Page 68 of The Strongest Wolf

“She’s safe in Hardin. Dayne and the rest of the Blackshaws won’t let anything happen to her there,” I tell myself as I cling to the phone.

She could be in the shower, or she’s stepped out with Eden. Maybe that’s why she isn’t answering.

But when the click sounds in my ear, I hang up instead of leaving a message. What would I say, anyway?

Since I’m failing on the Sierra front, I call Dom and hope I don’t strike out there as well.

But I needn’t have worried, because he answers on the second ring. “Galen?”

“Yeah. How are things?” I ask. “Any more trouble?”

“I have everyone sticking close to home, so we’re all good here. You leave Hardin okay?”

I start the engine, suddenly antsy to get moving. “Yeah,” I grunt.

After sticking the cell phone in my hands-free, I head for the parking lot exit.

“I’m guessing Sierra stayed behind,” Dom says.

I’m about to pull out when a man steps out in front of my truck, forcing me to slam on my brakes. “Seriously, are you that eager to die?” I snarl, glaring hard through the windshield.

But he’s so busy chatting away on his cell phone that he never even looks my way.

“Yeah, definitely no Sierra.” Dom’s voice is dry.

Once the guy finally gets out of my way, I peel out of the parking lot and onto the main road, my eyes probing the streets for the nearest drive-thru. The sooner I grab food, the sooner I can eat it and get back on the highway where there are no idiots crossing the road without looking where they’re going. “What?”

“You’re less snarly when you’re with her,” Dom informs me, his tone so serious that I know a joke is coming. “For that matter, you’re less snarly in general. Did I fall asleep in my chair, and Sierra was just a dream?”

“Fuck off.” But my lips are twitching as I say it. There’s something about Dom’s deadpan sense of humor that always gets me. “You’re not the only one to say that.”

“Then why is she back there and you’re making the long drive alone?”

Spotting a fast food place, I slow and make the turn. “She’s not ready.”

“For what?”

“To be Luna.”

Dom is silent for several seconds. “Because of what happened to her in the Stone pack?”

I eye the menu as I join the line for the drive-thru. Looks like lunch is going to be cheeseburgers and fries. “Because she and—” I halt. I’m in the truck with the windows up, but talking about shifters in public is still risky. “That’s not a role the quiet part of her wants to take on. I think it’s scaring her.”

Before we returned to Wylder, I’d told Dom about my intention to take Sierra to a nice hotel and tell her that I wanted her to be Luna.

But, from her increasing reluctance to talk about leaving Hardin, it looks like if I’d carried out my plans, Sierra would have run right out of the fancy hotel I’d planned on taking her, and not stopped running.

I’d have chased her, but then what? Would I have dragged her to Wylder?

“The wolf half or the human half?” Dom asks, his voice as soft as mine.

“Both.”

“And what are you going to do about it?”

As if there’s any other answer to that question. “Deal with our unwanted guests, return to Hardin, and bring her home. Maybe a couple of days will be all she needs to get used to the idea. She could speak with some of the pack while I’m home, and it’ll reassure her. What do you think?”

“It could work.” I visualize Dom nodding. “And if she doesn’t get used to the idea?”

---