Page 28 of The Weakest Wolf

Fear melds with anger until I don’t know which emotion is strongest. Fear that he’ll catch me in a lie, and anger because I’m standing in a coffee-stained t-shirt while he’s forcing me to relive something he knows would embarrass anyone.

“You’re not speaking,” he says.

I lift my chin. “We went to have sex.”

I hadn’t believed his eyes could get any colder, but they do. Hatred. That’s what I’m looking at. “Why not in a cabin?”

Why is he doing this to me? Why does he even care?

“I didn’t want anyone to hear us.”

He smiles, but his eyes don’t get any warmer. “Because you’re a good girl who doesn’t want anyone to know what she gets up to at night?”

I force myself to meet his eyes as I lie. “Yes.”

He stares at me for a long time without speaking.

I was wrong. That wasn’t hatred in his eyes before. This is.

An eternity later, he turns from me in disgust. “Get out of my sight.”

As I make my escape, I can’t help but wonder why he has such a problem with me sleeping with Leo.

* * *

For the first time since I was sixteen, my wolf doesn’t respond when I call her.

With the rest of the pack finishing up their shift, I stand facing the cabins, several feet of space between us.

I’ve stripped out of my clothes, though for the last ten minutes all I’ve done is stare at the back of my eyelids as I get colder and colder.

We have to do this. Please listen to me.

Silence.

I know you’re afraid. I am too, but this is the only way we can get revenge. We have to shift.

Nothing. Not even a flicker of the fear and dread that’s been bleeding from her to me all day. It’s like she’s not even there.

“You’re holding up the pack run, Sierra Stone,” Galen calls out from behind me.

I grit my teeth. Why he’s determined to call me that every single time, I have no idea.

Ignoring him, I focus on my wolf.

Please. If we don’t shift, things will get worse.

A wave of helplessness sweeps over me because I don’t know what Galen will do if I don’t shift. I know what the rest of the pack will do, but right now, Galen is the bigger threat. I can’t kill Bowen if I’m dead.

All day, I’ve felt the pack’s eyes on me. When I opened the farmhouse door to return to my cabin after breakfast, they were there. Watching me. Waiting for me to step out. And I… I just couldn’t do it.

So I didn’t leave the farmhouse.

I hid.

Not that I called it hiding. I told myself that it was my job to scrub the farmhouse floors, cook, clean, and do all those other things that would mean I didn’t have to face the pack.

When I’d pass a window, I’d catch them staring at me. Or I’d hear them laughing and know they were planning all the ways they could make the pack run as painful as possible for me.

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