Stone-Hearted Alpha by Eve Bale

Chapter Nine

Hours later, we’re back at the rental, and I’m still stewing about Jeremy making me miss my call.

Even though I spoke with Paulo and learned the news wasn’t good, the fact I missed it at all is something I can’t let go.

But since Jeremy has been on the phone to the realtor about the Merrick property, and I was too angry to talk to him in the truck on the way back, I haven’t had an opportunity to unload on him.

But I will. It’s definitely coming.

Thinking it’ll help me calm down, I head for the back porch because being inside with Jeremy is too much for me to handle right now.

Every time I see his face I want to kill him, and his scent is pissing me off because even after he took my phone, I still find it, and him, attractive.

I pace back and forth, grumbling under my breath all the while. Then I spin, about to pace the other direction, when I halt at the sight of something in the trees.

Eyes.

There, in the forest, someone is staring at me.

I stare back, unable to believe what I’m seeing.

Then I’m rushing back into the house, tearing my shirt off as I sprint up the stairs.

As if from a distance, I’m aware Jeremy is calling my name, but I can’t absorb it, not when the only thing I’m thinking about is the need to shift, the need to hide.

I burst into my room and I’m struggling to tear my jeans off when Jeremy charges in seconds later and takes me down to the bed.

I fight him, I struggle, I scream, and all the while, he pins me down and refuses to let me up again.

After several seconds, or perhaps it’s minutes of this, my struggles slow as I realize Jeremy isn’t going anywhere, and with him pinning me to the bed, I can’t shift.

Since any number of things could go wrong if I push myself to shift with him touching me, I fight the urge back.

I’m not about to risk being caught mid-shift or having my shift go wrong because his touch interfered with my ability to change all of me.

Finally, I lay still beneath him, out of breath, my face pressed against the covers, and Jeremy stretched out on top of me.

I tilt my head to the side. “Can you get off me please, I can’t breathe.”

Without a word, Jeremy rolls off me before he shifts me to my back, and then he’s on top of me again before I can breathe.

I stare up into his face and see his eyes have gone wolf.

“I’m not moving until you start talking,” he snarls.

I open my mouth, completely unprepared for his anger.

“I don’t care if it’s big, or small, but you’re telling me something. Right now.”

With Jeremy laying on top of me, moving isn’t an option since he’s all muscle. So, I shift my gaze to just over his shoulder and try to sound casual. “I don’t know what—”

His hand catches my chin and forces my gaze back to his. “Something has you waking screaming in the night, a nightmare so bad it took five fucking minutes before I could wake you.”

Oh, that’s bad.

He leans closer, close enough for me to see the rage burning in his eyes. “Now you’re charging up the stairs, ready to shift and hide from whatever has you so terrified that all I smell is your terror, and once again, I can’t reach you. You. Will. Tell. Me. What. It. Is.”

I flinch at each hard bitten-out word.

There’s no humor lurking in the depth of his eyes. Not now.

No. All I’m seeing is all alpha. And nothing I say, nothing I do, is going to make him back down.

His name fits, I realize. Stone. Hard. Unmovable.

I close my eyes and force a breath out before re-opening them. “Can you let me up, I’d like to get dressed first.”

For several seconds, Jeremy stares deep into my eyes. What he’s searching for, I couldn’t say. Only he must find it because he releases his grip on my chin and rolls off me.

I move to the edge of the bed and stand to tug my jeans back up. After scanning the floor, I realize I must’ve left my shirt on the stairs so I head to the closet to grab another since I’d rather be fully dressed before this talk.

Once I’ve pulled it over my head, I stand in the middle of the room with my arms folded, gazing at the window, too afraid to venture any closer in case the eyes are still there.

“Savannah, come here.”

I shake my head. “What do you know about the Merrick pack?”

My question surprises him. I can tell because of the brief pause that follows my words. “Not much. There were rumors the alpha wasn’t someone who should be an alpha.”

I smile at his choice of words, though there’s nothing funny about them. “Wasn’t someone who should be an alpha,” I echo quietly. “I suppose that’s one way to put it.”

When I turn around, I find Jeremy sitting with his back against the headboard, his entire focus on me. “Did he do something to you?”

I try to work out how to condense a lifetime's worth of pain into a few words, both mine and Talis’. “He hurt Talis. She was his niece. You met her in Hardin.”

Something in Jeremy’s expression shifts, and I get the impression he wasn’t being entirely honest with me about what he knew about the Merrick pack.

I don’t care enough to be pissed. If he wants to keep secrets from me, then fine, he can get whatever enjoyment from it while he can because it won’t be for long.

