Page 33 of The Strongest Wolf

She quits wiggling her eyebrow, only to sniff delicately. “Youdorealize I can smell what you two were up to, right?”

Shit.

I look away. “He took me to have breakfast in the forest where we could see the Rockies. It was very romantic.”

“It’s strange to think of him being like that,” she murmurs, dropping the teasing note in her voice.

Turning, I discover her gazing into the forest, a faint frown creasing her brow. “What was he like with Melody?” I ask.

Maybe if I wasn’t so afraid of what he might reveal about their relationship, I’d ask him that. He told me in a highway motel room that he never had to try with Melody. They just… were. Easy. Our relationship, right from the start, has never been easy. How can he not compare us?

“Different,” Eden says, her voice soft. “They were different. Here.”

I take the bottle of water she grabbed for us earlier. “Different how?”

Eden studies me for several seconds without speaking. “He’s more intense with you. With Melody, he was more playful.” She cocks her head. “Are you sure it doesn’t bother you, talking about them being together?”

Yes, it does.

Instead of answering, I stretch my legs out so the midday sun can warm my bare legs. “Are you sure it doesn’t bother you that I’m with your brother? I mean, you and Melody were best friends. You must—”

Eden drapes her arm around my shoulder and tugs me so we’re resting our heads together. “I don’t have a problem with you two being together. You deserve to find happiness—especially after everything you did for me—and Galen does, too.” She sighs. “It’s not easy to admit that.”

“About me or Galen?” I ask.

“Galen. I spent years hating him for betraying Melody and then walking away instead of staying to make things right. It isn’t easy to accept that I got the situation wrong. That I gothimwrong.”

I can’t imagine how any parent could do what they did to Galen and Melody. “What were your parents even thinking? Did they honestly believe Galen would just forget all about his fated mate and hook up with whichever girl they picked out for him?”

Eden snorts. “That’s the thing. They weren’t thinking, because if they were, they’d have known Galen would never accept it. He was definitely more easygoing when we were younger, but he was still an alpha. When he made up his mind to do something, there was no changing it.”

Her words provoke a spike of alarm to shoot through me.

Has Galen made up his mind to make me Luna? And what will he do when he realizes it’s not what I want?

As if Eden senses my rising anxiety, she pulls a little away from me. “Sierra? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I just can’t believe how much has changed. You still haven’t told me everything that happened to you when you left Dexter.”

“It’s a long story, Sierra, and honestly, I’d rather not think about it.” The dark shadows in her eyes warn it was bad, and that those memories still haunt her.

I study her. “But you’re so different now. In Dexter…” My voice trails off.

She smiles, but there’s no amusement in it. “I would walk around with my head down, trying to pretend I was invisible while you did everything you could to help me escape. What a miserable place.”

I squeeze her against me. “But we got away, and it’s over now.”

She barks out a laugh. “And all it took was a few Molotov cocktails to end the Stone pack. We should have done it together.”

I grin at her. “Yeah, why didn’t we?”

Her laughter fades. “Because they would have killed us, just like they killed Melody.”

My anger returns—not just at the Stone pack, but toward Eden and Galen’s parents. They sent Eden back after I helped her escape from Jared, her abusive mate. Because they did, Melody followed to stay with her friend. If she hadn’t, she would still be alive.

And she would still be with Galen.

Before I can lose myself in thoughts about events none of us have the power to change, I focus on something else. Something more important. “Anyway, enough about the past. You must be counting down the minutes until your moon-blessing.”

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