Page 9 of The Strongest Wolf

If Sierra is capable of becoming something else, I’ve never heard even a whisper of what that something could be. And from her increasing reluctance to leave Hardin, or even to shift, she doesn’t know what that something else is, either.

He shrugs. “I can’t say, but I’m curious to see how being Luna shapes her.”

“You don’t think she can lead.” My words emerge as more of a snarl than I’d intended. “She’s the strongest wolf I know. Shecanlead.”

“No need for the snarls. That’s not what I’m saying. My curiosity is on a personal level rather than how she’d cope as Luna.”

I cock my head. “Explain.”

When my order doesn’t get Dayne growling, I hide my surprise, because no alpha takes orders well at the best of times. But one given from another alpha?

Must be what he meant about being steadier because of his mate. That or his screaming baby has cost him so many sleepless nights, he doesn’t have any energy left to growl back.

“She’s fractured,” Dayne says simply.

I frown. “What do you mean?”

“Talis was the same with her human side battling her wolf. She struggled to control her shifts for a while, and it changed how she thought of herself. Until Sierra accepts what and who she is up here—” He knocks on his head. “—she’ll never feel right in herself. And a leader who doesn’t know who they are is going to struggle.”

“Or not want to lead at all.”

He angles his head as understanding flashes in his eyes. “Which, I’m guessing, is the reason for your unwillingness to tell Sierra what you want?”

Turning away, I fold my arms across my chest, tracking the wolves wrestling, pouncing, and racing each other around the lake.

They’re loud, so loud that I don’t know how the sound of their play passed me by. Now I focus on their growls and chuffs. Not so much them, but one wolf in particular: a small gray wolf with blue eyes. Eden.

Sierra wanted to reunite me with my sister, but that isn’t the only reason we’re here in Colorado. I saw the fear clouding her eyes at the side of the highway.

She didn’t want to meet my pack. Two weeks later, and she still hasn’t asked me about them. Not once. The fear is there, even if she’s doing a better job of hiding it than she was before.

I have to do something about that, and soon.

Sierra is mine. There’s no question, no hint or seed of a doubt that she isn’t. I don’t just feel it in my bones, the truth of it has sunk so deeply into me that there’s no me without Sierra.

My wolf growls his agreement.

She’s ours.

But the Hunt pack is mine too. I formed them, won their trust, earned their respect, and created a home not just for me, but for all of them as well. They can be brittle, slow to embrace change and frustrate me so much that I’m ready to take a bite out of them. But they’re mine. A second family.

I could snarl at my packmates from morning to night to get them to do what I want. Just like Dad. But that’s not the kind of alpha I want to be. Not after my dad ruined mine, Eden, and Melody’s lives with their decision to break me and Melody apart.

So the Hunts are going to have to choose to accept Sierra.

Or not.

I can’t force them to accept her, and Sierra wouldn’t want me to, even if I could.

Will they go easier on Sierra if she told them the shit she went through with the Stones? Fuck yes.

But will Sierra ever willingly admit what the Stones did to her?

Someone would have to drag the truth out of her, and it would be like trying to dig out of a cave with a spoon. That’s about how much effort it would take.

And will the pack force me to choose between them and the woman I love if they can’t or won’t accept her as my mate—and Luna?

My wolf snarls. He’d tear into anyone who threatened her. The pack included. For him, there’s no choice. It’s Sierra all the way.

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