Page 82 of Hunter Moon

“Brook. Hi.” His voice was nothing more than a pained rasp, but his eyes fluttered open, focusing on Brook’s stricken face.

My mate had tears in his eyes, mumbled his denial of what was happening, but the boy didn’t seem to hear him.

“I’m sorry. Brook, I’m so sorry—”

The half-dead boy was a Reid, and Brook was touching him, calling for someone to help him. Unbidden, a growl rose in my throat.

Then, just before passing out, the boy . . . thanked Brook?

Brook turned to me, his head moving so fast that it dislodged a tear from his glassy eyes. “No,” he insisted, hugging the boy tighter against him. “He’s my friend, Aspen. He’s... he helped me escape. We have to help him.”

It took a moment for the words to properly penetrate my thick skull. Helped Brook escape. A Reid had helped Brook escape.

It could explain why he had been practically disemboweled here, where only the scent of Reid lived. Murdered by his own pack—but when that pack were feral monsters, that was hardly an indictment of the boy’s morals or personality.

So I turned my head to the sky and howled for Linden, mixed my voice to Brook’s harried shouting.

If Brook wanted this Reid to live, then I would make sure he did, even if I had to carry his torn body to the clinic myself, buck ass naked and right through the center of town.

54

Brook

The worst part of sitting there while Dante Reid bled on the ground was when he thanked me. For what? All I’d managed to do was cry.

Aspen’s howl joined my shouting, and Linden came running. He knew what to do, where to place his steady hands, what risks to take when moving someone whose torso was nearly split in two. I stepped back and stared, panic turning my fingertips numb and cold.

Claudia showed up soon with her and Birch’s enormous SUV, driving over the ragged trail north of the grove, meaning to administer first aid, pass out clothes for those of us who’d ruined them. I don’t think she’d meant to toss the stuffed gym bags out of the back seat to make room for Aspen to heft Dante into the back, bleeding on the seat, and drive a Reid to Linden’s clinic.

We went with her. Zeke had moved to assure the Groves that he could take care of the pack before anyone had even asked. If Linden had to go be a healer, the pack needed someone there to see them safe, to defend them in case the Reids hadn’t left for good. Zeke had been Aspen Senior’s second. He knew just what to do. So did Claud. And Linden.

But not me. I sat in the front seat of the SUV, useless while Linden worked on Dante in the middle row, trying to staunch the bleeding, calling Skye to prepare the clinic. Time was short. A matter of seconds could mean it was too late, and the person who’d saved me would die while his blood was still warm on my hands.

Aspen had tumbled into the back, where he’d shifted on the floor and pulled on Birch’s old gym clothes. He passed up shorts and a jacket, so I didn’t have to stand naked in the middle of the clinic parking lot when we arrived.

Claudia sped into town, her eyes narrowed on the road, her jaw firm. But when I took a sharp, shaky breath, she reached over the center console and gripped my hand. She didn’t say it was going to be okay, because nobody knew that, and this once, it might be cruel to say it out loud.

My head was still buzzing when she stopped near the door to the clinic. I tumbled out of the car, ready to offer extra hands, but they weren’t needed. Linden was already rushing to the door to prep what he needed. Aspen had gotten out of the back and was gently lifting Dante in his arms. Claudia went to get the door.

When he picked him up, stepped back from the car enough that I could meet his eyes, Aspen’s were haunted. How many people had he seen injured like this in the years he’d been away? I’d heard what’d happened to his father, but it was always couched gently, no one wanting to upset me more than I already was.

It was different to see this kind of violence in the real world, to be helpless to do anything to fix it.

“Deep breaths,” Aspen cautioned me.

There wasn’t time for him to comfort me. I wouldn’t have wanted him to, but I shook there at the side of the car, certain this would break me while I watched my mate carry a wounded boy inside. I was stuck out in the parking lot, frozen until Claudia’s hand settled on my back.

It was long, breathless moments before Aspen came out again, his face grim. He’d washed his hands, but Birch’s old shirt was covered in Dante’s blood.

“Lin’s going to do what he can to stitch him up,” he said. “There’s a chance.”

A chance, and it wasn’t enough. The strength went out of me, and I fell forward into Aspen’s open arms, burying my face against his chest as I let myself cry.

Linden and Skye were doing what they could inside, but no one else had gone in.

In time, Zeke showed up in the parking lot with a few other wolves, either waiting for their turn or wanting to check in with the alpha before they finally relaxed.

He was wearing a deep, dark scowl as he peeked through the window of the clinic. “Looks bad, huh?” he said, sharing a significant look with Claudia. She only nodded.

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