Page 10 of My Bad Boy Alpha

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 knowexactlywhat 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 mostfearedalpha 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 thatanyonelike 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, gettingsomerespect 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.”

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