Heart of Stone - Book 1: Fighting Fate

Stone paced across the hardwood floor. His hair was falling out of his ponytail and he kept brushing back the loose strands from his face.

He blamed himself. He let this happen. He should’ve known that she would come back. She was too stubborn to listen to him. Not that he could blame her. He gave her no explanation. No logical reason behind his demands for her to leave. No reason to trust him.

What was worse was that the vampires now knew what she meant to him. She would never be safe anywhere anymore.

Hector chuckled from his chair as he watched Stone walk from one end of the conference table to the other, a nine-foot stretch. “You’re going to wear a hole through the floor if you don’t settle down.”

Stone paid no heed to Hector’s comment. He couldn’t get Aubree’s image out of his head.

The moment he walked into the room and saw her lying there in bed, covered in bruises, his heart broke. He couldn’t look at her. It was his fault that she got attacked by a vampire. It was his fault that she was nearly strangled to death. He didn’t protect her. He did the worst thing he could and pushed her away and it almost cost him her life.

He was such a fool.

“You know, if you had made your intentions known to her, this could have been avoided,” Hector said with a crooked grin.

“Shut up,” Stone growled.

Smartass.

“I wonder why the bloodsucker didn’t drain her? Why strangle her until she was unconscious?” Hector mused, leaning back in his seat and staring up at the ceiling. His thumbs tapped together on his lap as he contemplated the reason for the vampire’s actions. “You don’t think someone else was after her, do you?”

“I don’t think, I know,” Stone grunted.

“Oh?”

“Carina.”

“Oh? What did you do to her?”

Stone shrugged. “Killed her pet, Gerald.”

“Ah, that would do it.”

“Can’t be helped. It is what it is. She knows that,” Stone said.

“I’m sure Carina thinks the same about the human female,” Hector said. “Although, the fact that she wanted the girl alive is interesting.”

“She’s toying with me,” Stone growled. “Wants to see how much Aubree means to me.”

“So that’s her name? An old name too.”

Stone nodded, brushing his hair back again.

They fell silent as they heard heavy footsteps approaching down the hallway outside. His musky scent leaked through the cracks before he pushed open the door.

A burly man strolled in. His dark beady eyes were hardly visible under his thick wired eyebrows and long lashes. His round-shaped face could hardly be seen under his thick bushy beard and mustache. Even the hair on his head, a reddish-brown copper color, was long and fell in gentle waves over his broad shoulders.

He was a big man with the widest chest Stone had ever seen. He was a few inches taller than Stone and could be mistaken for a giant from a distance.

He pressed his meaty palms together and grinned. “Well, well, well. Look what the bloodsucker dragged in. ’Bout time you got here, Sten. I was beginning to think Hector was full of hot air. I mean, what value could a human possibly mean to a lycan, hm?”

Stone set his jaw. He knew Uinseann, or Vincent as he preferred to be called nowadays, as long as he’d been in the United States. Vincent claimed a very generous amount of Wisconsin’s land before most of the lycans and werewolves had crossed the Atlantic. No one was certain how long he’d been living there, but if it was one thing all lycans and werewolves knew it was that Vincent was greedy and untrustworthy.

“Pardon the intrusion,” Stone said, straining to maintain a cool, calm façade. “While I am grateful for the Ciardaig Pack’s hospitality and care for the human female, there was no need to concern yourself with her. Hector had agreed—”

“It matters not that Hector had a responsibility to the female. She was found in my territory, so she became my responsibility,” Vincent said.

Stone could feel his anger mounting but he pushed it down into his gut. “I understand, and again, I thank you for your generosity.”

Vincent waved Stone’s comment aside. “Of course. My services are for the well-being of humans. It is, and has been for millennia, our duty to protect them from the very creatures that wish to harvest and enslave them.”

Stone hated feeling in debt to Vincent. He would rather have nothing to do with the alpha, but circumstances had changed now and this was out of his hand. He had to be respectful to the older male, no matter how distasteful he was.

“Indeed,” Stone said. “Would you happen to know the leech’s motives in attempting to kidnap the human?”

Vincent stretched his hands over his head, groaning until there was a loud popping noise of his joints before he grunted in satisfaction and lowered his arms. “Aye, my nephew was the one who caught the filthy bloodsucker. Don’t know what possessed the bugger to kidnap her instead of sucking her dry of bodily fluids.”

Stone’s hands clenched into fists at his sides. His nostrils flared at the way Vincent spoke about the vampire’s eating habits, as though it was inconsequential.

Vincent continued, his eyes narrowing at Stone. “He didn’t bother to question the creature before he knocked him down, tore the human out of his sticky hands, and proceeded to rip him apart. What is there to question?”

Stone swallowed, raking his mind for a plausible explanation that would satisfy Vincent’s curiosity. “We have reason to believe that the bloodsucker was sent by Carina.”

“Carina?” Vincent’s dark eyes widened in recognition. “What would she want with the human?”

“Vengeance,” Stone stated. “I killed Gerald, a young vampire whom she regarded as a son of some sort. The human is a friend of my daughter’s, so it is likely that she has sent some of her minions out to hunt her down and use her as a means to get back at us for destroying something she held dear.”

“Hm,” Vincent hummed, scratching his chin before running his fingers through his long, coarse beard. “Intriguing.”

Muffled voices from the floor above caught their attention before Gwen’s voice flitted through Stone’s head.

[Papa, she’s awake!]

Hector and Vincent’s eyes glazed over for a split second as they received similar mental messages. Vincent excused himself and before Hector could follow him out, Stone reached out and gripped his arm to stop him.

Puzzlement pulled down on Hector’s brows as his blue eyes met Stone’s. “Stone?”

“I can’t.”

Hector’s eyes widened. He lowered his voice and leaned in close. “What do you mean? She’s your mate!”

“She nearly died because of me,” Stone grunted.

Stepping back a foot, Hector scowled. “Don’t be a fool.”

Stone ran his hand over his hair once more as Hector walked out of the room. All he could think about was seeing her lying there, a ring of purplish-blue around her delicate neck—unpunctured, yet completely frail.

He took a step forward, then turned around and took two more back.

The urge to be near her, to protect her, to soothe her in her time of need pushed him forward and he hurried out the door.