Chapter 26

ZACH FOLLOWED STELLA IN, wondering if this was how militarized Starry Sky had always been. The Wind Racers were coordinated, but Zach couldn’t remember anything on this level from his youth.

Stella stood outside an open door, kicked her shoes off, and indicated that Zach should do the same. He toed his dress shoes off and followed her in, in socks, to the bedside of what was the oldest living werewolf Zach had ever seen.

As he anxiously waited for the werewolf’s chest to rise, he realized he wasn’t so sure about the “living” part.

“I’m here, Maddox,” Stella said, falling to kneel beside the bed, taking the old wolf’s hand in hers. The old wolf’s other hand was on the map they’d procured him, curled up atop the bed. “And I brought Zachariah, the Wind Racer, with me. Like you asked.”

Her words seemed to summon the wolf up from wherever he was—on the precipice of death? Zach idly wondered—and returned him to his body. He took a large breath and his brown eyes opened, beaming intelligently at Zach, like they possessed all the strength his body had left.

“Wind Racer,” the man said, slowly, as his lips pulled into a greedy smile. “I’ve been so looking forward to meeting you.”

“If I claimed the same, I would be lying,” Zach said, and the older wolf chuckled.

Zach maintained a casual distance from the bed. If Stella’s pack leader went and died in front of him, as it looked at any moment he might, he didn’t want to be blamed for it.

“And that’s entirely fair, given our two packs’ histories,” the elderly werewolf went on. “But you are here now, aren’t you?” Stella’s pack leader pushed himself higher in bed on his elbows. “And I know you’ve helped our Stella, more than once.”

“With no regrets,” Zach said. “Or strings attached,” he added, remembering Stella’s comments earlier in the day. Hopefully, she realized seventeen million dollars might as well be Monopoly money to men like the Beast.

“Are you prepared to help her more, should she need it?”

“Always,” Zach spoke without hesitation—and over the sound of Stella’s sharp intake of breath. She glanced over at him and he couldn’t read her expression fully—he only knew that she hadn’t expected her packleader to ask that.

“Then I request you to accompany her on a mission, that is of vital importance to our pack.”

Our pack? Suddenly all the Wind Racer tattoos inked on his chest burned. “Your pack,” Zach corrected him with a snarl.

“Forgive me,” the older wolf said, with a harsh chuckle, that fell into a coughing fit. And even though Zach couldn’t see any of the warwolves lingering outside, he knew they were there nonetheless, and if they didn’t hear this old one speak again soon, they’d burst in and he would likely die.

When the old man had caught his breath, he nodded solemnly. “It is a mission for my pack’s benefit and my pack alone. But you have certain skills and access we lack, Wind Racer. Starry Skies do not always blend in well with the outside world—and some of us avoid it at all costs.” His words were slow and deliberate. His eyes narrowed on Zach, as Zach stared unflappably back. “Can you see past your pack’s tragic history to help?”

Zach blinked in disbelief. “You mean the tragic history that your pack caused?”

He could hear the beginnings of a growl in the hallway behind him and realized that if Austin were here, he’d already have shot someone.

But then Stella turned to look at him, her wide blue eyes asking for his help, even as her full red lips threatened to tilt her pout into a frown. Zach took a deep inhale. “I’m not saying yes, but if I did, what is it that you would like me to do?”

The older wolf held the scrolled map up like it was an instruction manual. “The Starry Sky pack is ancient—far older than you would ever believe. We have lost some items valuable to us in our time, and my magics are telling me that I need to retrieve one of them before I may pass on.” He reached beneath a pillow on the bed beside him and pulled out a zippered filing bag, opening it with tremorous hands, then started going through the contents. “I need you and Stella to go to a meeting for me. I’ve already arranged passage and go-betweens.”

Zach felt his eyebrows, already high, arch even further. “And… do?”

“What I ask. Everything you need to know is in here,” the elderly wolf said while working his hands through the papers in the bag.

Zach took a step nearer the old wolf’s bed. “You mean like under the same circumstances that Stella was supposed to ‘do’ things last night?” All of his hackles were raised, and he could hear the growls of others in the hall behind him, but he didn’t give a shit. “You may be willing to use her like a tool, old man, but I—”

Stella reached back and punched him high on his thigh, full force, which shut him up—even as her pack leader started laughing.

“The next punch will be six inches up and over,” she warned, briefly eyeing his crotch.

“Now, now,” her pack leader said, waving his stick-like fingers in the air.

“Everything went according to plan.” “You think?” Zach challenged him.

“No,” the older wolf said calmly. “I know.”

Zach squinted at the figure in the bed, breathing hard at the thought of any threat to Stella, trying to calm down and not react.

There was no way this old wolf believed what he said he did—Zach knew all about bluffing—it was bullshit.

Because believing that her pack leader had had even the slightest fucking hint of a plan, after everything that’d happened last night and this morning, would mean for him to believe that he had no free will, which he knew he very much did.

Except where Stella was concerned, perhaps.

The pack leader ruffled his hand through Stella’s hair and then returned his gaze to Zach. “Stop fighting, Wind Racer. Say yes, like you know you want to.”

Zach felt an unbidden growl tickle the back of his throat. He honestly wasn’t sure what it was about anymore: irritation at the fact that the Starry Sky pack leader already knew his answer or the adoring way that Stella looked at the older man.

It would almost be worth dying, too, to have her look at him like that.

“Fine,” Zach snarled. “Where is it that you want us to go?”

“To London. You two can take the first flight there, tomorrow.”

Zach blinked. He hadn’t expected that. “Or I can take us on my private jet tonight.”

Her packleader grinned. “That works as well.” He reached into the bag on his lap and pulled out two pieces of paper, tearing them up. “You won’t be needing these tickets, then.”

Tickets? That he’d purchased, even before he knew Zach would agree?

Unlikely.