Page 44 of The Strongest Wolf

She drops my hand to reach for her dress. “You mean how to be stubborn like you?”

“Screw you,” I mutter, grinning as I say it. But before Eden can ease her dress up, I focus on her neck. “What does it feel like?”

Her eyes flicker from me to where I’ve trained my gaze. Her throat. The bite is barely visible, but she lifts her fingers and traces the grooves. “Hurts more than I thought it would, but it doesn’t anymore.”

I hesitate. “Like Jared’s bite did?”

She lowers her hand. When her smile fades, I curse myself for having brought up her old mate. “No, his bite hurt more. I guess it didn’t matter to him how hard he bit me. Luka said he had to bite me hard enough to leave a scar, but it was still a shock.”

“Doyoufeel any different?” Because there’s one big change that comes with a mate bite that I didn’t know until Eden mentioned it. If Mom and Dad told me about it before they died, I have no memory of it now.

A mate bond isn’t just a physical bonding. It’s mental too. In time—days, weeks, or months—a mated pair will eventually gain the ability to communicate with each other. Mentally.

They could peer into each other's minds and learn each other's secrets.Allof them.

It also cleared up the reason I’d catch Talis and Dayne staring at each other in silence. They were talking to each other. Not out loud, but in their minds.

The idea is both deeply fascinating and equally terrifying. Will I ever be ready to have Galen in my head?

And what would it be like with fated mates?

I’m desperate to ask Galen if he and Melody could peer into each other's minds and read them, but a question like that could and likely would lead to two things: he’d assume I was ready for us to become mates, and that’s not a conversation I’m ready or even willing to have until I know what his pack thinks of me. Or he’d believe I was looking for him to hold my hand through a sudden attack by the big green monster.

He'd be right on both counts.

Eden shakes her. “Not yet. Talis said it took her and Dayne weeks before they could communicate mentally.”

“Weeks?” That doesn’t sound so bad. Better than Galen biting me and then waking up the next morning with him talking in my head.

“Sometimes it happens sooner. Jenna and Marshall said it was only a few days before they could hear each other, but they’d been together for years before, so maybe that was why.”

“Days?” I swallow. “That's, uh, that’s really soon.”

When Eden’s gaze sharpens, I wonder when I became so easy to read. “I’m sure it will take you and Galen weeks.”

“What makes you think that—”

“Eden, it’s clear how you feel about each other. I’m sure that soon…” She pauses, and probably reading the rising panic in my eyes, clears her throat. “Maybe not soon. You’ll become mates.”

How can she be so certain?

“And if we don’t?” I ask, working hard to keep my voice casual.

“You will.”

“But how do youknow?” A little of my frustration creeps out.

Eden steps toward me, her expression more serious than I’ve ever seen before. “You and Galen have been here for two weeks. Yes, he wanted to spend some time with me, but that’s not the only reason. No alpha leaves his pack for two weeks unless it’s for something important.”

“Like him spending time with the sister he believed was dead?”

“No, like spending time with the woman he loves.”

Her words ripple through me. Notwords.

Just one.

Love.

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