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CHAPTER FOURTEEN

STONE

“Stone, let me shower,” Zuri said, tugging on my arm.

“No.”

“But your cum is?—”

“Buried inside you?” I finished, a smirk tugging at my lips. As far as I knew, Zuri hated the thought of carrying our pup. But it would happen. Soon. “Good. My pack will be happy, knowing that the next heir to the pack will be growing in your belly.”

“Stone!” she scolded. Yet she didn’t show any sign of refusal, like she had this morning.

The mate bond was doing its thing.

“We’re not even mated yet,” she hummed, crossing her arms. “Don’t say that.”

I seized the back of her throat, twirled her around, and gazed down at those huge fucking eyes and that bare neck, my canines lengthening. “So, if I marked you, then I can put a baby inside you right now?”

“Stone,” she scolded again, placing her hands on my chest and glaring up at me, “no.”

My gaze locked on to her neck, and I pushed some hair behind her ear to give myself a better view of it. Adrenaline rushed through my system, my canines extending even longer and aching to be inside her flesh.

“Zuri,” I purred.

She sucked in a breath, her gaze flickering down to my teeth. “N-no.”

“You don’t want my mark?”

“That’s not what I … I said,” she murmured, her canines peeking out from under her lips.

A low growl escaped my mouth, and I drew my thumb across the tip of her teeth. “Mine.”

She sucked in a sharp breath and gently bit down on my thumb with her canine, brows drawn together and those eyes—those fucking eyes—wide in anticipation. “You can’t bite me,” she whispered. “Not now.”

I dipped my thumb between her lips. “I’ll do what I want with you.”

My wolf slowly grabbed power from me, pulling me away from all sense of control I had over myself, like he had the other night when we burned Zuri’s workplace to the ground and left no survivors.

Her cunt salivated at my words from her pleasure, my wolf immediately picking up on her arousal. She sucked my thumb into her mouth like the pretty little mate she was and gazed up at me, as if she didn’t have control either.

When she dropped her gaze to my throat, I lost it and slammed her up against the tree, our bodies pressed together and my face buried into the crook of her neck. I drew my canines up and down the column of her throat, gently sucking on the skin to prepare it for a mark.

For my mark.

“Little mate, I’m going to?—”

“Stone!” my grandmother shouted again from the party.

After tensing, Zuri shoved her hands against my chest. I stumbled back and shook my head to regain control from my wolf, forcing myself not to bite her. She didn’t want it, and while I hoped it wasn’t because of her insecurities, I wasn’t about to give her more.

One step at a fucking time, Stone.

Once she straightened herself out, Zuri turned toward the direction of my grandmother’s voice and cleared her throat. “I guess we should get back to the pack then?” she suggested because, apparently, she would rather now meet my pack than have my mark.

Nodding, I guided her in the right direction.

“Please don’t leave my side,” Zuri whispered as we approached the pack house.

A bonfire raged in the backyard, the flames reaching the tops of the trees. A couple of warriors were bullshitting around it while their mates gossiped near the river. I wanted her to make friends here, and she wouldn’t do that while glued to my hip.

“No promises.”

“Stone, please,” she said, staring up at me through huge eyes. “Not tonight.”

“Fine,” I said, grasping her hand. “I won’t leave you.”

She stayed tense for a few moments, and then she nodded. “Thank you.”

When we stepped into the backyard, the girls from the river leaped up, hurried over to us, and grinned at Zuri before we could even make it to the bonfire. Zuri inched closer to me and intertwined our fingers.

“Hi!” Riley said. “Sapphire told us she met you earlier, and we were all so jealous.”

“That’s Riley,” Samantha said from the group, pointing to each of them. “I’m Sammie. This is Jackson, Ruby, Georgie, and Naya. We’re all mated to those assholes sitting by the fire, shit-talking to each other.”

The women giggled, and my mate smiled along with them.

“It’s nice to meet you all.”

“You’re probably going to meet many people tonight. If you forget any of our names, just ask. We’ll be by the river all night, so you can stop over whenever you want to get away from the craziness,” Georgie said.

Once Zuri nodded, they headed back to the river to gossip more.

I guided Zuri to the warriors near the fire to continue the night. For the first time since I had met her, she stayed glued to my side and barely said a few words, except some formalities, while the entire pack spoke to us.

And by the end of the night, Grandma Bee sat at the picnic table with a beer in her shaky hand. Zuri collapsed at the edge, blowing out a breath from meeting so many people, the tiredness etched onto her face.

“It’s nice to meet you finally,” Grandma Bee said. “I’m Stone’s grandmother.”

Zuri straightened her back and plastered a smile on her face. “Oh, sorry. I?—”

“Don’t worry about it, dear. You must be so tired.” She turned to me. “Why’d you make her meet the pack all in one night? And right after you brought her home from her old pack? She must be exhausted.”

Zuri arched a brow and shot me that see, I told you look.

“You know how it is,” I said, sitting beside Zuri.

“You alphas,” she said, shaking her head. “Can’t control yourselves. Your grandpa was the same way. Always wanting to show me off.” She leaned closer to Zuri. “Believe it or not, I was a sexpot back in my day, just like you.”

Zuri’s cheeks flushed. “Oh, I’m not?—”

A growl escaped my lips, shutting my mate’s insecurities right up.

Grandma Bee looked at me. “Now, as for you, I’ve been meaning to talk with you.”

“What is it?”

She grabbed my hand. “You have a mate now. You should forget about all this nonsense, Stoney. Your mother’s death was a hard one, but we have all moved past it. You need to protect those close to you.”

“I’m not over it,” I growled.

“Over what?” Zuri asked.

“Nothing,” I said.

“He wants to … take care … of his father and brother. I’m sure he’s mentioned them to you,” Grandma Bee said.

“He’s mentioned Dirt,” Zuri said.

Grandma glanced over at me. “Dirt?”

My canines lengthened. “That’s what that piece of shit is.”

“Don’t get all angry now,” she hummed, clasping her beer tighter. “I miss your mom, too, but there is nothing we can do about it. Your father and brother are some of the strongest people in the world.”

“They used that strength to humiliate, rape, and murder my mother.”

Zuri tensed next to me, gripping my biceps a bit tighter. “T-that’s horrible.”

“What’s horrible is that nobody has said a fucking word about it,” I snarled.

After it had happened, they had continued to live out their lives like my father wouldn’t do the same to anyone else that he had done to his fated mate.

This pack that I led wasn’t my own. I wasn’t really supposed to be alpha.

But that was too complicated to explain to my dear Zuri, and I didn’t want her to fear for her life here. My pack and I were the only people who would actually protect her in this damn world. This pack and these people cared.

Unlike the people my father and brother led.

“Do you think—” Zuri started, a howl from deep in the woods cutting her off.

“Can’t be a pack meeting without me,” someone said from the forest.

I snapped up and growled. Fuck.

“Brother,” Derrit said, stepping out from the darkness, “I’m home.”