“I’m guessing it wasn’t an accident that caused her to be missing the tip of her finger,” Jeremy says, his eyes sharpening.

The fact that Jeremy spotted that when Dayne was on his way to ripping his head off should surprise me, but it doesn’t. I’m learning to accept Jeremy is far more observant than most.

“No. It was no accident,” I murmur, thinking back to the moment a courier delivered a small package, followed by Dayne’s destruction of the tree in the backyard.

I shake my head and continue. “This is the house we stayed in when we came to rescue Talis after her uncle abducted her.”

Jeremy gazes at me, and when I don’t say anymore, he raises an eyebrow. “Why do I get a feeling you’re leaving a lot unsaid?”

“Maybe because I am. Since none of it has anything to do with you, I think it’s my right to decide what I’m going to tell you.” I turn to leave.

“Take one more step, and you won’t like what I do.” The sudden coldness in Jeremy’s voice lashes me to the spot.

“Don’t threaten me,” I snap, keeping my back to him.

“It’s no threat, sweet.”

I swing back to face him. “And stop calling me that. I’m not your sweet anything. I’m not your darling or your—”

“Mate?” Jeremy’s voice is whisper-quiet, and something in his eyes has me taking a step back before I realize what I’m doing.

“No,” I whisper.

The muscles in his arms tense as he propels himself off the bed in one smooth motion, and then he’s stalking toward me with hard determination stamped across his face.

“What are you…” I back up because from what I see in his eyes, I know whatever is coming can’t be good. “Jeremy…?”

I don’t have a chance to finish my thought before Jeremy grabs me and tosses me on the bed before following me down.

He grabs my shirt and rips the material off me, leaving me once again in my jeans and bra.

I gasp in surprise. “Jeremy, what are you—”

When he reaches for my jeans' button, I grab at his wrist.

Jeremy raises his gaze to my face. “Since you won’t talk, I’m going to tear your clothes from your body, and then I’m going to bury my face between your legs.”

I freeze at his words, and he lowers his face closer to mine. “I’m going to drive you to the edge of release over and over and over again until you’re begging me. And you know what? I won’t send you over. Not until you give me what I want.”

Moisture floods my panties and Jeremy’s nostrils flare as he picks up the scent of my arousal.

I open my mouth to deny it, to tell him it won’t work, but we both know it’ll be a lie because he’s driven me to such highs that I was begging for him never to stop.

The thought he might take me there again and never let me finish is agony.

I won’t hold out for long. Seconds maybe. Certainly not minutes.

My head falls back against the pillows and I close my eyes. “There was a man. A beta with eyes that…” I stop and swallow because I have no words.

Jeremy takes his hands away from the waistband of my jeans and lowers himself over me, resting his weight on his elbows braced beside my head.

When his fingers smooth the hair back from my face, I open my eyes and glare at him. “This is a real alpha dick move, you know that, right?”

“I warned you I was ruthless about getting what I want. And right now, I want answers. Give them to me.”

“I can’t give you all of them. Not even if… not even if you do what you threaten. I’d rather die.” I let him see the truth of it in my eyes.

If he pushes me to talk about everything, I’ll find some way of getting free and I’d run and never stop running.

“I don’t need all your secrets. Not yet, anyway. Tell me about this beta.”

Not yet? How about not ever?

I wriggle as I try to get comfortable beneath Jeremy, but it isn’t easy. “Are you always this hard?” I grumble.

His grin appears and disappears so quickly, it’s a wonder I catch it at all. “Only around you, sweet. Now quit trying to buy time and talk.”

After another heavy sigh, I fix my gaze on his chin since it’s easier than looking into his eyes. Immediately, Jeremy’s fingers bring my gaze right back to his.

“An assignment in New York got cut short, so I came back home early,” I say, figuring that’s a good a place as any to start.

Jeremy’s gaze tells me to continue.

“I got a taxi back from the airport instead of calling anyone from the pack to come to get me.”

“You don’t drive?”

I shrug. “Sometimes. But since most of my work involves going to the airport and flying, it doesn’t make sense for me to drive. When I need to go somewhere, there’s usually always someone offering to drive me down to Hardin or take me to the airport.”

He nods.

I swallow. “Well, I came back, and went straight to my cabin to shower and dump my stuff before letting everyone know I was back.”

But that isn’t the only reason. I always need time to work myself up to go to the main house. And the longer I can avoid it, the better.

As if suspecting I’m holding more back, Jeremy’s eyebrow goes up, but I refuse to say anymore. What he’s getting from me is already far more than I wanted to give him.

