Page 71 of Hunter Moon

I sighed, unsure what to say or offer to make anything better. We might not always get on with the Reid pack, but I couldn’t help feeling things wouldn’t be this tense if I weren’t around being inconvenient and hurt.

“Has Reid been giving you trouble?” Aspen asked stiffly.

Cliff shook his head, but a second later, he tilted his neck and shrugged one shoulder. “Been hanging around town more, like he’s trying to encroach, you know. Called and placed an order for a fridge part. Told him we didn’t stock it. Then he came in, and, well, he was being all nice, you know? But in a smarmy kind of way. Then he said he wanted to sample one of Ro’s pies and I just—”

I swallowed hard. There wasn’t much worse than imagining the Reids getting their hands on the youngest Grove.

Clearly, Aspen felt that too. His shoulders tensed up. His arm came around my hips like he needed to feel me there.

“Yeah,” Aspen said. “I want to fucking kick his ass too. We could call somebody else if you don’t want to be alone right now?”

It was cold out, but we still had groceries in the car and, really, I just wanted to get home and lock the doors behind me, sneak back into my room that smelled like me and Aspen and Mom’s muffins, and hide out from the whole world.

“I’m good. Thanks, though.” Cliff huffed, and he seemed to shrink as he turned back to the hardware store. The door shut behind him too hard, the lock slid into place, and the sign flipped to “Closed.”

45

Aspen

It was strange, how seeing Cliff Reynolds riding the line of control didn’t make me realize how in control of myself I was.

It was the opposite, in fact.

I recognized that barely coherent gleam in his eye. That need for violence to satisfy the beast inside. That need to draw blood, and cause pain in the agitator.

It had been easier for me because I was the villain in my own story. I could hate myself all I wanted, berate myself with reminders of all the effects of my abandonment, spout practically Shakespearean self-loathing-filled inner monologues. But unless I was in much worse emotional shape than I was, I couldn’t lose control and attack myself.

I could have run off into the woods to escape my past, but that was such a different issue. Both involved out of control alphas, sure.

Only one was likely to involve actions that could never be taken back.

A wolf could slink in from the woods, tail between his legs, when he came back to himself and remembered that he was a man and had responsibilities. But once you committed an act of violence, it could never be taken back.

And unlike me, most of the Grove pack had never been anywhere near that kind of violence. I didn’t think Cliff was even a pack enforcer—it would have been downright irresponsible of Zeke to allow an alpha who was struggling with control issues to be involved in enforcement, even if Cliff was a pretty damned impressive physical specimen.

The fact, however, was that of everyone in Grovetown, it was likely that only Lin and I had ever killed a person.

Frankly, I wanted to keep it that way.

“He’s been managing like this for a while,” Brook said, his voice a whisper with no conviction.

I pulled him tight against my side, nodding. “I’ll talk to Lin about it, but it’s not like he should be dealing with threats like that, well... hell, ever.”

Brook sighed and nodded, but he didn’t look reassured. Who could blame him? I wasn’t either.

I shook my head and turned us around, headed back toward the car. “For now, we’d better get back before the ice cream melts.”

“Ah yes,” he agreed, and for the first time since he’d smelled fucking Reid on the wind, he gave a tiny smile. “Can’t forget your bribery ice cream.”

I nodded, walking him to the passenger seat and opening the door for him. I wasn’t going to question him not doing as I’d asked, because, well, I wasn’t the boss of him. I’d been trying to protect him, as was my job, sure. But that didn’t change that Brook was an adult who got to make his own choices, and the one he’d made had taken more guts than most people had.

After what the Reids had done to him. After the utter terror I’d seen on him at just the scent of Reid not so long ago, for him to brace his shoulders and walk toward where Reid had been posturing just a moment earlier?

Most people would have been trembling through a panic attack in the Mustang, not selflessly helping a packmate like Brook had.

I held the door for him, smiling, and nodded. “I mean, she’s probably already going to throw it back in my face. If that happens, at least it should be there to comfort me in my moment of need. Can’t do that if it’s melted.”

Brook, though his shoulders were still tight, tension in every line of his body, covered his face with both hands and laughed.

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