Page 12 of The Strongest Wolf

I’m turning from the mirror when I feel her ripple through my mind. An image coalesces and takes shape. I know it because it’s the one she’s shown me so many times before that I can pick out all the shades of green in the leaves and paint the indigo-black sky overhead from memory alone. My wolf doesn’t use words to communicate with me. She uses images and visions and pure feeling.

Thisis a vision so impossible I know it can only exist in my mind.

In it, a small brown wolf with silver eyes runs through an open forest, her joy like brightly woven strands of color streaming around her. Me.No, us.A large brown-black wolf joins her and they run together, playing, bumping shoulders. I can almost taste their happiness. It feels that real. Me and Galen.

It’s not that easy,I tell her.It can’t just be us.

The image doesn’t fade. Instead, it transforms. More wolves appear. A pack.

Family.

I grip the sink.

They will expect a Luna to lead, and if she can’t, they will turn on her. On us. You saw what the Stones did to Eden when she was Luna. Is that what you want?

The image explodes into nothing, and then she’s gone. I know it’s because I hurt her.

My eyes close and I go looking for her.

It’s a fantasy. No pack will accept a submissive wolf as Luna.

Silence.

I want it too, but it won’t happen. If Galen wasn’t alpha…

I let my thoughts trail off, because it doesn’t matter what I wish. All alphas want mates who are their equals, and when one doesn’t live up to what they want, they turn nasty. The Stone pack taught me that over and fucking over again.

Maybe Galen’s pack won’t be like that—when he’s around. But when he’s not?

Enough, Sierra. Go to bed.

I toss the hand towel in the basket and head for the door. When I pull it open, I realize just how naïve I was to think Galen would let me hide out in the bathroom. It isn’t like I haven’t done the same thing before.

My gaze lands on golden tanned muscle blocking the doorway. Galen. With the way he’s leaning against the doorframe, it’s clear he’s been there for a while.

“You know, you’re lucky this door doesn’t open outward,” I tell him as I edge around him. “You might’ve ended up with a broken nose.”

One hand locks around my hip, and he turns to press me against the frame. He’s so much taller than I am that I often wonder how long it will take before he ends up with a crick in his neck from peering down at me. “What’s wrong?”

Any hint of sleep has well and truly been driven away in the time he’s been outside waiting for me. Now he looks wide awake, somber, and like he’s getting ready to demand answers. Exactly the opposite of what I want.

I place my hands on his bare chest, and his eyes flare with heat at the contact. “Nothing is wrong. I went to pee. Now I’d like to go to bed.”

He lowers his head further. “Keep lying to me, and I might have to start dishing out punishments.”

I shove harder. “Kinky. But maybe in the morning. I’d like to sleep now.”

He serves up one of his extended, unblinking alpha stares that does wonders at scaring people away from trying to cut him off in traffic.

I meet it steadily.

He growls in his throat before giving my brow a hard kiss. “Stubborn woman.”

“Not wench? You had the tone right for a Viking.”

One corner of his lip turns up as he shakes his head. “Next time you have a nightmare, wake me.”

How does he always know?

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