Page 80 of The Strongest Wolf

Dom has been nothing but nice to me whenever we’ve spoken on the phone, so I can only hope the rest of the pack are the same. But the worry still niggles at the back of my mind.

What if they hate me? Or worse, what if they treat me like I’m a fragile thing who they could never respect? Would Galen eventually treat me the same way?

I stuff my face with greasy food from the drive-thru, chug down tooth-achingly sweet sodas, and inhale so much coffee that it has my legs bouncing from extreme caffeine and sugar overload.

But no matter how desperate I am to catch up to Galen, after nearly fifteen hours of driving, my eyelids get heavier and heavier. No amount of coffee and sugar is enough to keep me on the road without serious risk to me and everyone else.

After stopping at a motel just off the highway, I send Galen a quick text message letting him know where I am before I flop face forward onto a far too hard bed.

“Two hours, Sierra,” I mumble into the sheets, my voice emerging muffled, “and then you have to wake up.”

I don’t recall ever falling asleep as fast in my life.

One moment I’m shifting to get a little more comfortable on the scratchy, floral-scented motel sheets, and the next, I’m peeling my face off the bed with no idea what time it is.

As I blink blearily in a room that is no longer flooded with bright late morning sun, one thing immediately becomes clear. “I overslept.”

My face cracks from my wide yawn as I lower my head back to the bed. “Uh, and I’m still tired.”

Just as I’m drifting back to sleep, a car hurtles into the parking lot just outside, jerking me awake again. Muttering beneath my breath about guys who like to drive big cars with powerful engines only so they can rev them for attention, I pat the bed beside me until my hand lands on my cell phone.

With one eye that feels glued shut, I angle the phone just enough so I can read the time.

But I read nothing, because the screen is completely black.

“No battery. Crap.” Sitting up feels like too much effort, but I do it so I can grab my bag from the floor beside the bed. Near the top of my clothes, almost buried beneath the last of my snacks, is the charger. I snag it and plug the phone in to charge.

The battery briefly flashes, but the screen remains black.

“Okay, so I can shower and get ready while it charges,” I tell myself as I head for the bathroom.

A ten-minute shower apparently isn’t enough time to charge a dead phone. So, I brush my teeth, use the bathroom, and change out of my sweats and into a pair of jean shorts and a t-shirt before heading out of the motel with my bag dangling in one hand and the dead phone in my other.

Hopefully, if Galen tried to call, he’ll assume I’m still sleeping and not that something happened to me.

This feeling of having someone care whether I live or die is still so new to me that I don’t think I’ll ever get used to it. When he suggested I stop to get some sleep on the way, I shot him down lightning-fast without considering why he would suggest it.

“I need you to get to me in one piece, little wolf,” he said, his voice serious.

If he’d seen how rapidly I was blinking, he’d have laughed himself silly to know those few words nearly drove me to tears.

After tossing my bag in the car, I head for the motel office so I can check out. I’d booked a room for a night, only to leave six hours later, according to the clock hanging on the wall.

The guy behind the counter blinks up at me in surprise. “Leaving so soon?”

Six hours and my eyes still feel as gritty as if I’d slept for an hour. Maybe less.

“I have somewhere I need to be,” I say, sliding the key across the counter because there’s just enough creepy in this guy’s hazel eyes that the less contact I have with him, the better. “Thanks. The room was nice.”

So beige that I’ve already forgotten what it looks like, but it did the job.

His eyes settle on my left hand. “Boyfriend?”

No, he’s the man I love.

“Something like that.”

“Well.” His eyes drift back up again. “If things don’t work out…” he says, his gaze fixed on my breasts.

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