Escaping the Arrogant Dark Moon Alpha novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: February

I wrote the letter on the seventeenth of February, at Ginny's kitchen table, in pencil first.

Then I wrote it again in pen, three times, once for each elder.

Their names and addresses were printed on the summons, under their seals.

I didn't write about Roman, or the bond, or the back stairs.

I wrote about the snow.

"Honored Elders," I wrote. "Alpha Quaid will open the Crown at Dark Moon Mountain for the families of the Moot on the morning of the March dark moon. The weak layer that killed two men there last April has formed again, deeper. I have seen it with my own eyes. Please forbid the opening."

Tobin copied his pit profile onto three sheets of graph paper, every layer drawn and labeled in his neat small hand.

We clipped one to each letter.

"They won't believe a groomer," I said.

"They'll believe the snow," Tobin said. "Eventually. Everyone does."

Ginny walked the envelopes to the post office herself.

At nine that night the moon didn't rise, and the bond went quiet.

We went over the pass on two old snowmobiles that belonged to a pair of strays at the mill.

Tobin drove one, and I drove the other.

We didn't go near the lodge this time.

The cook had passed the word along the kitchen.

Two more wanted out, a waitress from the lodge dining room and a snowmaker who'd worked nights for twelve years.

They'd climb to the cairn on their own, on snowshoes, on the one night nobody could order them to stay.

We waited for them on the Idaho side of the stones with our engines off.

The stars were thick over the ridge.

At eleven-ten two headlamps came bobbing up the Montana side.

The waitress reached the cairn first, gasping.

She put her hand on the black stones and burst into tears.

The snowmaker came up behind her, slower, carrying both their packs.

When he stepped across the line, he stopped dead and touched the back of his neck.

"What was that?" he whispered.

"That was you leaving," Tobin said.

The snowmaker laughed, a cracked sound, and then he sat down hard in the snow and laughed until he cried.

We drove them down to Larch Creek riding double.

Ginny had soup on and beds made upstairs, and a bottle open on the bar.

She took one look at the two of them and folded the waitress into a hug.

By one in the morning the new strays were asleep.

Ginny went up to bed with a wave over her shoulder.

"Lock the front," she said. "And don't use all the hot water."

That left Tobin and me alone in the dark bar, with the neon off and one lamp on over the register.

He was leaning on the bar, still in his snowmobile jacket.

His hair was flattened from the helmet.

His cheeks were red from the cold.

I'd never wanted anyone so much in my life.

"It's quiet," I said.

"It's late."

"I mean the bond." I put my hand on my ribs. "It's off. All night. There's nothing in my head but me."

He looked at me for a long time.

Then he pushed off the bar and came around it.

He stopped in front of me, close enough that I had to tip my head back.

"Marlow," he said. "If I take you upstairs, it's not because he can't feel it tonight. I don't care what he feels."

"I know."

"I want you every night. Dark moon or not."

My throat went tight.

"Then take me upstairs," I said.

He took my hand.

We climbed the narrow back stairs of the Tamarack together, past the new strays' doors, to his room at the end of the hall.

At the door he stopped and turned around.

"I want you," he said.

I laughed out loud.

I grabbed the front of his jacket and pulled him down to me.

"Then have me," I said against his mouth. "That's what I'm telling you. Yes."

I pulled him through the door by the front of his jacket and kicked it shut behind us.

The room was small.

One lamp on the nightstand, the old iron bed against the wall, snow ticking against the window.

I didn't give myself time to look around.

I shoved the jacket off his shoulders and let it drop.

He was already reaching for me, but I caught his wrists.

My hands closed right over the silver burns.

I felt him go still.

"Let me," I said.

He let his arms drop.

I worked the buttons of his flannel shirt open, one at a time, watching my own hands shake.

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