Page 40 of Hunter Moon

Her lip trembling, she nodded.

“Okay.” How could I tell her how to feel about him? “But what happened to me? You can’t blame him for that.”

Her scowl went sharp. My chin turned up.

“I’m serious,” I said. “No one is responsible for that except Maxim Reid, and I don’t want to spend the rest of my life looking to spread out the blame. It hurts. It hurt what he did, but it hurts more to take that and brandish it like a weapon against pack. You understand?”

Her throat worked as she swallowed, but after a second, she nodded again.

“And you can hate him if you need to, Harmony. Pretty sure he’d tell you the same. He didn’t just leave me, he left the pack. That means everybody’s got a right to be mad at him, and you don’t have to forgive him, but you don’t get to make that decision for me.”

She rubbed at her eyes with the heel of her palm. “Do you... forgive him?”

I sighed, looking down at my knees. “I don’t know. Not yet. Mostly, I still don’t feel like he’s really here. But I’ve decided that even if he isn’t really here, seeing him is a nice respite from... the general suck of the past few months. If he leaves again, I can handle it. I handled it before,” I reminded her with a smile.

Her brow pinched in the middle. “Brook—”

That was the first time I saw it, fear, in her eyes and trembling in her lips. When Aspen had left, she’d lost him too. I’d always figured, since she’d given him loads of bad attitude, that she hadn’t missed him much. I’d been determined to hold it together for her and Shiloh, like if I stuffed down my longing enough, they wouldn’t see how lonely I was.

But Harmony had had two significant alphas in her life—Dad, who’d left us by dying, and Aspen, who’d just left us.

Sure, Talin and Shiloh were together, but that was a relatively new thing, and by then, Harmony had been off at college and her idea of alphas being unreliable had been solidified. It wasn’t like Talin and Shiloh were super open with their relationship and had invited Harmony into their mini trust circle.

It wasn’t that they owed her that, but Harmony had every reason to be scared that Aspen would leave again. And if he did, that would hurt her too.

I held her hand. “For what it’s worth, he says he doesn’t want to leave again. His place is here. And the navy might be able to call him back, for the rest of the year, but he’s already put in his resignation. It sounds like he means it.”

Harmony’s frown was small and pinched, but she nodded. “Okay.”

“I hope you don’t hate him forever. He had his reasons for needing to leave the pack, and even if he’d asked, there was no way in hell I was leaving you and Shy.”

Her face scrunched up, revving for a full-on ugly cry. She sniffled, gasping for air, her fingers covering her trembling lips as she nodded.

“Never,” I promised. “I am never leaving you. Not for anything or anybody. Not if Linden kicked me out of the pack. Not if Aspen asked me to move to some tropical paradise with him tomorrow and promised me a million dollars on top. Not for anyone. I willalwaysbe here for you. Nobody can take me away.”

She was still nodding, the words trapped inside her, but that didn’t matter. I tucked her head under my chin and held her close. “Love you, bean,” I whispered into her soft hair.

“Love you too,” came her soft, high-pitched answer a second later, but neither one of us moved for a long time.

23

Aspen

By the time I stumbled into The Cider House the next afternoon, I had a firm resolve to make things better, and maybe more importantly, a plan on how to get started. Well, with Shiloh, at least.

I dropped onto one of the stools at the bar, and when she came down to take my order, I dropped an envelope on the counter between us. “For the record, this isn’t a bribe. I figure I owed you at least one.”

She quirked a brow in the direction of the envelope, but didn’t take it, just pulled out a mug. “Cider?”

“Please.”

“So, what exactly do you want in exchange for this not-a-bribe?” Her voice was shockingly playful, given how much reason she still had to be pissed at me. She set the full mug in front of me, waiting. “You know I don’t have a say in what Brook does. And I’m not going to suggest he take your sorry ass back, either. That’s all up to him.”

“I don’t want you to.” I lifted the mug in her direction and took a long pull, giving myself time to decide how to explain it. The choice was simple: lay it out and look pitiful, or hedge, saving face and, knowing the Morgan family, piss her off. Finally, I shrugged. “And it’s for you.”

She snorted, leaning on the bar between us. “Now I know you don’t mean that how it sounds. You’re not into boobs, and you want Brook back so bad you’re willing to bribe me.”

I rolled my eyes. “No, I don’t want to date you. But you—Junie was always independent, and Lin was Rowan’s favorite. You were likemyfavorite little sister. I want that back. I fucked off and abandoned you as much as I did Brook, and I owe you apologies too.”

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