Page 36 of The Weakest Wolf

“I’m still alive.”

“I got that.” Dom’s voice is dry. “Though I’d prefer it if you were here, or I was there, since things don’t sound like they’re going well.”

“Dom—"

“It’s not safe,” he uncharacteristically interrupts me. “You’re alone, which means it’s only a matter of time before someone attacks you.”

“They have already. They’re dead. What did you want?”

Although he’s silent, that doesn’t mean he agrees with what I’m doing. And he’s not wrong. It isn’t safe for me to be here alone in a pack I know killed my mate. But that’s the voice of reason talking and right now, it takes a back seat to revenge.

“I wanted your opinion on Rose. I think she—"

“Spends more money on shoes than anyone in the world. The pack would be bankrupt in a month. Pick someone else.” I hang up before returning my phone to the bedside table.

At nearly ten, it’s still far too early to go to bed. Dom and I would stay up until two or three in the morning, talking through pack finances and discipline issues that cropped up during the day. Years later, sleeping before midnight feels unnatural.

But I can go to sleep now or I can go out there and slaughter the Stone pack. If I stay up I know what will happen.

I choose the bed. This time.

It’s just as hard and uncomfortable as it was the night before, but it’s a bed, which is more than I had after I left my family’s pack. Back then I’d have killed for a bed, never mind whether it was lumpy, hard, flea-infested, or all of the above. It would’ve been better than the abandoned warehouses I called home.

As I stare up at the ceiling, my thoughts turn to Eden.

Dad wouldn’t have even listened before he sent her back. An Ashe keeps their word, even if it kills them to do it. Well, it did. Just not Eden.

Mom’s focus would be on the damage it would do to the pack’s reputation if anyone else found out, so Eden wouldn’t have gotten any help from that quarter.

But Melody…

Melody wouldn’t go against an order handed down from the alpha, so she’d have helped the only way she knew how to.

You must’ve known what you were walking into and you still came here.

I close my eyes, and Melody’s soft blue eyes and her sweet smile fill my mind. This pack didn’t deserve her, and neither did I.

“Your father will want you to mate with someone else,” she murmurs as we sit with our backs against our usual tree, far enough away from the others that no one will hear us.

I turn to grin at her. “We’re fated to be together, Mel. He won’t stop that.”

She shakes her head. “But you’re going to be alpha.”

“Which means he has even less reason to say no.” I slip my arm around her shoulder and draw her softness against me. “He knows I can banish him when I take over, so he won’t want to piss me off.”

“But he’s alpha now, and you’re still only nineteen, so—” her words end in a giggle as I roll until I have her beneath me.

Gazing down at her, I smooth my fingers over her soft blonde hair. “What do you mean, only?”

She wraps her arms around my hips. “I mean, he still has plenty of time to be alpha, so he could say no.”

My smile falls away. “He couldn’t say no if I bit you now. If we became bitten mates, he couldn’t do anything then.”

Her brow creases in a rare frown. “That’s not a good idea.”

“I thought you wanted this.”

“I do. But—"

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