Page 3 of Strawberry Moon

Like all those innocent werewolves didn’t even deserve acknowledgement, and the faster we could gloss over it, the better.

My parents died in a plane crash when I was ten, and I was raised by my grandfather, the raging racist. But on my worst day, I’d been a rich spoiled brat who thought his grandfather’s multinational corporation would do no wrong. I’d never imagined that my grandfather’s virulent hatred for all things wolf had led him down such a dark path, until the Grove pack showed me their research. And then, you know, my grandfather shot me in the chest because I wouldn’t let him kill Skye.

“Feel better?” my lawyer asked, patting me on the shoulder. “It’s all done. You’re now the richest man in Virginia.”

All I could offer was a tight smile. I didn’t feel better. Not even remotely. I could agree with one of his points though: “It’s good to have it finished.”

“You should take a vacation,” he suggested. “I know the board has a lot to deal with, but that can be another day. You’ve earned some time to yourself.”

Earned.

I gave him another tight smile, thanked him, and turned to head for my car. No doubt he’d spend the afternoon talking about the sad little Sterling heir, with so much on his shoulders, the loss of his grandfather, and trying to clean up the mess the old man had left me.

He didn’t understand at all.

I’d neverearneda damn thing in my life. Yes, I had multiple college degrees, in chemistry and business, trying to follow in my so-great grandfather’s footsteps and change the world. It was all I could do not to laugh until I cried at the very thought of it, now.

Following in the footsteps of a mass murderer.

The money it took to pay for those degrees should have paid for someone else to have them. Someone who hadn’t been idolizing a monster.

I slid into the driver’s seat of my ridiculously expensive car and just sat there for a long time.

Archer Sterling, multi-billionaire.

Once, I’d have been proud of that. As though my family’s legacy meant something other than death and destruction. We’d been working to feed hungry people the world over, making sure cities had fewer food deserts, and putting fresh fruits and vegetables in the hands of people who had rarely gotten them before. We had done good.

For humans.

While murdering wolves.

When my phone rang, I answered it automatically. “Archer Sterling.”

Even my own name stuck in my throat, these days.

“Hey, Archer,” the smooth, low voice of Dante Johnson hit me like a balm to my soul. “Sorry if you’re still busy, but you said you’d come by this afternoon, and, um...”

He trailed off with something like embarrassment, and I glanced down at the console clock in the car. One minute after noon.

I had to hold back a chuckle—the first amusement I’d felt all day—before answering him. First, I glanced over to the passenger side of the car to make sure I’d brought it.

Of course I had.

The likelihood of me leaving my work behind was practically nil. I’d been hesitant to leave it in my car to go into the courthouse and meet with my lawyer, but bringing coolers with chemical samples into a courthouse wasn’t likely to be taken well.

I’d spent almost every free moment since December in the lab, trying to find an answer. Something, anything, to start to mitigate the horrors my grandfather had wrought.

I could never bring a million people back from the dead, but I could try to keep those deaths from hurting any more werewolves in the future.

I reached out and patted the cooler. “Yeah. I just finished up in the courthouse, so I can come out now. It’ll be about an hour.”

I could almost hear him hopping on the other end of the line as he answered, and we got off the phone.

Oh, to be twentyish and excited about the world again. I was going to be thirty in a few weeks, and felt about a hundred.

The drive to Grovetown wasn’t long, and I sped most of the way there, but it was relaxing. It felt like escaping.

And odd as it was, driving down the county highway into the town was the most relaxing thing of all. I should have hated going into Grove pack territory. They were not only werewolves, but the werewolves who had discovered my grandfather’s monstrous secret. They probably hated me, and I spent most of my visits hiding out in the Grovetown clinic with Skye, the next best thing I had to a father and ten years my junior. And Dante, his boyfriend, now husband, whom I’d come to think of as my science buddy—the first I’d ever had, outside college.

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