Page 71 of The Weakest Wolf

His smile doesn’t fade. “Sick bastard, huh? How about we explore that in a little more detail? We have the time.”

A strange numbness invades my body.

Bowen is going to torture me, maybe rape me, and certainly kill me when he’s had his fun. I know all of those things, but all I feel is numb. Like this is happening to someone else and not me.

Maybe the panic and the desperation will come later, but right now, it feels like I was always going to lose.

Guys like Bowen and Galen always win.

I will always be submissive, and submissive wolves always lose.

Maybe it’s about time I accepted that.

16

GALEN

My eyes settle on the man behind the counter.

Although most of his face is hidden behind a magazine with a half-naked woman stretched over a hot red sports car, what little I see tells me that this isn’t the same man I spoke with before.

I push the door open the rest of the way and a bell rings across the gas station shop. When the magazine dips, I glimpse a younger, scruffier version of the man I was expecting to find.

Must be the son.

“Hi,” I say, “I was hoping to speak to your… dad?”

“My dad?” His brown eyes narrow in suspicion.

“The guy who works here? I was in here a few days ago asking about Eden…”

The suspicion melts away. “Oh, yeah, he said some guy was asking about a girl. He only works days, so you’ll have to come back tomorrow morning to speak to him.”

Fuck. That means staying another night in this place.

Dexter, a town so small that you could blink and miss it, might only be an hour away from the Stone pack, but it’s still far closer than I ever want to be to Sierra Stone.

“I’ll do that,” I say, as I turn to leave.

“But if it’s the girl you want to know about, I know more than he does.”

I pause. “How so?”

After he tucks his magazine beside him, he focuses his full attention on me. “Because my dad saw them walk past, but I saw where they ended up.”

I release the door and cross over to him. “He told me that one of the women was dragging the other one. That they were arguing.”

He shrugs. “Well, he must’ve been wrong, ‘cause from what I saw, there was no arguing or dragging. They were just talking.”

“What do you mean, you saw where they ended up?”

His eyes narrow. “Why do you want to know, anyway? You’re not from around here.”

I shake my head. “No. I’m looking for one of the women—Eden, the one your dad said had a bag with her. She’s my sister.”

“Oh?”

“That’s the only reason I’m here. Just to find my sister and take her home.”

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