Stone-Hearted Alpha by Eve Bale

Chapter Eight

“So…” Jeremy drawls.

I lift my head from my phone and meet Jeremy’s eyes over the rim of my coffee cup early the next morning.

We’re in the spacious white marble and stainless-steel kitchen, sitting opposite each other on the island instead of in the more formal dining room.

It felt too much like we’d be having a romantic breakfast when Jeremy asked whether I wanted to sit in there, so I told him I preferred the kitchen.

After my nightmare, I’m still warming myself up to the idea of breakfast, although Jeremy demolished a couple of scrambled egg and sausage burritos with what looked like half a bottle of sriracha.

He gazes back at me expectantly, his cup sitting on the table in front of him.

“So?” I repeat coolly when he says nothing else.

The next several seconds pass in silence, and when I don’t fill it, Jeremy’s lips quirk in a quick grin. “I’m heading to the old Merrick house. I want to check out the land before making an offer on it.”

My stomach cramps at the thought of going with him, much less having to live in the house filled with Talis’ pain and fear.

“Oh, okay. Well, I’m heading into town to—”

“You’re coming with me,” Jeremy interrupts.

I stare at him. “Unfortunately, I can’t. I’m sure it’s only a matter of days before I leave on assignment, so I need to prepare for it.”

Jeremy sits back in his seat, his face is expressionless. “And this assignment? Where and how long?”

I shrug. Best start laying the groundwork for my leaving now, I figure. “London, or maybe Paris, I’m not sure yet. I’m still waiting to hear from my agent. And it could be anything from two weeks to two months. It depends on what the client wants.”

I go back to sipping my coffee and scanning my phone, hoping he isn’t observant enough to have picked up my barefaced lie.

Yes, alphas can pick up lies, but I’m not one of his pack that he can sniff the truth from. I may be a trauma-ridden alpha with more ghosts and nightmares than strength, but I am an alpha.

“We leave in twenty minutes. You want to eat before we go?”

I choke on my coffee when it goes down the wrong way and cough to clear my throat before I speak. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me.”

I stare at him. “But I just said—”

“I know what you said.”

I return my cup and phone to the table. Now it's my turn to sit back in my seat, face expressionless, a fury rising deep inside me. “So, what is this, then? You attempting to railroad me into doing what you want? Do you think I’m going to just let you shove aside my needs? My career?”

Jeremy reaches for his cup and raises it to his lips. I shudder at the sight of him drinking black coffee with nothing in it. No milk. No sugar. Nothing. Who does that?

No one, that’s who, Savannah. No one.

His lips twitch at my reaction. “No. This is you stepping into your new role.”

“As Luna of what pack? There is no pack in Dawley, and even if there was—” I stop before I can finish my sentence, but at Jeremy’s raised eyebrow, it isn’t hard for him to figure out what I was about to say.

“You wouldn’t want to be Luna, anyway?”

I force my eyes from his. Not because I’m backing down, but because if I don’t, I see myself picking up my coffee cup and hurling it in his face. Something in his eyes is driving me to it.

“I’d rather not have that discussion,” I tell him instead, reaching for my phone.

Only just before I can, Jeremy beats me to it.

I stare open-mouthed as I watch my phone disappear into his pants pocket. “Give me back my phone,” I snap, feeling my wolf waking up. “What if my agent calls?”

I’m slow to anger, and it takes a lot to push me into a rage, but this alpha is managing to do it in record time.

Jeremy downs the rest of his coffee and rises with his cup. “After we see the Merrick land, I might think about giving it back to you. If you behave, that is.”

For a second, I’m so enraged, I lose the ability to speak. So, I let him see my wolf in my eyes. And his response? A smile flashes across his face.

“Hi, darlin’. It’s about time we were introduced.” His eyes flash and it’s his wolf gazing back at me.

I shift my gaze to my half drank coffee on the table.

My fingers itch with the need to pick it up and fling it at his head.

“Thinking about making me wear it, sweet?” Jeremy asks as I hear him rinsing his cup out at the sink.

“You know what, I was wrong last night. You aren’t nice at night, you’re a dick. An alpha dick. Morning, noon and night.”

“That isn’t a nice thing to say,” he says, sounding as if it’s the funniest thing he’s ever heard.

With my control hanging by a thread, I rise from my seat, and without glancing in his direction even once, because I know full well what will happen when I do, I turn and walk out of the kitchen.

“Twenty minutes, Savannah,” Jeremy says when I get to the door, just before I can step out. “Or I’ll come and get you, and sweet? You’re not going to want me to do that.” There’s steel beneath the pleasant tone, and I curl my fingers into tight fists that I picture smashing into his face.

I continue walking away, head held high and at an easy pace.

* * *

After I point-blank refused to go into the house, Jeremy went in to have a look around while I wait for him at the foot of the porch stairs.

Even from here, I can smell Talis’ terror, as well as the blood from the Merrick-Blackshaw fight several months ago. Well, not that I did much fighting, not with Gavin, one of the best fighters in my former pack standing guard over me.

Pretty much all I saw of the fight was Gavin’s ass, or his snarling face when he swung around every time I tried to help.

It’s a place filled with so much anger and pain and death that I doubt any shifter would ever willingly choose to live here. Not one sane, that is.

This place needs to be knocked down. Destroyed.

I struggle to understand what Jeremy is doing here, or what has him so interested in the house in the first place. If he wanted the land, I don’t see what the house has to do with anything.

