Page 23 of The Weakest Wolf

They drag me from the bathroom and out of my cabin. Along the way, I lose my towel. Suddenly I’m airborne.

My breath punches out of me when my back hits the hard ground. I’m gasping for breath when someone drags me to my feet and shoves me.

I have no chance to get my hands out in front of me before I hit something hard enough to bounce me back to the ground.

My head is still ringing when different arms seize me and shove me again, this time in a different direction. Just as I get my hands out in front of me, someone trips me and I fly forward.

This time I know what I hit. A cabin.

No one gives me a chance to get back to my feet. I’m picked up and shoved again.

And again

And again.

The laughter gets louder the more I struggle to free myself from the sheet that does its best to trip me, but I never can.

I know who they are, but they didn’t blind me to hide their identity. That isn’t the point. They want me disoriented and confused. They want panic to make the fear a million times worse.

It works.

It goes on forever. When I get to my feet, I take a step, and then something trips me. A foot? A leg? I never know what.

Falling, I crack the back of my head on the ground, filling my head with a different kind of confusion.

A second later, someone else picks me up, and their game continues.

Just when tears of frustration fill my eyes, an arm wraps around my front and jerks me against a body. A whisper touches my ear. “This is just the beginning.”

The hands shove me harder than the rest and this time I don’t even try to get my hands out in front of me. It doesn’t make a difference either way.

My head smashes against the same cabin I’m sure it’s hit fifty times already, and I slump to the floor. I wait for new arms to pull me to my feet so the pack’s game can start all over again.

A second passes. Then another.

Soon, it feels like a minute, but no one grabs me, and that’s when I realize the laughter has stopped. I’m alone. I must be.

Even though I don’t believe it, not truly, I’m still not brave enough to pull the sheet away in case it triggers the start of a new game.

And as I lie there, still wrapped up in the sheet, my head bleeding, I realize Bowen’s dark whisper was right. This is just the beginning. I know how much worse things can get because I’ve seen it firsthand.

But I can’t leave. I won’t.

With Leo dead, that just leaves Bowen. The last one. The beta to the alpha who wrecked my world.

I take a moment to steady my nerves, and then I tear the sheet off, braced for whatever will come next.

I come face to face with a dark-brown wolf with startling bright green eyes.

6

GALEN

With my eyes locked to Sierra’s gray stare, I shift.

She doesn’t do a damn thing when a crouched naked man takes the place of a large wolf. Just stares.

As blood from a cut near her hairline slides down the side of her face, her ragged breaths even out.

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