Page 68 of Midnight Moon
“Your stubbornness is one of your few flaws,” Stephanie stated as a matter of fact, grinning at the windshield.
I choked on a laugh and turned to look at her. “Oh, yeah? What are the others?”
Her eyes gleamed as she spared me a quick glance. “Hmm. Let’s see… You don’t let anyone close to you. Except me, of course. You rarely let loose and have fun. And you care too much what the backwards asshats in our pack think about you becoming alpha.”
My smile faltered by the time she finished.
Everything she said was true.
I went back to staring out the window.
“Okay.” I muttered, swallowing the knot in my throat. “You can talk to Chase.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
A good leader recognized her flaws and relied on others to make up for them. She didn’t assume she could to everything.
I might not have the stomach to ask the Wilds Pack to throw the games, but I could let Stephanie.
“Consider it done.” Stephanie pulled off the driveway behind our guest cabin and parked in the dormant grass.
“Are you sure?” I asked as she removed the keys from the ignition.
“Positive. You’re my best friend, and I’d do anything to help you—even force myself to talk to a hunky shifter.” She waggled her eyebrows in jest.
I laughed, my spirits lifting like they only did when she was around. “Have I told you I love you?”
“Yes, but it never hurts to hear.” She winked.
We exited the vehicle. Stephanie walked to my side and threw her arm around my shoulders. “How about we binge some Netflix before dinner? I could use more best friend time before you go back to kicking ass in the games.”
I’d spent years preparing for the Alpha Games. Missing one night of preparation would hardly make a difference in tomorrow’s game.
I wrapped my arm around her waist and leaned into her side, feeling lighter than I had since the night of the opening ceremony. “Sure, let’s do it.”
Nineteen
Warmthfrom the wood-burning stove caressed my skin, and whisky in churned my belly. Stephanie and I shared the oversized, cushioned chair in our guest cabin’s living room. Beta Nathan and his wife sat on the couch across from us, while Hunter and my father stood behind them.
Each of us had a glass tumbler in our hands. Hunter raised his in the air for the fourth time that evening and said, “Let’s hear it one more time for our future alpha, who won the third game for us in record time and secured second place for our pack! Victory is so close; I can taste it!”
“There isn’t a riddle in existence that my girl can’t solve,” Stephanie hollered beside me, throwing her arm in the air, nearly spilling her drink on my lap. “Those Badlands shifters had no idea who they were messing with!”
Our parents joined in with a cheer, and everyone sipped their amber liquid. I followed suit, wincing as the liquor’s bitter taste touched my tongue. I wassonot a whisky girl.
Beta Nathan, once again, asked his son for the details of the third game. He claimed he needed to know how the other packs performed to assess our strategy for the fourth game.
How solving riddles would tell him anything about how we should prepare for the next competition was beyond me.
I believed Beta Nathan just liked hearing about our victory.
At the start of the third game, each pack had been isolated from one another and given a series of riddles to solve. It wasn’t the most challenging game when it came to assessing a shifter’s abilities, but I supposed testing our intelligence and problem-solving skills was a notable idea.
As Hunter shared in his toast, we’d completed the challenges in record time. Our win gave us a total of five points in the Alpha Games. Only the Wilds Pack had more.
I swirled the liquid in my glass, tuning out as Hunter and the rest of the room continued to relive the third game.
