Page 7

CHAPTER SEVEN

ZURI

I shook in horror. “No.”

“No?” Stone repeated. “You don’t even know what it is.”

“I know that whatever this present is, it’s nothing good,” I murmured, heart racing. I had heard horror stories of him, had seen how he devoured me last night until I passed out from too much pleasure. “I don’t want it.”

Stone stared blankly at me for a couple of moments, and then his sharp jaw twitched. “Zuri.”

“Stone.”

Clenching his jaw, he growled underneath his breath and drew his tongue across his large canines. “I don’t care if you want it or not. You’re going to take it one way or another. Come with me.”

“N-no.”

While I didn’t know exactly what it was because I had been told to fear Stone all my life, he made me feel safe to speak my mind more than I felt around my ex-pack.

Although I did and even though he was an alpha—the most feared alpha around these parts—I felt like I could say anything, no matter how bratty and pissed I was.

He pursed his lips, and then his eyes glazed over, as if he was listening to someone through his mind link. When he finally came back, he blew out a low breath and left the room without saying another word.

And while I had told him I didn’t want to see his present, I didn’t want to stay here alone. I didn’t know who would walk in, didn’t have any food left besides the pregnancy tea that he had forced me to drink this morning.

“Wait!” I said, finding some shorts in his dresser and tugging them up my legs.

Once I was dressed—sorta—I hurried out of the room and wandered down the large hallway that seemed to stretch on forever. I peered into the empty guest rooms, a lounge room with a huge gray beanbag, some video game controllers, and a glass-door fridge full of Fudgsicles.

I eyed them for a moment, then thought against it and continued down the hallway, following his lingering scent. My wolf was relaxing for the first time in years, purring at the thought of him being inside her again. Making me wet and uncomfortable in these clothes.

Voices drifted from the first floor. I tiptoed down the stairs, amazed that anyone like Stone lived in such a … normal house. I had expected skulls posted on every door, walls splattered in blood, bones as decorations.

“What’s next?” a man said in the next room.

“You know what’s next,” Stone growled. “The beginning of an empire.”

“Where do you want to start?” the man said. “With Alpha Calder?”

“We don’t touch him. Not yet. His mate is too strong.”

Stone wasn’t scared of her, but definitely cautious. And me? Well, I might’ve been sorta, kinda jealous of her, and I didn’t even know the woman. Nobody had ever told me how strong I was, not even any of my old packmates.

“Thanks for bringing this,” Stone said.

And I almost passed out because I hadn’t known that this man had manners. Between bringing me tea that would get me pregnant this morning to doing Goddess only knew what to my packmates last night … I hadn’t thought I’d hear those words ever leave his mouth.

I wanted to peek around the corner of the doorframe to see what exactly he had thanked this random man for. Maybe it was someone’s head? The spinal cords of his enemies, wrapped up like a bouquet? I didn’t put it past him.

“Zuri,” Stone taunted, “you don’t have to hide.”

I peered around the doorframe and spotted the same man I had seen with him last night at the restaurant.

Blond hair, puppy-dog brown eyes, and muscular, he smiled at me and bowed his head. “Luna, it’s so nice to meet you.”

“Zuri,” Stone announced, “this is my beta, James. James, Zuri.”

Scurrying out from behind the wall, I awkwardly stood next to Stone in nothing but his T-shirt and a pair of shorts. All I wanted to do was go hide in his room and never come out. Goddess, it had been hard enough, getting some respect from my old packmates, and now, I had to do it all over again.

Not something I really wanted to do.

“I hope you had a good sleep last night,” he said with a small smile. “My mate is so excited to meet you. She was talking about it all night, wouldn’t let me get to bed.” He chuckled. “Anyway, she brought over some food for you this morning.”

My eyes widened slightly. Why was he being so nice?

When he waited for my response, I cleared my throat and smiled back. “It was lovely.”

Stone curled his arm around my waist and pulled me closer until my body was pressed gently against his rippling muscles. I sucked in a sharp breath, loathing the fact that we were so close in front of another person.

But James didn’t say anything about it.

After another grin, he stuffed his hands into his pockets and nodded to a box on the table. “If you need any more of that, Stone, let me know. We didn’t know how much you needed, so I had the others bring home a couple of boxes.”

“This is enough,” Stone said. “Just enough to fill a bath for my mate.”

Stiffening, I peered up at the smirk painted across Stone’s face and then toward the box.

My stomach twisted and turned, my insides uneasy about whatever the hell was in this container.

For all I knew, it was more of that damn pregnancy juice that he’d make me sit in for hours so I could get pregnant with his pups.

No, thank you.

I didn’t know what kind of facade they were all putting on, but I didn’t trust it at all.

Stone’s pack wasn’t nice, and he was even less so. He was a villain who had destroyed packs just to find me, take me, and then break me into small pieces. So I would bend my knee and obey him.

After nodding at me, James exited the house and shut the front door behind himself. Stone grabbed the box in one hand and my hand in the other, leading me back into the maze of hallways and into a large bathroom that could easily fit five she-wolves along with him.

“Is this where you invite your pack?” I hummed.

“You think very poorly of me,” he said, releasing my hand and beginning the water.

“Because you’re not nice.”

“You don’t know me, Z.” He opened the cardboard box and dumped the thin pieces of what looked like burned paper or petals into the warm bath water. Then, he held out his hand. “Take off your clothes and get in.”

I stared down at the grayish water, then snapped my gaze back up to him. “What is it?”

“There was no blood for you to bathe in, so I brought you their ashes.”