Page 10 of Strawberry Moon

Iwas still growling, trapped in the clinic bed, when Linden’s hand came down on my shoulder. Hard.

Didn’t matter. Didn’t stop the wolf pacing inside me, fangs bared and ready to fight. It sensed nothing but threat in the form of Archer Sterling. All because of that name—Sterling, the monster from my nightmares. A specter waiting to take everything I had left.

Moments before, the wolf had recognized an omega. Sweet. Someone to protect. Then it’d hit me, who he was, and I’d lost all sense.

Linden’s fingers dug into the meat of my shoulder. He grabbed my chin and jerked my head around until I had no choice but to stare right up at him, the growl still vibrating in my throat.

“Ford, enough,” he snapped. And that short, angry command from my alpha had me swallowing the snarl down, panting, chagrinned and angry and...

And sad.

That last bit, I didn’t know how to handle or where, exactly, it’d come from. It was like a wave, crashing over me, rushing into my nose and mouth until that was all there was left. Sadness.

“Archer isn’t a threat to the pack,” Linden continued, voice stern. “I asked him here. He’s my guest, under my protection, and he’s helping us.”

With each sharp breath, I tried to drag those assurances deep into my chest. My wolf only whined.

There was a threat, and a wound. That hurt was in us. It was all around.

It was all we were anymore. Hurt and longing and sadness.

My eyes began to sting. I shut them quick, gasped another breath, and Linden gently pressed me back into the pillow.

“It’s okay, Ford,” he whispered, his fingers a gentle brush against my neck, even when he eased his grip on my shoulder.

But he didn’t know. He didn’t understand, and I hoped he never did. I hoped Colt Doherty stayed glued to his side, plucky and smiling and kind and so, so bold, for the rest of Linden’s life. I hoped he never learned what it was to lose a mate.

There were no words for that. I kept my eyes closed, breathing in deep and forcing down the overwhelm that threatened to drag me under.

Archer’s soft peach scent still lingered in the air, sweet torment in every breath.

Linden stayed beside me, as good a pack alpha as the Groves had ever had. He kept his hand on me, kept offering the assurances of pack, even when he claimed I was acting against our interests.

Finally, I took a long, slow breath and blinked my stinging eyes open.

“Better?” he asked gently, only concern on his serious features. Not even a hint of annoyance at having to put me in my place.

“Better.”

He nodded. “You need to rest. And I have to get to the pack meeting. Can you hold it together while I take the others out?”

The others—Skye and Dante and Sterling—scrambling past me, the mad alpha.

I sighed. “I’ll manage.”

Still, I could tell Linden kept himself between the others and me, even after he pulled the curtains shut around my bed. He ushered them out in a quiet voice, their steps quick, like I was the only monster left in the clinic. Like there was nothing to fear from Sterling.

When they left, the clinic was quiet, only the buzz of the HVAC turning on in the late-spring heat to break the silence. My wolf howled, alone.

8

Archer

They practically snuck me out of the clinic, past the closed curtains around Ford’s bed, and away to Grove House before I could even gather my wits and suggest I go home.

Not that I wanted to go home, back to my grandfather’s enormous empty house in Alexandria.

It was beautiful, but it would never bemyhome.

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