Page 7 of The Strongest Wolf

“It means I have my hands full bumping my pack’s heads together when they fail to do the obvious. With a baby that screams most of the day and most of the night, I don’t have the energy to tackle a grown man.”

I study him a little longer. Faint lines of strain crease his eyes and his mouth. “How is it?”

He glances at me, expression unreadable. “You thinking about kids?”

I snort. “If I was, I certainly wouldn’t be thinking about twins. Fuck that.”

We walk for the next mile in silence as I think about Sierra being pregnant with my child. It’s not something I can even imagine. Not with how hard it is to pin Sierra down about anything regarding the future.

“The best feeling in the world,” Dayne admits, his voice low.

In the time we’ve been in Hardin, Colorado, reading Dayne Blackshaw hasn’t been easy. Still, that seems to be the way with most alphas everywhere. We’ve always been the ‘keep our cards close to our chests’ type.

And Sierra.

An image of her petite, curvy form emerging from the bathtub takes shape in my mind. Glossy dark hair. Defiant steel-gray eyes and a peachy, warm amber scent that both I and my wolf crave. She might not be an alpha, but after the hell that the Stone pack put her through, there’s a granite strength in her that I doubt exists in a submissive wolf anywhere.

One of a kind. And she’s ours.

My wolf chuffs in agreement.

Just up ahead, howls and scuffling wolves force us to slow if we want to continue our conversation in any kind of peace. When the pack rushes off again, we move faster. “Which part?”

“All of it.”

“Even the screaming?” I ask, making no attempt to hide my disbelief.

Dayne makes a choked sound that’s half-laugh, half-snort. “Even the screaming. But…”

I glance over at him as we emerge from the forest and into a clearing beside a lake. It’s one where we’ve held cookouts in the two weeks Sierra and I have been here, and it’s where Eden and Luka will become mates in their moon-blessing ceremony in a couple of days.

Before I went looking for revenge in Dexter, Wyoming, I’d believed that not only had the Stone pack killed my mate, they’d also killed my sister.

But now, the thought of being present in a ceremony to mark her mating is so surreal I still can’t believe it. My little sister not only escaped the Stones with Sierra’s help, but she also found love and happiness. And I get to be a part of that.

So, even with Dom nudging me to return home to Upstate New York, I can’t leave until after the ceremony. Even if mine and Eden’s reunion wasn’t what I’d hoped for.

Ihaveto be here for it.

“But, what?” I ask when Dayne does nothing but study me.

“None of that can happen until you fix whatever the issue is between you two.”

My gaze returns to the moonlight reflected in the dark lake. “Hmm, relationship advice from the cold-blooded alpha. Who’d have thought that would be in my future?”

“The thing with rumors,” Dayne says, his tone dry, “is that no one ever stops to find out if they’re true before they go running their mouths off.”

“True,” I concede.

Although I’m curious about what happened to have rumors spreading of him slaughtering half his packmates—the previous alpha included—I don’t ask. With how badly my dad fucked me up, breaking me and my fated mate Melody apart, I understand all too clearly what could drive someone to lash out.

“You’re calmer around her.” Dayne’s thoughtful words have me jerking my head to face him. “I don’t think you spoke more than five words the first day you were here. It was, where the fuck is Eden, and that was it. I think the rest was incomprehensible snarls.”

“Fuck off,” I grunt.

“And then there’s Kier…”

I shoot him a glance as I recall coming face-to-face with the man Sierra told me had been with Melody. I’d expected to hate him at first sight. To want to shift and rip him apart, because Melody wasmymate.

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