Page 53 of The Strongest Wolf

I force a smile as I take a step back. “I’ll stay here.”

“And then?” he doesn’t smile back, and he doesn’t release his hold on me.

It’s like he can feel me already pulling away from him.

Will I join him once he’s resolved whatever problems are wrong in his pack?

I shrug. “We can talk about it then.”

If you still want to talk about it then.

His jaw hardens. “Sierra, I’m—”

A phone vibrates. “Galen?” Luka calls.

Galen growls in frustration. “For fuck’s sake.”

Since it doesn’t look like Dom is going to stop calling anytime soon, when Galen stalks over to answer the door, I follow.

He swings it open and takes the phone Luka holds out to him.

My gaze goes to Eden standing beside him. “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be celebrating your moon-blessing?” I ask, trying out a smile. “You know, going at it like rabbits.”

But she doesn’t respond to my attempt at humor, just slings her arm around my shoulder, and leads the way toward the house. “I had a feeling you needed me more. Come on, we can watch reality TV back at the packhouse.”

I touch my still damp hair. “But my hair…”

“You can borrow a towel at the house,” she says, not slowing one bit.

I glance over my shoulder, ready to complain some more. Until my eyes lock with Galen, who still hasn’t answered the vibrating phone, since he’s too busy studying me. “Answer the phone. I’ll be with Eden.”

And then I walk away before he can find a reason for me to stay.

12

GALEN

My eyes track Sierra until she steps past a tree and I lose sight of her. Luka claps me on the arm, distracting me, and after giving me an apologetic look, he waves before he leaves.

I raise the vibrating phone to my ear. “Dom.”

“What happened last night? Did Sierra—”

“That can wait.” Going inside the cabin doesn’t appeal to me the least, not with Sierra’s scent in the space and no Sierra in it. I lean against the side of the cabin and gaze in the direction she took. “What’s going on?”

Dom has always said that his years in the Marines taught him the value of keeping his mouth shut until he had something to say. Years after his honorable discharge, that hasn’t changed. That and he keeps his hair short. Easier to manage that way, he tells me when I ask him why he has one of the girls shave his hair every month.

He doesn’t rush into things, and he doesn’t let my snarling and growling—no matter how much of it there is—push him to act recklessly.

It’s one of many reasons I trust him implicitly. So I wait for him to figure out what he wants to tell me and deliver it in a way that usually results in little to no snarling on my end.

“The strangers have decided to set up shop.”

“And by that, you mean…?” I know what he means. What I want to know is what he’s done about it, and why these strangers aren’t as easy to push off as the others who have outstayed their welcome.

“They approached some of the women.”

I straighten from my lean, and my eyes narrow. “They did what?”

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