Page 40 of The Strongest Wolf

“A submissive?”

“Two.” My voice is flat. As submissives in every sense of the word, they would have been completely reliant on the pack to survive.

Her touch gentles. “Did they ever go back to find out what happened to them?”

“Wedid,” I say, trying to push aside the horror of what we found in the foul, dying pack. It looked like the enforcers who had once served the alpha had taken advantage by grabbing what they could and taking off, leaving those who remained behind with nothing. If the alpha hadn’t already been dead, he’d have been the first I killed. And I’d have taken my time doing it. “We buried the bodies and left.”

Sierra doesn’t ask how they died. I don’t know that many people could look in my eyes and glimpse the hell going on in my mind, but Sierra is one of the few. “I’m sorry, Galen.”

I nod. “When the pack warms up, they’ll do anything for you. They’ve lost a lot and they’re determined not to lose any more.”

“Foryou, Galen. Because you’re alpha.”

“For those they trust. Each other, me, and soon you.”

“What makes you so sure I’ll be one of them?”

“Unless you’ve forgotten, you’re a protector. You fight harder for the people you care about than I’ve ever seen before. It won’t take them long to see that, and then…” My voice trails off.

“And then what?”

I shift us so we’re laying side by side and sigh heavily, my breath lifting her hair around her face. “And then it will be impossible to get them to do anything I tell them, because they’ll be too busy fighting over themselves to pleaseyou.”

She snorts with laughter, as I’d hoped she would.

We lay in silence for several minutes, just holding each other. “You’re good at this,” Sierra says.

“Good at what?”

“This relationship thing. You said you weren’t, but you are. Better than I am.”

I run my hand down her soft hair, tucking her face against the hollow of my throat. It’s not enough. I still want her closer. “I’m just making it up as I go along. Call it beginner’s luck.”

Another silence falls, this one for so long that I’m close to falling asleep when Sierra speaks. “You remember that list?”

“Of ways I’ve messed up?” I remember it at once. As if I’ll ever forget it. Every muscle in my body stiffens as I wait for her answer.

“It’s getting shorter.”

Thank fuck.

I smile as the tension leaves me. “How short?”

“Now if I told you that, you might stop trying, and that famous alpha ego will rear its ugly head and—”

I roll her with a growl, snapping my teeth so close to her neck that it sets her off giggling.

We nearly fall off the bed as she fights to evade my mock attack, but along the way, our wrestle turns into a different kind of battle. One that doesn’t end until our clothes are scattered on the floor and I’m deep inside her.

9

SIERRA

“The universe sent you to me, Eden.” Luka’s voice rings out across the clearing beside the lake. “Not fated, but still meant to be. Mate.”

Dressed in a pair of white baggy pants, with Eden in a knee-length white sleeveless dress, the moon overhead makes them glow.

“And you to me, Luka,” Eden responds a beat later, her voice so clear, the truth of her words makes my eyes prickle with tears. “Not fated, but meant to be. Mate.”

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