Page 23 of The Strongest Wolf

So, I continue at a near-run through the forest. I’m not even halfway back to our cabin when a familiar body is suddenly pinning me against the nearest tree, hands gripping my hips. “Hey, where are you going?”

Shit, I knew I should have run.

“Just to the cabin. I spilled something on my—”

Galen doesn’t let me finish my lie. He turns me before stepping into me as if he suspects I’ll make a break for freedom. Clearly, he knows me far too well.

I look away, but his fingers grip my chin and turn my face right back to his.

The silence extends as he gazes down at me.

Tension stiffens my spine as I wait, braced for him to refuse to let me go until I tell him what’s wrong, but he releases my chin and instead grabs my hand. “Come on, I’m taking you out for breakfast.”

I blink up at him in surprise. “What?”

“Breakfast,” he says, leading the way back through the forest and toward the packhouse.

Too confused to argue, I let him pull me along. “But there’s breakfast at the house.”

He glances down at me, his expression impossible to read. “That’s true. But if we had breakfast there, it wouldn’t be just the two of us.”

I raise an eyebrow in suspicion. Is this some kind of trick to get me talking?

“That sounds an awful lot like a date, Galen Hunt,” I say, watching him closely for any suspicious behavior.

“Does it?” he asks as if we go on dates all the time.

“Yes. It does.” When I stumble over a root because I have my eyes on him instead of looking where I’m going, I start paying more attention to where I’m putting my feet, especially when I catch his lip twitching in response to my near fall.

As we emerge from the forest, Eden is standing at the bottom of the porch, her eyes creased in concern. “Sierra, are you okay? Do you—”

“I’m okay,” I interrupt.

She doesn’t look convinced. But concern morphs into confusion when Galen steers us toward the part of the clearing where the pack parks their vehicles. “Where are you going?”

“Galen is taking me out for breakfast,” I tell her.

“Breakfast?” she echoes as if she heard me wrong.

“Yep. Just the two of us.”

“Oh.” Her voice is so faint that I barely hear her, the level of her surprise making me wonder what Galen was like with Melody. “Right.”

“That sounds like a date,” Luka says, stepping up behind Eden and wrapping his arm around her waist. His expression is neutral, but there’s a smile in his eyes.

Galen doesn’t slow or even stop. “That’s because it is.”

I jerk my gaze to him as we near his truck. “Why are we going on a date?”

He pulls open the passenger door before lowering his head to mine. “Because.”

And then he kisses me.

But I’m still too confused to respond to his soft kiss. “I don’t understand,” I say when he pulls away.

“Neither do I,” Eden calls out.

A smile flares in his eyes. “What’s so confusing about me wanting to take you out on a date?”

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