Chapter 25

Piper

Despite the wonderful—soul consuming—blissful place Zander took me only an hour before, you wouldn"t have known it by the look on his face. There was a tightness in his shoulders that wasn"t there before. A deep sorrow rested in the midst of his eyes.

Even when he smiled to hide it, I knew.

Which was strange since I hadn"t known him very long. How much could you really know a person in a week?

But I knew.

I felt it deep in my bones.

Zander was sad.

He sat down in his usual chair, absently looking at the food in front of us. Vivian set the bread to go with our pasta salad on the opposite end of the table and took her seat. "Is William coming, Sir?"

Zander"s gaze lingered on his plate with no answer.

Vivian looked nervously at me. "Is everything okay?" she asked again.

Nothing.

Slowly, not to startle him, I reached over and touched the top of his hand. His gaze turned to mine. "Are you okay?" I asked.

"Yes," he said. "I"m fine. Why do you ask?"

I looked at Vivian. "Vivian asked you a question ... or two."

"I"m sorry Vivian," he said, reaching to make his plate. "What is it?"

Vivian looked worried for a brief moment. "Is William joining us?"

A dark cloud flickered across his features but disappeared as quickly as it appeared. "No."

Well then. William must have pissed him off. Way to go, William. I was enjoying the crash after a mind-blowing orgasm, and you stuck a knife into the heart of my fantasy.

I"d planned to make sexy eyes at him across the table, maybe play a little seventh-grade footsie.

Instead of stewing in my self-pity, I ate my pasta salad in hopes that someone would strike up a conversation. "How about that weather?" I asked over a mouthful of food.

Zander glared intently at me and I realized he wouldn"t know about the weather since he couldn"t go outside. Not that I was allowed out either.

Just stop talking ...

Vivian cleared her throat. "Some of the pack members reached out to me yesterday, and wanted to know if it would be okay to come visit?"

The fork in Zander"s hand clanked against his plate, rattling loudly into the air. "Why do they want to visit all of the sudden?" he asked, inclining his head.

Vivian"s cheeks turned red. "They want to meet ..." she trailed off.

Did they want to meet me? I stopped, my mouth open from my attempted bite. A piece of food fell to my plate from my fork. "Not yet," Zander said under his breath.

Vivian nodded quickly, stuffing her face so no one expected an answer. The silence lingered over the room, making me uncomfortable. "Zander, can I speak to you alone, please?"

Vivian kept her head down, avoiding the heat I felt rising in my voice. Zander gave me a look that I couldn"t decipher. I didn"t wait around for him to argue. I pushed the swinging kitchen door opened and rounded the corner of the hallway for more privacy.

Vivian already admitted that she eavesdropped on us. I hoped she didn"t pry into my bedroom earlier. That would be one embarrassing painting.

Zander leisurely walked around the corner and stopped a few inches from me. His scent doused me in all its goodness, forming liquid fire in my stomach. His full mouth drew my attention, and all of the things he did with his tongue resurfaced.

Get it together.

"Did you call me here to fantasize without an audience?" he asked with a smug smile.

"No," I said, folding my arms across my chest. "You"re sad. I feel it. I want to know why? You were fine in the shower."

Zander stared intently at my face as if I"d told him something his brain couldn't grasp. "You feel that I"m sad?"

"I—I guess I do." I bit the corner of my lip. "So why?" I asked, stepping forward, putting myself in the danger zone. "Did William admit he killed your puppy when you were kids?"

Zander slid his tongue across his teeth. "I don"t want to talk about William, Piper—,"

"Then tell me what you want to talk about. Tell me why you"re mood went from eating me like candy to taking a shower, to this," I said, gesturing toward his doom-and-gloom. "You"re brooding, and it"s not like you."

Zander"s gaze flashed that warm honey color, one arm pressed against the wall beside my head; the other captured a loose strand of my hair. "You"re worried about me?" he asked. "Is it because you"re thinking about my head in between your legs—,"

"It"s because I don"t like you being sad," I admitted.

When had that happened?

I was too high off his scent to care.

"Tell me," I pushed.

Zander closed his eyes. "You shouldn"t be the one worried, Little One. I"m the one with everything to lose." His mouth opened as if he planned to admit something important to me, but he clamped it shut.

A closed book.

I slid my palm against his forearm that rested beside my head, my fingertips traveling the length of the veins when movement caught my attention. A petal from the rose on his forearm faded right in front of my eyes.