With little else to do since Jeremy still has my phone, I lean against the porch and gaze into the forest.

It would be good to go for a run soon.

But the need to shift isn't overwhelming yet. And as alpha, I’m more in control of my shifts than a less dominant wolf.

The thing is, any run I go on will have to be with Jeremy since I doubt he’s going to accept me going on my own. Not with his sharing a room and a bed mentality.

As I take in the lush greenery, I concede Jeremy wasn’t entirely wrong about wanting to buy up the land.

Yet, how he’s able to afford to buy it when he lives in t-shirts and jeans and has never mentioned working is beyond me.

He doesn’t strike me as someone who’s independently wealthy. Not that I’m about to ask him how he earns his money when he’ll just mistake my question for interest. Which I’m not. Interested in him, that.

My wolf snorts, and I grind my teeth at the memory she shows me of my grabbing Jeremy and kissing him after my nightmare.

I had a reason for that, okay.

I shake my head as I tear my focus back from Jeremy and to the forest in front of me. It’s mostly untouched and I guess that comes from the previous alpha Glynn Merrick being too lazy to do a thing about cutting back the trees or weeds.

It’s wild, but kind of pretty too.

Talis’ eyes would warm when she spoke about how free she felt running in the forest. As I take in the lush beauty in front of me, I see why.

There’s something about it that calls to my wolf. Something about it that urges me to strip off my sweater, jeans, knee-high boots, and shift.

At a faint movement in the trees ahead, I freeze as fear wars with dread.

Slowly, I straighten from my lean.

There’s someone there. A shifter.

I can feel eyes watching me, and I get the sense it’s not just one.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise to me that some of the Merrick pack might still be hanging about. Where else would they go after Dayne warned them to stay away from Hardin when they came looking for help from Talis?

Still, at nine in the morning, I wasn’t expecting any of them to be in or near the house since they must have jobs in Dawley.

At the sound of more rustling, I start working out if I should go investigate or if I should go get Jeremy when a hand lands on my shoulder.

The sheer terror that grips me nearly sends me to my knees, yet not a sound escapes my mouth. I’ve gone past the ability to scream.

“Hey, it’s me,” Jeremy says when I do nothing but stare at him.

I feel myself shaking and try to force myself to stop, only I can’t.

Jeremy steps closer and wraps his arms around me, and that’s what returns me to my senses.

I raise my hands between us and shove. Hard. “Don’t…” I fight to speak, and my words emerge as a whisper as I glare at him, my heart still pounding hard enough to hurt. “Don’t ever do that again.”

He studies me for a long moment without saying a word, then he nods. “Okay.” Then, as I’m working out what to say, he turns in the direction I was facing. “You saw something.”

I fold my arms over my chest and nod. “I heard someone in the trees. Shifter.”

As if the person was waiting for Jeremy to come out of the house, an older woman in worn clothing, dark hair with strands of gray, and a look of someone who’s been trying and mostly failing to eke out a life for herself, emerges from the trees.

I recognize her scent as one of the shifters who came to Hardin looking for Talis. Maria, I think Talis said her name was.

“She isn’t alone,” I murmur, with my gaze fixed on the older woman hurrying across toward us with hope lighting her eyes.

Jeremy doesn’t comment, and I turn to him. “Did you hear me?”

He ignores me in favor of stepping forward to the shifter with the hint of a smile on his face. “Hi, I’m Jeremy Stone.”

“Yes,” Maria says, darting a glance at me before she turns her entire attention to Jeremy as if I no longer exist. “You’re an alpha. Are you going to start a new pack? I hope you do. Dawley needs a pack. I need a pack.”

It isn’t hard to tell from her lowered head, her inability to maintain eye contact with Jeremy, that Maria is a submissive shifter. Yet, something about her is…wrong.

She stares at the ground after she gives her little speech, and I narrow my eyes at her because I don’t trust a single word that just came out of her mouth.

Jeremy turns to me, his face expressionless. “Savannah, perhaps you should wait in the truck.”

I turn to him in disbelief.

He’s ordering me to wait for him in the truck. As if I were a child. As if I’m in the way.

If that’s the way he’s going to play this, then fine.

“Give me my phone,” I snap, holding my hand out.

Jeremy’s expression doesn’t change.

I say nothing else as I wait.

All I’m thinking is if he doesn’t give me my phone right this second, I’m going to turn around and walk away, and leave everything behind. My clothes, my books, my purse, everything.

I will keep on running, and he will never find me again.

Not because the phone is that important to me. It isn’t. It’s what it represents. It’s him using it to control me, and that is not going to happen. Not now. Not ever.

All the while, I feel Maria’s silent attention.

Finally, Jeremy reaches into his pocket and withdraws my cell phone, which he places in my hand.

I close my hand around it, only he doesn’t pull his hand away.

He bends his mouth to my ear. “The truck is unlocked. You had better be waiting for me when I’m done here.”

Since there’s no response I can make to that which isn’t going to lead to an argument, I hold my tongue and wait for him to release his grip on my phone.

The second he does, I turn and walk away.

On my way back to the truck, I glance at my phone and see I have a missed call from my agent. Since I didn’t hear my phone ringing, Jeremy must’ve put the call on silent when he was in the old Merrick house.

Alpha dick.

All I can say is I’m glad I didn’t know about him silencing me phone when we were face to face because if I did, there’d have been a fight. And it would’ve been bloody.