Page 52 of Rejected Mate's Baby for the Alpha King

I frowned. “It’s personal.”

“Not here, it’s not. If you want to see our witch, you need to give a damn good reason why.” Still completely at ease, she continued to eat her cereal. “Is it about the baby?”

Immediately, my hand went to my belly. “My baby is fine.”

“That’s good, cause she does not do babies. Love potion? I hear you and your man are on the fritz.”

I was really starting to dislike her. “He is not my man.”

“Kenzi, is that my cereal? You bitch, I get that special ordered!” Anna snapped as she walked in. “It’s the only thing that doesn’t make me throw up in the morning.”

A thought occurred to me, and I turned to her and gave her a sunny smile. “Good morning.”

“Morning,” she said warily. “I know you didn’t get enough sleep to be this sunny in the morning.”

“I was just explaining to your third here that I would like to visit your witch, and it’s for a very personal reason that I don’t wish to explain to a stranger.”

She raised her eyebrow. “Unless you’re hiding your connection to our witch, she’s going to be a stranger to you as well.”

“Yes, but it’s like a doctor. She might be able to help me, whereas you will just judge me for it. I’ll willing to pay you.”

“That’s nice, but I don’t need money.”

“I’m not going to pay you in money.” Duke made a strange noise behind me, and I whacked his arm. “One of the things that I received from the…fae, I guess…community is a tonic that eases morning sickness. I haven’t been having that particular issue, but it seems you are. Let me speak to your witch, and the tonic is yours.”

“Done,” Anna said immediately. Kenzi growled, but Anna glared at her. “What? Irene can take care of herself, and you keep eating my special cereal. Besides, if I can have Saul reverse-engineer the tonic, I will be so happy. I’ll take you to Irene myself.”

That was much easier than expected.

“But you’ll have to leave him here.”

Oh, damn. Duke immediately stepped forward, but I grabbed his arm. “How far is it to your witch?”

“Fifteen-minute walk. Depending on what you need from Irene, we’ll be back in an hour.”

“Why do you need her alone?” Duke asked. “If you’re hoping to use her as bait, she is not Rhyson’s mate.”

“She’s not bait, even if she was his mate. I want to chat with her, future mama to future mama. Besides, I’m sure you’d rather have Kenzi give you a tour of our pack while Jax and Rhyson meet so Rhyson can grill you on everything you saw and heard later, isn’t that correct?”

Duke hesitated and looked at me. He knew that my wolf could hold her own, but he also had orders from his king. “It’ll be nice to chat with someone who is also pregnant,” I told him. “Make sure some of the weird things I’m feeling are normal.”

“We have Tessa for that,” he growled.

“It’s not the same.”

“Here.” Kenzi opened a drawer with her foot and smiled at Duke. “Radio. Your little pregnant wolf can have one and you can have one. She’ll let you know if she’s in distress.”

I knew there were phones on this mountain. I’d seen quite a few wolves with them, but maybe coverage was spotty. Whatever the case, walkie-talkies were very popular. Duke walked to the drawer, deliberately letting his fingers skim Kenzi’s bare leg before he grabbed a radio and handed it to me. I tried not to roll my eyes. It was clear Kenzi was trying to distract Duke, and I thought I knew Duke well enough to think he was just playing along.

But hell, maybe he was just thinking with his dick.

“I’ll feed you before we head out. You two can eat at the witch’s,” Kenzi said dismissively. Anna muttered something under her breath, but I didn’t quite catch it. It wasn’t until we were outside that I was brave enough to speak.

“You’re her alpha-mate, aren’t you?” I asked.

“Oh, when it comes to it, Kenzi will always follow me,” Anna said with a laugh. “But there was a time when we were ready to kill each other. She still likes to remind me of the time we weren’t friends. For her, those are fond memories.”

“Weird.”

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