“I was getting the door open when I felt someone watching me. Even though I knew someone was there, I couldn’t scent them. It was only later we learned he was using scent blockers.”

I take another breath before I continue.

“And then I saw them. They were…” Words fail me for a second. “Torturer’s eyes.”

Even though I’m staring into Jeremy’s eyes right now, that’s not what I’m seeing. I’m back outside my cabin and I’m frozen with terror.

I grip onto the hem of his shirt because right now I need something to hold on to. I need something to keep me grounded in the here and now, when my memories are trying to drag me back into the past.

“It was like I could see all the things he wanted to do to me, and every single one of them was like a nightmare you couldn’t imagine. They reminded me—”

Just in time, I stop myself.

Jeremy waits in silence for me to continue, but I blink the memory of Abel’s eyes away and shake my head. “I ran to the house, and then I stayed there because I couldn’t stay in my cabin anymore. Not after…” My voice trails off and Jeremy waits a few seconds, but when I don’t say anymore, he speaks.

“But staying at the house isn’t what you wanted to do?”

I wonder how he can read so much of what I try to hide from him, since no one has ever read me as easily as Jeremy does. “No. Staying in the house isn’t what I wanted.”

There’s another silence as I try to figure out what to say.

“You saw something here,” Jeremy prompts me, surprising me by not pushing at my reasons for not wanting to stay in the main house.

“I saw eyes watching me.”

“The same eyes?” His face is expressionless.

I shake my head. “Not the same. He died. Dayne killed him. But he was there before. Staring at me through the trees.” My eyes go to the window as I remember the eyes peering at me when I sat outside with Dayne. It didn’t matter that I had Dayne beside me. The only thing that did was getting inside.

“Savannah.” Jeremy’s voice is mild, and I turn to meet his eyes when I realize the scent of my fear surrounds us.

“All I wanted to do was run away.”

“Like now?”

This time, when I lower my gaze to his chin, Jeremy doesn’t stop me. “Like now.”

Jeremy presses his lips against my forehead, and for several minutes we stay like that.

“I suppose you think I’m pathetic. An alpha afraid of ghosts,” I whisper, not knowing where the words are coming from, only feeling the need to say them.

“Ghosts have a power over us that it’s impossible to turn away from,” Jeremy says, lifting his head to peer in my eyes, “because they’re in our heads. In our hearts. There’s no unseeing them there.”

What ghosts do you carry with you Jeremy Stone?

He’s right. There isn’t. There’s no closing your eyes and willing them away, not when they live inside you.

But I don’t tell Jeremy that. I don’t say anything at all.

His gaze dips to my mouth, and I tense in anticipation of his kiss as I study the lines of his face. I fight against the urge to touch my fingers to his full lower lip, across his stubborn chin, and his straight nose.

Everything about him is strong, confident. He could have anything he wants. I look at him and I know it, yet he’s determined to have me, only I don’t know why.

I have a sudden awareness of him lying over me, his erection pressing into my lower belly. I want to tell him to take his shirt off, or else peel the white material off him myself so I can run my hands over his defined pecs, his abs, dig my nails into his skin.

But I don’t. I don’t do any of that.

I lay pinned to the bed beneath Jeremy and wait to see what he’ll do to me. Kiss me? Fuck me?

When he rolls off me and rises to his feet, I blink at him in surprise, pushing myself up on my hands as I watch him stroll over to the closet. “What are you doing?”

“Getting that suitcase big enough to store a body,” he calls out.

I frown and swing my legs off the bed to sit on the edge. “It isn’t big enough to store dead bodies.”

He emerges with it and dumps it on the middle of the floor. “It is.”

When he crosses over to the bookcase, I watch him in silence before clearing my throat. “What are you doing?”

Jeremy grabs a handful of books. “Packing.”

“Why?”

“We’re staying somewhere else.”

“But, why?”

Jeremy stops halfway through tossing my books in the suitcase and meets my gaze. “Because someone was watching you from the forest. Until we know who that someone was, I’d rather we stay somewhere not as exposed.”

When he says it like that, it makes a lot of sense.

Then I remember Maria. “But what about Maria?”

He shrugs and turns away to resume packing. “What about her?”

Although there are a million things I could say in response to his offhand question, I don’t, because yet again I’m getting the impression there're things he’s keeping from me.

Like the thing with the Merrick pack, and the sense he knows more than he wants to admit to me.

A part of me wants to push for answers, but the other part knows better.

In two days I’m leaving, regardless of whether I have anywhere to go, because being with Jeremy any longer than that is just too dangerous. He’s too dangerous.

Not only that, but he’s too good at exposing parts of me I’d rather keep buried.