Page 87 of The Weakest Wolf

“You’ve had no reason to think of alphas as anything other than predatory pricks. Some are. I won’t argue against that, but some are not.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Then it’s normal for an alpha to make a submissive chicken soup because they felt guilty?”

No.

Galen dips the spoon in the bowl and lifts it to my mouth. “Open.”

After a long moment, and another searching gaze, I do.

He feeds me one spoonful of soup at a time in silence. Before the bowl is empty, my ribs start hurting again, and he moves the tray to one side without me having to say a word. He just seems to know.

“Sleep,” he says, as he lays me down and draws the sheets over me. “Sleep and heal.”

As my eyelids close, he doesn’t move away. “And then?”

He kisses my hair. “And then I try to make things right.”

Half-asleep, I shake my head. “You can’t.”

“I know,” he murmurs, as sleep slowly envelops me, “but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t try.”

20

GALEN

“This won’t change anything,” Sierra says, with her eyes still closed. “The homemade soup, the hair wash, the refusing to leave. None of it will change the fact I still hate you.”

I pause with my hands in her hair. “I know.”

“So you can stop anytime.”

“How did you know the soup was homemade?” I ask.

Her long pause tells me my question was not the response she expected.

In the silence that falls, I continue washing her hair as I run my eyes over the parts of her that the bubbles don’t obscure.

It’s taken four days for the worst of the bruises to fade, for her body to heal. But not all. And her mind? The nightmares she wakes screaming from, that she never seems to remember in the morning, haven’t lessened in the slightest.

“I know what a can of soup looks like,” she eventually says.

Finished with the shampoo, I grab the shower head I left dangling beside me. “Tilt your head back.”

After a long pause, she does.

I’d like to think it’s because she finally trusts that I only want to help her, but I know it’s because I’ve worn her down, and she’s tired.

I nag at her until she agrees to sit up so she can eat, or so I can pick her up and bring her to the bathroom, brush her teeth, and help her drink water.

Just like yesterday evening when I brought her in here so she could soak in the bath, she stares right through me.

“Really?” I ask, keeping my tone light. “I didn’t find any canned soup in the kitchen.”

She blinks, and then she’s back with me again. “The old alphas wouldn’t have settled for anything less than homemade.”

As she talks, I finish rinsing the shampoo from her hair before turning the shower head off. I leave it dangling beside me and reach for a washcloth. “I’m done. You can sit up.”

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