Zander followed my line of sight, and dropped his arm, pulling down the sleeve of his t-shirt. He was right. He had everything to lose. His soul. His person. "Does that scare you?" I asked.

Anger pulled at the edges of his face, sculpting his heavy jaw and high cheekbones. "More than I would like to admit."

"Is there something you wanted to tell me?" I asked. "It looked like you wanted to tell me something."

Zander decided not to answer. "I had more books ordered for you. They"re in the library if you"re ready for more. I"ll be in the kitchen."

He stalked out of the hallway, his hulking frame determined to get away from me. His absence left me cold. I didn"t like it.

Zander was oddly absent the rest of the day, and so was William. Vivian assured me everything was fine as we ate dinner together—alone. However, I didn"t like it.

When the sunset and I hadn"t heard from them, I found myself standing awkwardly outside of Zander"s door. I"d spent two nights in his bed, sleeping next to the beast.

It"d been the best sleep I"d had in over a week. Which was how long I"d been there. It"d started to bleed together like watercolors on a canvas. I lifted my hand to knock when I felt someone on the back of my neck.

I twirled around quickly.

Coming face-to-face with no one.

The air chilled me to the bone. Someone watched me. I pushed open Zander"s door, and to my surprise, the beast stared back at me. He"d already shifted and hadn"t made a sound.

Those ghoulish yellow eyes blinked from under a heavy brow. Stepping into the room, that same chill raced up my spine. I refused to acknowledge any ghostly urges that played in my head.

At one time I didn"t believe in ghosts, but since getting lost, and landing myself a permanent residence here, my perception had changed. The beast watched as I closed the door, and made myself comfortable next to him.

"You"re quiet tonight," I mumbled, wiggling my toes against the hardwood. "So was Zander today. I missed him."

The beast kept quiet until I looked at him, and I saw Zander"s face resting in his features. Or maybe I imagined it. Sitting on my knees, I scratched my fingertips into his fur.

Like the first night he found me, Zander fought his wolf for dominance, but the beast beat him, shoving him back into his spot for the night. I smiled. "I"ll be here tomorrow," I said softly.

Grabbing a blanket from the edge of the bed and Zander"s pillow, I curled up beside him. He watched me intently, the dominant growl in his chest rattled my own. Maybe he felt the chill hanging out in the room.

Or maybe I"d fallen further into wonderland than expected.

The moon hung high and bright in the summer sky. A blanket of clouds covered the sky, but the moon stood out like a nightlight in my nightmare sprinkled dream.

This was a nightmare. There was something about the fog, and the heaviness around me that told me so. The field in front of me was new, along with the broken fence post and the hills in the distance.

The wind howled, sending my hair into a tornado around my head. Chills brushed my skin and peeked my nipples against my bra. "Hello?" I asked.

When only the cicadas and wind answered, I cursed myself. Why would I call trouble to me? It"d be better to find a tree to sit under and hide until I woke up.

Trudging through the tall weeds, I stopped underneath a magnolia tree with low-hanging branches and huge plate-sized leaves.

This will do ...

Then I heard the thumping. It reminded me of Jumanji, and I prayed a board game from Hell wasn"t at the other end of that heavy drumbeat. Being the stereotype I was, I followed the sound into the woods, through the brush and blanket of dead leaves beneath me.

The trees slowly died off, and I crouched down behind an oak when I noticed smoke billowing from a fire pit. My fingers curled around the bark of the tree while laughter and voices reached my ears.

Someone spoke loudly, the drums stopped, and even the crickets quit singing. The way the forest went silent sent the hairs on my body to a standstill. The voice was female, and in a different tongue, so I didn"t try to understand.

When she stopped speaking, I gathered the guts to move closer to the tree line, behind another big oak. The closer I got, the more I wished I had stayed in that stupid field.

In the midst of the circle they"d created with rocks, was a makeshift cross, and someone hung from it. His arms were tied around the horizontal board above his head, leaving him with his back exposed to everyone.

A quick whipping sound pierced through the air, and I stumbled backward against the forest floor. His roar was familiar, and the sound of my heartbeat drowned out the next hit, but I knew before I looked again who was tied to that post.

Silently, I stood and took a courageous look. It was a dream.

A nightmare. What could happen?

The voodoo queen standing in the place of the tree line stole the breath from my lungs.

"Byenveni nan lanfé piti."

I didn"t know that language, but at that moment I knew what it meant.

Welcome to Hell, Little One.