Page 70 of My Bad Boy Alpha

I lunged at him again, chomping away at his dark magic as Zuri fought him head-on, the brightness from her wolf shining through the darknessandbrighter than the fire around us.She moved like a ball of light.

The force of my second attack pushed Derrit back several feet across the forest floor and toward the edge of the fire’s ring.I sprinted at him again as the fire licked my paws, and suddenly, my fur ignited in flames.While it would’ve seared off the fur and melted the skin of any other wolf, the demon inside me only made me stronger.

After seizing his dark mist between my teeth again, I slammed it into the ground.A shock wave traveled up the darkness and to his body, banging his entire body into the ground once more, his bones cracking from the impact.

Flames popped.Forests burned.And ashes created a heavy fog that sat across the battlefield.The closer I approached Derrit, the quieter my surroundings were, until the wolves’ howls became muffled, and the hum of fire seemed to be the only thing bringing me back down to Durnbone.

Derrit groaned and pulled all the black mist back into his body, his dulling eyes refilling with energy once more.Another low growl escaped my throat, and I lurched at him again, this time sinking my canines into his thigh and ripping out a chunk of his flesh.

When I attempted to bite him a second time, he dodged my attack and jumped to his feet.The wound healed almost instantly, the darkness filling the once-empty space where his muscle had been.

“Very well done, little brother,” he hummed.“Much stronger than last time.”

In my wolf form, I snarled at him and lowered into an offensive position.The thunderous collapse of a tree suddenly snapped me back into reality, where noises weren’t muffled anymore, and I could hear the screams of my packmates all around us.

Derrit’s body suddenly disappeared and then reappeared behind Zuri in a half-man, half-wolf form.Darkness swirled around him, and he seized my mate, one hand on her neck, the other on her belly, his claws digging into her flesh.

“This is what you deserve, Stone,” Derrit roared.“You’ve always been so prideful to be on your own, so fucking excited to have a family that wasn’t like me or Dad.And now … you’ll never have that.I’ll make sure of it,brother.”

Before I could stop him, he ripped his claws right into Zuri’s belly.Blood spewed out of her stomach, her intestines falling out and onto the ground.He pulled his hand back and dropped her womb with the smallest of pups inside it.

My mind emptied as I stared at her pup—our pup—lying in a puddle of Zuri’s blood on the ground, its small body barely the size of a coin and curled up in a ball.Heart dropping, I stared at the baby and fell to my knees.

No.

No.This can’t be happening.

“Your line ends here.”Derrit laughed.“Now, she’ll never be able to bear you pups.And if she can’t bear your pups, then she’s worthless to you.To your pack.And to any other man in existence.Zuri is as good as a dead woman.”

CHAPTERFORTY-SIX

ZURI

Stone shiftedand fell to the ground, screaming my name and grasping some woman’s intestines scattered across the dirt.A blood-soaked acorn lay in his palm as heartbreaking howls escaped his throat repeatedly.

I stared in horror across the forest, his pain rushing through my chest.Derrit must’ve … used his magic to make Stone see something.Something so bad that it forced Stone to break into a hundred little pieces.

“Zuri!”Stone screamed, crawling closer toward the woman who Derrit had just killed.The ring of fire around Stone slowly burned out until he lay in the middle of a brittle, blackened battlefield as his warriors died for us.“Zuri!Come back to me!”

As if he were some sort of god, Derrit smirked down at my mate.

How dare he!Pain, agony, and fury flooded through my system, some of Stone’s but mostly my own.I will kill Derrit for whatever he has done to him!

The man who I had once feared lay in a puddle of blood, clutching a corpse because he thought it was me.And what did the acorn symbolize?I didn’t have time to figure it out.I refused to let Derrit lay a finger on him.

He might’ve been able to seep into Stone’s mind.But he couldn’t get to me.

I transformed and ran toward Stone, ignoring the sharp thorns and branches that impaled into my skin.My heart beat in my damn ears, my dry throat closing.I needed to get him to safety before he really died in the hands of this devil.

“Stone!”I shouted, but he continued to hold the woman and sob my name.

“I couldn’t save her,” he cried when I reached him.“I couldn’t save my mate or our pup!”

Tears burned my eyes, and I pulled him behind me.His pain and sorrow cut through me like a jagged dagger.But underneath all of it, my anger blazed like a fucking wildfire, reigniting the flames that had once burned the forest to ashes.

The acorn … Derrit must’ve made Stone think he had killed our baby.My heart raced at the thought, and I placed my free hand on my belly, feeling the slightest of heartbeats within it.Derrit knew that we were trying to get pregnant, and he had used it against Stone.

He had broken him down over the past few weeks, but I was stronger than ever.

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