Page 88 of The Weakest Wolf

Again, she does what I ask without a word. It’s typical behavior for a submissive shifter, but Sierra is no typical submissive.

I kneel beside the bath. Once I’ve squeezed body wash onto the cloth, I reach for her arm. “It was one of the first things I learned how to make,” I tell her, as I keep my eyes on the arm I soap, checking every inch of her skin for any bruises I missed, and any hurt I need to avoid.

“When?” I can tell she doesn’t care. She asks because she knows I expect it, but if I were to raise my head, I’d find her gaze distant.

She isn’t thinking of the cage, or of Bowen, that much I know. If she were, her body would be shaking.

“After I left,” I pause. “No, after I ran. I was nineteen, and I’d never even microwaved a meal before, so I had to learn everything.”

“I’m guessing an alpha like you had the women to do all of that for you.” Her voice is hard now, but at least she’s listening. At least the fight is back in her voice.

I release a silent breath of relief as finished with one arm, I reach for the other. “You’re right. The Ashes didn’t give women a voice. They had their jobs, and it didn’t involve making any pack decisions.” My voice is bitter with memory. I stop washing Sierra’s arm and think of everything I left behind. “Melody was quiet, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t smart. Eden, too. If you’d heard some of the things my father’s enforcers said, you’d have wondered if they had a brain between them.”

“But not you? I’ll bet you were the smartest guy in the pack.”

I continue washing her arm, avoiding a dark bruise near her elbow. “No, that title belonged to my mother.”

I can feel her surprise. “Your mother?”

She’s fully with me now. That’s good. I have to talk to her about what needs to happen next, and I need her to listen.

I release her arm back into the soapy water and move down so I can reach for her right leg, the one closest to me. “My father mated with her because my grandfather wanted to join the two packs together. Make each one stronger.”

“It doesn’t sound like she had a say in it,” Sierra says, sounding angry on my mother’s behalf.

I lift my head. “No, neither of them had a choice. She was miserable, but she made up her mind to be practical about it.”

Sierra raises her eyebrow. “And how did she do that?”

“She decided that if this was going to be her new life, her new pack, then it would be the best, the strongest around. She would show her father up by making her new pack better than his.”

“Strange way to get revenge.”

I’m not surprised that Sierra would see right to the heart of what my mom intended. It took me far longer to see it, much less to understand why she was so determined that we all—every last one of us—never put a foot wrong. “It was the only way she could fight back against him, and it worked.”

“How?”

“It didn’t take long for the pack to expand, and for all of my mom and dad’s newly built reputation to spread. The women were always beautiful and well-dressed. The men were the best fighters around.”

She frowns. “I never heard of your pack.”

“You’re pretty remote, but Jared had. Enough that he went looking for a mate there.”

When her expression shutters, I realize I’ve ventured far too close to something she doesn’t want to talk about, much less think about. So, I lower my head and concentrate on scrubbing first one leg and then the other.

“You probably want to know how my father broke me and Melody apart,” I say. It’s the last thing I want to talk about, but if anyone needs to hear it—it’s Sierra.

She doesn’t respond.

I act as if she has.

“We’d always known that we were fated mates. The moment we took one look at each other, we knew it. So naturally, everyone believed when we were older, I’d bite her and we would become full mates. Bitten mates.”

After a pause, Sierra clears her throat. “Why didn’t you?”

“We should have. I was nineteen then, but she’d only turned sixteen. She was too young. I knew my father and mother were busy hunting out the best packs so they could continue building allies and making the pack stronger. My mating Melody didn’t enter into their plans. So I went to them to tell them to stop. That I would refuse to become mates with anyone but her.”

“But they said no,” she murmurs.

---