Page 32 of The Weakest Wolf

I take a step into the bathroom. The wolf doesn’t turn, doesn’t react at all to my presence. All she does is whimper in pain as more skin replaces fur.

Her body trembles hard, but that isn’t what has me halting before I can follow her into the shower cubicle.

It’s the fact that she’s shifting faster than a submissive should be able to. Which means she’s forcing it. Which means she has to be in agony, yet her fear still clings to her like a second skin, burying her scent.

You’re lucky, Dom told me when I asked if he’d ever done it.Imagine someone skinning you, then setting your raw body on fire.

So that’s what it’s like, then?I asked him.

He stared at me for a long time, and I knew he was thinking about it.No, then multiply it by a hundred. Add in breaking each bone, one by one, as you burn. That comes close.

I have never in my life been as relieved to be an alpha as I did at that moment.

At least that’s what I thought, until I heard Sierra cry out.

Life or death. That’s the only reason I’d ever put myself through agony like that.

Yet Sierra is doing it. She’s paying the price of a fast shift to avoid a pack run.

Why?

Since there’s nothing I can do but wait, I watch it happen, willing it to be over soon.

A submissive’s shift can take anything from ten to twenty minutes. Sierra’s takes three minutes and twenty seconds.

When she’s done, she lies on her side in a too-small shower cubicle, panting with effort as the muscles beneath her skin spasm.

I back out of the bathroom, shifting as I go. With no clothes on the rail, no towel I can see, and no dresser, I drag a thin blue sheet off the bed.

Where the fuck are the rest of her clothes?

The women in my pack wear something different every fucking day. At least that’s what it seems like. Sierra is either in the too-thin pink t-shirt that looks like it’s been through too many washes, or a gray one that must’ve been white in its former life.

I’m turning back to the bathroom when the shower starts up.

A shower? Now?

I return to find her sitting with her back flush against the wall. Her heavy panting tells me how much it cost her to get up to turn the faucet on. Water clings to her lashes as she studies me, her face completely blank.

Without a word, I stalk over and wrench the dial off. When I realize just how cold the water is, my anger builds. “You couldn’t wait two seconds to let it warm up first?”

She doesn’t respond.

I shove the sheet at her. “Here.”

When she doesn’t move to take it, I growl in frustration. Nothing I say is ever enough to convince Sierra Stone, the most stubborn woman in the world, to do what I want.

After a long, drawn-out moment, she takes the sheet and wraps it around herself. Her stare tells me that she’s only doing it because she wants to, and not because I scared her.

Backing up, I lean against the wall before crossing my arms over my chest.

Her gaze doesn’t stray from my face. That she’s so determined to ignore me—ignore this attraction between us—makes me want to shove it in her face. When I’m touching her, she can’t hide it, and she can’t pretend it’s not there.

“Your wolf is submissive,” I say.

She shrugs. “So?”

My eyes narrow. “But you—right now, you meet my eyes, you flounce about as if you were anything but a submissive wolf. How is that possible?”

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