Chapter 25

ZACH

Watching Stella climb up the hill gave Zach an excellent chance to watch her perfect ass and strong arms in action. It was entirely distracting, but that was okay because he had no fucking idea why he was there.

Other than because she’d asked.

He’d follow her into hell if she’d wanted.

When she reached the ridge above she stood, looking back, and waved him up.

She wasn’t wrong; a Brioni suit was not the optimal outfit to be wearing for this part of the occasion, but he wasn’t going to let it hold him back. He climbed up the path she had taken, feeling rocks and dirt claw at the suit’s fine fabric, ignoring that and the chunks of leather the sheer climb was taking out of his Santoni shoes’ soles.

Up at the top, she offered him her hand, but he didn’t take it, choosing to stand upright alone and dust himself off.

“Not bad, considering,” she said with a grin.

He couldn’t help but grin back. “After you,” he said, gesturing her grandly on.

Occasionally she’d stop and he’d stop beside her, listening to her whistle, and about a mile in—under bright sun, he’d gone ahead and taken off his suit jacket to cool off—he heard a whistle back. Stella put her hand out, Zach stopped, and a figure-wearing camo emerged from the woods. He stomped up, and Zach saw the holstered gun on him, and a walkie-talkie velcroed to his vest.

The other man stopped in front of them like an old-time sheriff and set his hand on the butt of his gun. “You said ‘friend,’ not Wind Racer.”

Stella stood in front of Zach, keeping him safe, he realized. Too bad she was so short the man still could’ve easily clipped his heart. “Maddox wants to see him,” she said.

“Alive, or dead? Because we can arrange the latter, right here.”

Zach backed up a bit and spun, with his hands up. With his suit jacket off, it was clear he was without weapons. “Do you want to shoot an unarmed man?”

The Starry Sky lookout frowned. “Would you be so dumb as to come up here unarmed?”

Zach shrugged casually. “What can I say? I’m a trusting sort.”

“Or a well-dressed idiot,” Stella corrected him, giving his outfit aance over, before returning her attention to her packmate. “But either way, it’s Maddox’s rules. So let us through.”

The guard who’d come out of the woods grumbled, but then disappeared back into them, as Stella glanced back. “Be prepared to do that twenty more times, okay? And don’t let them rile you.” “Understood,” Zach said, loosening his tie.

STELLA DIDN’T TALK to him on his way in, and he took his cues on that from her—she seemed too busy scanning the horizon and making occasional small whistles to have time for conversation.

But he knew they were being watched. He was fairly sure the man who’d stepped out of the trees earlier was following behind them, and his wolf could feel many other sets of eyes watching, no matter how desolate the trails they were walking on seemed to be.

In half an hour they were on the outskirts of some kind of compound, and Zach looked around. The buildings were a peculiar combination of well-cared-for and decrepit—like he got the impression that every single board on every single one of them had been replaced more than once.

“Smile and act normal,” Stella whispered as they got near.

“Oh, you mean like there haven’t been hillbilly werewolves with assault rifles pointed at me this whole time?” he asked her through his teeth.

She whipped her head back to glare. “You’re the first outsider some of these people will have ever seen. You said you wanted to make a good impression.”

He blinked. He didn’t personally understand the stakes, but whatever was happening now was of vital importance to Stella. “Absolutely,” he promised.

She nodded curtly and turned around, taking him over to a building on the far right that had a deck outside. The way the windows and doors were situated in its frame gave it a saloon-like quality like it was from an old Western.

“Maddox!” she announced, “He’s here! I brought him for you!”

Zach followed her in and almost ran into her stopped form. There was a wall of aggrieved-looking werewolves in front of them—and he had a feeling that these were the warwolves Stella’d told him of prior. They were all heavily muscled and heavily armed, men and women alike, and Zach noticed that Stella had gone utterly stuck still.

A distant and cool part of his mind realized that he was in grave danger, but it didn’t worry him.

Not when he was with her.

“We’re not just going to let him see Maddox without checking him out,” the man at their forefront announced, a man with an ominous scar over one eye

“I already did,” Stella said, without moving.

The leader’s look at Stella let Zach know what he thought of that.

Zach inhaled deeply and slowly began taking off the coat he’d just put back on.

“What’re you doing, Wind Racer?” the leader demanded, and Zach became the target of his weapons.

“Taking off my coat. To make it easier for you to pat me down, because I assume that’s what’s coming next.” Zach tossed his coat over to the dresser on his right-hand side, then eyed the man. “Just how personal are we getting here? Should I take off my belt?” he taunted.

The leader jerked his chin, and two of the warwolves broke free, stepping past Stella to clap their meaty hands all over his Armani silk dress shirt. They felt down his legs every bit as aggressively and went so far as to dig their fingers around the edges of his shoes.

“Well, now I can cancel my weekly massage,” Zach said, as they stepped back, and Stella looked over her shoulder to glare at him. He pinched his lips together in a line, wishing he hadn’t spoken.

“We’re going to be right here—right outside. If anything happens to Maddox,” the leader said in a growl, staring Stella down.

“Nothing will. I swear.”

“Your promises are no good here,” the leader snarled, but the warwolves stepped aside, revealing a dim hallway back.