Page 38 of The Strongest Wolf

After releasing her, I cross over to the stove and turn everything off before returning to her. Scooping her into my arms, I head for the bed. Dinner can wait.

Sierra clings to my shoulders. “Uh, Galen, what are you doing?”

“Bed.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m starting to think you only listen to me when I’m inside you.”

Her cheeks flush as she looks away. “That isn’t true.”

“Isn’t it?” After laying her down, I reach for the hem of her shirt. She only ever wears one of mine to bed, which fills me with more pleasure than such a small act should. “I’m positive it is.”

Before I can ease the fabric over her head, her hands grip my wrists. “Stop.”

“Because you know I’m right?”

“No, because—”

When she stops, I know what she’s going to say is important. So important, she doesn’t want to tell me.

I wait.

Sighing gustily, she shifts her focus to a point over my shoulder. “Just because it doesn’t matter to you that I’m a submissive, doesn’t mean it won’t matter to everyone else.”

Now we’re getting to the heart of things. Finally.

I take my hands off the hem of her shirt and frame her face. “And I’m guessing this everyone else you’re talking about is the pack you think will treat you as if you don’t deserve to be Luna?”

Silence.

“Sierra?”

Her gaze doesn’t move from where she’s fixed it over my shoulder.

“You never told me how Bowen happened to be missing his eye,” I remind her.

She darts a rapid glance at me and quickly away again. “Didn’t I?”

“No,” I tell her distinctly. “You didn’t.”

“Oh, I must have forgotten,” she says airily.

“You mean you forgot to tell me how a submissive wolf who shouldn’t be able to manage a partial shift somehow shifted and left a beta wolf half-blind?” My voice is dry.

Her eyes snap back to mine. “What makes you think that’s what happened?”

I raise an eyebrow in disbelief. “Are you seriously suggesting I don’t know how to identify a wound caused by wolf claws?”

She has the decency to wince. “It just happened.”

“You mean like you killing off the members of the Stone pack by yourself, one by one, just happened?”

Her brow creases. “What are you getting at?”

“What I’m getting at is, that is not the behavior of a submissive wolf. If I were to list all the things you can do to someone who doesn’t know you, do you know what any shifter would assume you were?”

She shakes her head.

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