes and running for it, I turned down the sidewalk and walked. Slowly. Sedately. Ignoring the narrow-eyed look Shiloh gave me from the bay window as I walked past the Morgan House.

She’d liked me when we were kids. They all had, except maybe Harmony, to whom I’d been the obstacle between her and more of Brook’s time. It had been hard to blame her for it, too, since he was practically her father, and she’d been at the age when other people’s needs are a strange, nebulous thing. It’s so much easier to focus on your own wants and needs when you’re thirteen and hitting the on ramp to puberty.

I couldn’t blame Shiloh for hating me now, either. I’d earned that.

The wolf suggested I crawl for Brook, scoot on my belly with my head down, whining and being generally harmless. As tempting as it was, it wouldn’t help. Brook needed me to be a man who wasn’t battling my feral instincts.

And right now, I couldn’t give it to him. My struggle with my wolf was just making him worse, which made my wolf struggle harder. Just like the threat of Lin tossing me out. It made my instincts go on higher alert, which wasn’t helping me make the people in Grovetown want to accept me back.

There weren’t a lot of houses in Grovetown. A fair few, certainly, and spread out, since we had the whole valley and the pack, last I knew, was under three hundred strong. Still, when I passed Grove House for the third time, I figured I should find a direction. Walking the town in circles wasn’t going to make me look any more stable than running in the woods.

I thought about ringing the bell and seeing who was home. Thought about going into the clinic next door, where Lin’s SUV was parked, to see if he was willing to talk to me.

But maybe, maybe I wasn’t ready to talk to him again just yet. Not because I half expected him to change his mind on our uneasy truce and tell me to get out of Grovetown, oh no.

Or, you know, maybe precisely because of that.

Instead of stopping, I walked down to the end of the street, where the asphalt ended in a slightly sloping drive, up to old man Sedgwick’s barn. It was still there, against all reason. The barn had been listing starboard for as long as I’d been alive, and even though it seemed to get more pronounced every year, the damn thing just never fell over.

For years, Brook and I used to play there. Mom hadn’t approved, thinking it would fall down on us. Brook’s mom hadn’t approved either, thinking I was going to get her baby alone and take advantage of him, even when we were snotty little preteens playing pirates and not teenagers who had discovered the use of their dicks.

I supposed, in the end, she’d been right.

I’d gotten Brook all to myself, then abandoned him without warning or explanation, and it was still fucking him up. What kind of useless jackass did a man have to be, to convince someone as good, and smart, and beautiful as Brook that they weren’t worth sticking around for?

Part of me wanted to just walk out and shove the barn over. It probably wouldn’t take much more than one good shove to do it in for good.

But again, that was the problem, not the solution. Losing my temper and destroying someone else’s property was just the kind of thing that would make Brook even more scared of me, Lin more likely to tell me to get the hell out of Grovetown.

Clearly, my instincts were off. My senses were also on the fritz, however, because I had no idea there was someone walking up to me until they shoved my shoulder. Hard.

I turned to see a scowling Shiloh Morgan looking up at me. Even in her irritation, it was easy to see the caretaker in her. The tiny crease between her brows that spoke of concern as well as anger.

“Busy?” she asked, tense and short.

I shook my head, turning toward her. “No. Can I do something for you?”

Her lips twisted, eyes narrowing, but the words that came out didn’t make sense with the expression. “You really would, wouldn’t you? You think I hate you, and there’s no way you think kissing my ass would make Brook forgive you, but you’d just—fuck, you’re such aGrove.”

It sounded oddly like a compliment, since I was the only living member of my family who was anything but good. Still, I doubted she wanted an answer, since the comment had sounded more like, “what the hell is wrong with you?” than a question with intent. Maybe like a drill sergeant, what she really wanted was a “sir, yes, sir.”

It had always been so much easier, knowing what people wanted from me in the navy. Every conversation had been simple when all I had to do was take orders and follow through.

Shiloh’s jaw tensed, her eyes icicles ready to fall and stab me in the head, but she stayed quiet for a long moment, staring into my eyes. She grabbed my hand, peeling the fingers open and dropping something into my palm.

Flower petals. From the flowers I’d given Brook. Had she pulled them off to tell me to get lost?

“My brother just fucking cried over these. Because if they die, then you’re gone. Because you don’t love him. Tell me right now. Tell me the goddamn truth. Do you love my brother?”

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