Chapter 20
Zach slouched into the seat, rubbing at his temples with his fingers, eyes closed. “I didn’t expect you to.”
“What—what the fuck was any of that?” she asked him, her voice rising in shock and more than a little bit of horror.
“Me, getting you exactly what you wanted, I thought.” His eyes opened again, and they were his icy blue, instead of the Beast’s green.
She realized he’d typed up that document when they’d been at his penthouse before they’d even come here. “How did you know?”
“I’ve interacted with Larios and his son socially for years. I knew they never got along. The rest was a shit-ton of bluffing, and you’re welcome Little Star.”
Stella frowned at him. Familiarity was not a feeling she could afford. “Don’t call me that.”
He nodded and shrugged. “Can I ask what it is? Or would that get me shot?”
“I wouldn’t tell you, even if I could, which I couldn’t.” She reached up her shirt and shoved her gun back into its elastic holster. “I honestly have no idea.”
“Your leader sent you into a stranger’s house to look for something without telling you what it was? Some alpha he—or she—is,” Zach said and then blinked. “Wait, if you don’t know what it is, how do you know it’s the right whatever-the-fuck you were supposed to be stealing?”
The answer was: that she didn’t. Not all the way. She only thought she had.
She knew she shouldn’t check, not in front of him at least, but—fuck it
—none of this mission had gone to plan. She unfurled enough of the map so that she could see the markings on its edge again and then shimmied her skirt up, to where they could both see a constellation pattern tattooed on her outer thigh. It was Remi’s star sign, the one Maddox had assigned him at birth, a made-up constellation just for him.
Zach inspected her leg with a soft intake of breath. “I don’t recognize that one.”
“You wouldn’t,” she said. She’d shown him pictures of her brother’s body—what the Hunters had left of it—once upon a time, but she’d never explained the significance of any of her tattoos. He hadn’t asked, and she hadn’t felt like telling. She is full-body shrugged. “It’s a pack thing.”
When she looked up again, Zach was taking off his suit jacket, undoing his tie, and unbuttoning his dress shirt. She gasped, then growled, and started reaching for her gun again. “I told you not to get ideas—you didn’t buy me.”
“No, of course not,” he said, holding his shirt open like he was revealing he was Superman. The pale skin over his muscular chest was covered in tattoos, in precise lines, like hieroglyphs. “They’re names. Of Wind Racers who’ve died. Some who I knew personally, and some who I only knew stories about, from my mother—it just seemed important that someone remember them at the time. You didn’t get to see it,” he said, then his voice faded, remembering the circumstances of when they’d last been naked around each other. “Because I was the Beast, and he doesn’t have tattoos.”
Stella nodded, slowly, and watched him button his shirt back up. He had far more on him than she did, she realized.
Or maybe Wind Racers just had longer names. Her lips twisted to the side, not sure how to feel.
“In any case,” he said, rocking back again, his hands fastening his top button, “are we returning to my penthouse for your things?”
She squinted through the tinted windows and recognized their thoroughfare. “No. You can drop me off here. I can make my way home no problem.”
He grunted and pulled out his phone, apparently to reprogram the car, because shortly thereafter it pulled over. “And the munitions that you left behind?” he inquired, as she set her hand on her door’s handle.
Stella looked back at him. He’d just gone above and beyond for her and her pack. And what was more, he also seemed to know about loss. More than she’d assumed his billion-dollar ass could’ve just hours ago. “I’ll get them from you. Later.” She stepped out of the car and looked back inside.
“Don’t go giving them away to other girls.”
He licked his lips and smiled. “I wouldn’t dare.”