Page 36 of My Bad Boy Alpha

Truthfully, I had wished that the Moon Goddess had visited me when I was younger, when my father and brother would beat the living shit out of me every night until I had enough of it.Until I left their rule with some of the others that I now call packmates.

“What did they do to you?”she asked again.

I leaned back on my right palm and drew my fingers over the claw marks across my rib cage.“My father did this to me when I was four,” I whispered, the pain shooting through my body at the memory.

Tears filled her eyes.“Stone, this looks like it was deep.”

“It was,” I murmured.“I didn’t think I would make it.I remember lying in a pool of my own blood at the doorstep of the pack house.My father’s business partners came over that night and stepped over my dying fucking body without even asking if I needed help.They didn’t care.”

My throat closed, and I balled my hands into fists.

“H-how’d you … survive?”

“My grandma finally found me,” I said.“And from that moment on, I lived with her.”

“Still with your pack?”

“It was never my pack,” I said.“Derrit is older and the firstborn son of the alpha.If I hadn’t left before he became alpha at eighteen, then he would’ve killed me on the spot to make sure that nobody would challenge him.”

She leaned her head on my shoulder and drew her fingers across my scars again.I didn’t have many scars anymore since I had made the deal with that devil, but I had been too young to heal these scars.

I hadn’t even shifted for the first time when they happened.

“How’d you end up here?”she asked.“With your grandma and your pack?”

“After we left, I traveled around a lot.Joined wars and battles to become stronger.Trained with Carve and Wyatt.Most of the people in this pack are misfits too, coming from slaughtered families or running away from home.”

Her lips curled into a small smile.“You created a home for people like … me.”

“For people likeus,” I whispered, turning toward her and resting my forehead on hers.

Suddenly, James’s voice drifted through my mind link.I paused for a moment, listening to his words.

“Wyatt’s mate is alive, but we have a problem.Derrit and your father have just raided a pack nearby.Word is that they’re traveling with all their warriors.Here.”

I ran a hand through my unruly hair, kissed Zuri, and slipped off the bed.“I’ll be back later, mate.I have business to take care of and a pack to protect.My father is on his way here.And we need to prepare.”

“Before you go,” she said, grasping my hand, “I’d like to have a girls’ day with Sina and Maxine sometime soon.”

My lips curled into a smile.“I’ll arrange it for you then.”

CHAPTERTWENTY-FOUR

ZURI

“Don’t hold back,”I said to Sina.

We stood in the backyard to her pack house with Maxine.I had told Stone that I wanted to have a girls’ day—which surprised him, but he hadn’t asked questions.Honestly, I wanted to get stronger for him.

After Stone had told me everything that had happened and why he had become the Stone that I knew today, I wanted to protect him.I hadn’t known him for that long—and had thought that I hated him for the time Ididknow him—but I felt like I knew him now.

We were the same.Both bullied by the people who were supposed to love us.

Except my packmates were dead, thanks to him.And his family was still alive.

Sina transformed into a half-werewolf, half-monster, throwing attacks my way that I could just barely dodge.Part of me believed that she was still holding back, but at least she was harder on me today than the other day.

There was no way that I would ever be as strong as Sina, Maxine, Carve, or even Stone.But I would try to become stronger and stronger to protect the pack of misfits and runaways.I was now their luna, the woman they looked up to.

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