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CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

STONE

After Zuri left our bed this morning to train, I walked down to the training area and leaned against a wooden post-and-rail fence and watched her laugh with Sina, Maxine, Olenna, and what I assumed were the other two goddesses that I couldn’t see.

Grandma Bee hobbled up next to me.

“You were wrong,” I murmured, not to rub it into her face, but because I was happy that she had been wrong about Zuri. Zuri was the goddess of her dreams, my mate, and most importantly, the woman who would save all of us.

“Wrong about what, Stone?”

I side-eyed her and arched my brow. “No Stoney today, Grandma?”

She intertwined her fingers in front of her body and rocked back and forth on her feet, like she usually did. “Sorry, Stoney. I’m not feeling too well today. I think I ate something bad last night after you left.”

“What’d you eat?”

“Some berries that I’d gathered from the forest,” she said, her hand on her stomach.

“The ones in your fridge? Where’d you get them?” I asked, crossing my arms and giving her my full attention. We had cleared out all the poisonous fruit from the forest a couple of years ago. “There shouldn’t be any poisonous berries within our property.”

“It could be my stomach,” she said. “It’s not the same as it was years ago.”

Gaze flickering back to Zuri, I nodded. “Let me know if it gets worse, okay?”

“Will do,” she said, patting my shoulder. “Now, what was I wrong about?”

“Zuri,” I said with a smile, watching as she moved with ease, her brown skin glimmering underneath the sunlight. She was tall, strong, and so fucking perfect. And knowing that she was a goddess … made her even more beautiful. “She’s a goddess.”

“A goddess?” Grandma Bee repeated in a whisper, fear written all across her face. She glanced up at me through wide, almost-glowing eyes and shook her head. “What do you mean? Like the Moon Goddess?”

I paused. “Are you sure you’re okay, Grandma? You look like you’re about to?—”

Suddenly, fury replaced the fear on Grandma’s face, and she lunged at me. Before I could react, her talons ripped through the flesh on my chest, right down to the bone. Blood seeped out of my wound.

“What are you doing?”

“What I should’ve done a long time ago!” she growled, shifting into her silver wolf.

Last time I had seen it, she could barely shift. And her wolf had looked so weak. But today, she looked reborn. Her wolf might’ve been silver, but her body was stronger than anything I had seen from her in a while.

Shuffling back, I shook my head. “Grandma, you’re sick.”

“I’m not sick, Stoney ,” she said, stalking toward me. “Zuri is making you sick.”

My nails lengthened into claws, my canines extending past my lips. I didn’t want to hurt her, but if she lunged at me again, then I would put her in her place. As much as I’d vowed to never touch her, she was speaking nonsense.

“You know what I think?” I said, chest tight. “I think you’ve been corrupted by Derrit.”

As soon as his name left my lips, she leaped into the air and lunged straight at my chest, right for my fucking heart. Tears filled my eyes at the thought of having to hurt my own grandmother, who had been through everything with me.

Just before she could jump down onto me and cut me open with those talons, I grabbed her by the throat and hurled her halfway across the forest. When she hit a tree, it snapped in half and fell close to the training field, her attention shifting from me to Zuri, who yelped.

“Don’t fucking think about it,” I growled through the mind link to Grandma Bee.

Without a second thought, she sprinted toward my mate at full speed, faster than I had ever seen her run before. I leaped into the air and shifted into my wolf, running twice as fast to cut her off before she had the chance to hurt my mate.

Thick saliva dripped from her extended canines. I pushed myself even harder as she approached Zuri and pushed her out of the way before she could even see me. Grandma latched her canines into my thigh and ripped a chunk of flesh right from me.

Pain split through my body, but I jumped up as soon as Grandma Bee did.

She turned on Zuri once more, snarling through her bloody canines and spitting my flesh at her.

When Grandma’s feet left the ground, I lunged at her body and snapped my teeth around her ankle.

Her bone popped underneath my grasp, and another pain—this time emotional—rushed through me.

Grandma was still in there somewhere, her body was still so fragile, but she was corrupted. And I didn’t know if I could bring her back around without killing her.

“Stone!” Zuri shouted, brushing herself off. “What’s going on?”

While she had the power to protect us, this was my grandmother. I had to do this myself—my chest tightened even more, blood pouring out of it from the wound that she had left in it—even if it meant killing her.

“Stay away from her,” I said to Zuri through the mind link. “She’s dangerous. Corrupted.”

With Grandma Bee’s leg still in my mouth, I whipped her through the air and smashed her body into the dirt.

More bones cracked from the impact, and I pushed back the tears.

If her bones broke, then maybe Derrit would leave her.

Maybe she wouldn’t be of use to him anymore because he couldn’t fight with her.

But something told me that wouldn’t happen.

Derrit wanted me to kill Grandma Bee to weaken my fucking mind.

And it was working. Goddess, it was fucking working.

After her opposite knee snapped, I released her from my grasp.

But somehow, someway, she hopped right back up on broken bones and continued running at my mate, her legs wobbling and moving in ways that they shouldn’t.

I cursed at the devil who had done this to her and lunged at her, seizing her throat in my canines this time.

Before she could make it to Zuri a second time, I bit down and snapped her neck. She continued to seize in my hold, attempting to break free and escape so she could hurt my mate, but I ripped out her throat and then her heart.

Then, I dropped her twitching body from my mouth and shifted into my human. I lay over Grandma and drew her body into my arms, holding back the tears because I had been the one to cause this and to kill her.

She had been with me since the beginning, had left Derrit and my father’s cruel rule, and now … I had killed her because of them. I had given up one of the closest people to me in order to protect my pack and my mate.

Did that make me a monster? Well, I didn’t care.

Because I would do it again in a heartbeat.