Heart of Stone - Book 2: Hearts Collide
Chapter 34 - Stone (Part 3)

Aubree crossed her arms, and Stone knew that she was refusing to accept the truth. Not that he could blame her. The truth was hard.

There was nothing he could do to change the fact that Dan was now a vampire, and he was damned if he cared whether Dan lived or not.

But Aubree cared. Aubree cared, and it pissed him off.

It was more than simple jealousy. It was the fact that it was hurting Aubree. It was hard enough on Aubree to leave Dan, but to have him become a vampire too? It made Stone’s blood boil.

Maybe if he did kill Dan, it would put him out of his misery and Aubree could move on?

He rolled his eyes, reminding himself that Aubree would never forgive him if he did.

She wouldn’t see it as putting Dan out of his misery. She’d see it as murder.

Hostile silence followed them through the countryside until Stone turned into a wooded area.

“He did it to save me, you know.” Aubree broke the silence, staring out the window and chewing on her bottom lip. “He believed that I was still in love with him, but that the matebond forced me to choose you. Carina convinced him that he could free me by turning me into a vampire like them.”

“Because they have no soul,” he stated.

Without a soul, a vampire was just a body—a bloodthirsty, murderous, life-force sucking shell of a creature.

She closed her eyes and hung her head. “I figured that. How else could the bond be broken?”

“Death,” Stone replied, “and I’m not allowing either of those to happen to you soon.”

As the car cleared the trees that surrounded the pack house, Aubree’s scent shifted with a sudden acceleration of her heart rate.

This didn’t bode well.

“What would you do if Dan turned me into a vampire?” she asked in a small voice.

His hands tightened around the steering wheel as his jaw clenched. “You don’t want to know.”

“You’d kill him, wouldn’t you?”

“In a heartbeat.”

She swallowed. “What about me?”

“What about you?”

“I’d be a vampire. Would you kill me too?”

A growl jumped up his throat as he slammed his foot on the breaks. The car jolted to a stop before he shifted it into park and turned to her with a snarl.

“What do you think? Do you think I could do it? Do you think I could look you in the eye as I wrapped my fingers around your neck before tearing you limb from fucking limb?”

Her heart hammered in her chest as she stared back at him with wide eyes.

Clamping his eyes shut, he pulled away as he tried to push out the mental image he’d created of her blood-red eyes staring back at him instead of her beautiful hazel ones. He brushed back the loose strands of hair that strayed from his ponytail with the memory of Aubree gazing up at him, the sensation of her fingers tangling into his hair as she pulled his lips down to hers. The heat of her touch, the drumming of her heartbeat, the intensely strong, undeniable connection he felt with her, and only her since Adelaide’s murder—would be gone. Her touch would be cold, her chest mute, and her soul lost.

She would become another one of those life-sucking leeches that he was bound by duty to destroy.

But how could he, knowing that he once held that body to his heart?

“I couldn’t,” he struggled to spit out, “I wouldn’t be able to. How could I, Aubree?”

When I can barely even keep myself from sinking my teeth into you...

“And that’s how I feel about you guys killing Dan,” she said.

Like that, his beast snapped.

Snarling, Stone thrust the car door open and stormed into the woods.

Images of the first time he saw her filled his head. Holding Dan’s hand down the street to the café, laughing with him, scowling at him, smiling at him, her eyes gazing at him like he was her world and it would always be the two of them in it.

She would always love him, somehow, someway—even now as the enemy.

Even though Stone was bound to destroy him.

“Stone!” She slammed the car door and he could hear her feet running across the soft grass to catch up to him.

Fur pushed against his skin, breaking through the surface, as he yelled back at her. “Get in the house, Aubree!”

His voice already sounded rough and garbled as his body proceeded to shift into his beast. A sharp pain cut through his skull as his jaw and nasal cavity elongated, pulling back his lips, and pushing his eyes farther apart. His ligaments stretched apart as his bones shifted and snapped into place.

Tearing his clothes from his body, he quickly completed the transformation before taking off on four legs despite Aubree’s shouts two dozen yards behind him.

Her hands on his chest, her lips on his, her tightness around his fingers...

The memories ripped through him as he tore himself away from her in the car because, at that moment, he wanted nothing more than to rip her clothes off, sink his canines into her soft flesh, and take her from behind until she howled in pleasure.

