Page 83 of The Weakest Wolf

I’m not in the cage anymore.

I don’t know how long it takes for the knowledge to seep into my head and my heart. It could be minutes, hours, days, or weeks.

But it’s not enough to make me open my eyes.

Since I had my first shift at sixteen, my wolf is closer to me than she ever has been before. The feel of her, and the sense I’m not alone brings me more comfort, more peace than anything else I’ve felt in my life.

I drift back to sleep.

More time passes. Enough that I think it must be a new day.

The air feels cooler on my skin. A blanket, soft, not the scratchy one from my cabin, covers me up to my neck, and someone is talking.

The same someone who I think has been talking all this time, but it didn’t feel real to me before. Now it does.

My wolf is gone.

I frown. No, that isn’t right. She’s not gone. I am.

That’s when I realize she wasn’t with me before.Iwas withher, buried so deep inside me, in that place where she must live—where she must hide.

Have I been hiding all this time?

“I was wrong,” the voice says, drawing my attention outward, “about all of it. About you. This is my fault.”

Yes. It is,I want to scream—because now I know who the voice is, and I know where I am.

But I don’t say any of that. I lie still, with my eyes closed, in a place where I hope the rest of the world can’t touch me. All it ever does is hurt me.

“Sierra… little wolf, open your eyes.”

I pretend I’m made of stone. Nothing can touch me. Nothing can hurt me if I don’t move, if I keep my eyes closed.

More time passes.

Again, I don’t know how much. I just know it does.

At first, I think it was the voice that woke me, but then I know what it is. Blood. It’s the scent of blood.

It tickles my nose and makes me want to sneeze but that would let him know I’m a living thing and not a stone, so I keep still. I don’t move.

A hand smooths down my hair, a gentler touch than I’d expect from a man like Galen Hunt.

Of course, he’s being gentle now. The guilt is probably eating him alive.

“Little wolf, I need you to open your eyes. I need to know you’re well enough for me to move you. It isn’t… it isn’t safe to keep you here.”

Suddenly the scent of blood makes sense. Galen must be fighting the pack, or the pack is fighting him.

It should interest me. I should care about what happens.

But I don’t. Not about any of it.

“Little wolf?” His lips touch my brow.

I open my eyes.

He freezes above me as if he hadn’t expected me to be awake. After a moment, he lifts his head again, though his hand doesn’t move from my hair. “How are you feeling?”

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