Page 55 of Promise of the Wolf Moon

I stood, looked around the cookhouse, and found, besides Jessy and her mate Dain, there were three other males I recognized from the Comfort pack, one female I hadn’t met, and one other large male I didn’t know. As Mom and Jessy gathered what they needed, Dain stepped up and hugged me, his long black hair swinging around to tickle my nose.

“So, you and Seff, huh?” he whispered, and I could imagine he was looking right at Seff when he said it. Probably grinning.

“Yes, me and Seff.”

“He’s a good male.” He stepped back. His reddish-brown eyes flicked to my new mating mark and then over to mysakana. He took Seff’s hand and gave him a hard thump on his back with the other hand. “Take good care of her.”

“You betcha.” Seff nodded, then winked at me. The handshaking and back thumping continued with the other males from the Comfort pack—Brenin, the Comfort Alpha’s son, Denny, and Sky, who then introduced me to hissakana, Luisa, a dark-haired beauty he’d mated from the Albuquerque pack.

The last male to introduce himself was also from the Albuquerque pack.

“Brutus Skoldof. Jules said you needed some help.”

His height matched Brenin’s as well as his noticeable Breeder build, but his hands were gentle as they held mine.

“Thank you so much for coming.”

His lips barely curved into a smile before his face took on a serious look. “Several others from my pack are headed this way. We know what needs to be done.”

“My uncle Ralph and a few others are heading up from Comfort,” Brenin added. “They were making arrangements for a few...” He paused as his storm-gray eyes glanced at the twins. “Well, what I mean to say is, we’re taking care of things.”

“My dad is driving in, too,” Dain said. “He has a few others coming with him.”

Soon, we’d have more wolves in our colony than we’d had in a long time.

The clean-up crew.

They were coming to clear away the evidence of past lives.

I nodded and blinked away tears. It was all I could do as my heart cracked open a little wider along the broken, jagged fissure that hadn’t fully healed.

“Hey, c’mere,” Seff whispered. He pulled me into his chest.

I wrapped my arms around his waist and held on. The next thing I knew, we were standing outside the cookhouse. The night was clear and cold with a wisp of a breeze. Thousands of stars showed brightly in the small patches of black. It certainly wasn’t the last of the snowfall for the night. I could feel the next wave in my bones, smell it in the wind. But the heat of Seff’s broad chest, his big arms around my back, kept me warm and protected.

“How did you scent them?” Seff’s thermal shirt muffled my words. “Seriously, I couldn’t smell anything beyond diesel fumes and pine trees.”

“I got one hell of a nose.”

“Lucky.”

“Yeah, well, most of the time it’s a gift. Sometimes, not so much.”

I lifted my face to gaze at him. His eyes fell to my mating mark.

“I shoulda asked first.” He leaned in and kissed where his teeth had been.

“I wouldn’t have said no.”

I felt his mouth curve against my skin.

“Still,sakanaor not, I shouldn’t take things for granted.”

His guilt crawled across my skin like skittering bugs. I didn’t like it.

“I wanted everyone to know we’re together. They needed to know we’re a team, together, fightin’ to keep those two sweet females.”

“Hey, champ, look at me.” I pulled away to see his face. “Thank you. And so you know, if I don’t want something, or I’m unsure about something, you’ll know. You’ll feel it through our bond. And if your nose is that good, you’ll probably scent it.”

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