He was no better than Dan. The beast within wanted to claim Aubree, and while he had managed to hold back the primal urge thus far, how long could he maintain it?

As Aubree’s soulmate, it was his right to mark her, to claim her, to unite their bodies and souls—but because Aubree was human, he could not.

He’d never be able to give her the life she deserved. The family she deserved. Why couldn’t he stay away and let her be? Why did he have to pursue her? She gave up everything to be with him and protect Dan, and it was all for nothing.

About to push himself faster, deeper into the forest, farther away from Aubree, he picked up on Gavin’s pounding paws as he raced toward him on his left. Gavin’s presence pressed against his mental barrier, but he pushed him out. Turning to his right, he growled in warning to Gavin to back off and leave him alone.

Sprinting as fast as he could, Gavin charged at him and rammed his head into Stone’s hip.

They collided against the trunk of a hundred-year-old tree. With the force of the impact, the truck cracked, as did a few of Stone’s bones as his entire torso smacked hard against it. Collapsing to the earth, the wind knocked out of them, it took them both a second to recover from the blow and rise up on shaky paws.

Snarling, Stone opened his mind to allow Gavin entry. [Dammit, Gawain! Back off!]

Stepping back, Gavin bared his teeth and flattened his ears after shaking his head. [I’ll back off when you get your shit straight and stop running away from her!]

Gritting his teeth, Stone straightened up on his hind legs and twisted, snapping the rapidly healing bones back into place. [Make sure she gets home safely.]

Gavin barked in protest.

Stone growled as he lowered himself back down on all fours and turned away from him. [I have vampires to kill.]

A sharp pain tore up his spine as Gavin’s teeth sank into his tail. Whirling around, he snapped his jaws close to Gavin’s ears—a warning to back off—as Gavin released him.

[You have a soulmate who needs you more than slaughtering a few fucking vampires!] Gavin fired back, his lips curling back to expose his teeth.

Fur bristling, Stone snarled as he rose back up on his hind legs. He’d always been larger than Gavin, and the instinctual motion to make oneself look bigger in a display of dominance took over at Gavin’s refusal to submit.

[I am doing this for her! To end this fucking war so she can live with us without fear!]

[Really?] Gavin demanded. [Because the way I see it, you’re running away, just like you’ve been running away from her since the moment we found her!]

Stone growled, but Gavin snarled right back. [Admit it! You’re scared! You’re so fucking scared and you can’t face it—you won’t face it!]

Gavin took two steps forward, lowering his head, and exposing his canines. [Open up your damn heart! She’s ready and waiting for you to show yourself!]

Aubree’s voice flitted through the forest, making the hairs on the back of Stone’s neck stand on end. Her voice lured him like a siren’s song, but he remained rooted to the earth, unable to move forward or back.

As her voice continued to call out to him, her footsteps drawing nearer, he hunched forward and leaned against the cracked tree trunk for support. His energy spent. Both his fight and flight instincts abandoned him, rendering him weak and incapable of arguing with Gavin about it anymore.

He knew Gavin was right, but what hope did he have that Aubree would accept him—all of him? He was more than a man; he was a beast. They all were. They slaughtered vampires for fun, treated it like a game, and only became more ruthless when those vampires managed to escape and kill someone they cared about—a soulmate, a pup, a friend.

Stone craved Carina’s blood on his hands more than anyone else’s, and knowing that Carina was after Aubree, only made him more desperate to kill her. Carina kept slipping through his clutches and now the soulless leech destroyed the one thing Aubree wanted to protect.

[I failed her. Don’t you see that?] His heart constricted. [I ruined her life.]

“Dammit, Stone!” Aubree shouted, still a hundred yards away and marching through the undergrowth in determination, twigs snapping and cracking under her feet. “This isn’t funny!”

[Her life is just beginning, and she chose to spend it with you!] Gavin snapped. [Stop fucking this up!]

Stone stared at his claw-like hand against the tree trunk before curling his fingers into a fist, his long nails piercing into his tough, leathery palm. [She’ll never accept us for who we are and what we do.]

[You don’t know that for sure.]

Gavin withdrew, leaving Stone alone with his thoughts consuming him, and the intensifying pull toward the one soul that had loved him for eternity.