Page 17 of Betrayed Pregnant Mate

“What’s the other option?”

“The other option is that the pathogen is strong, and your body needs more of whatever Veronica has—whether that’s antigens or something else—and we’re going to need an aggressive treatment plan.”

“Aggressive treatment plan,” I parrot, looking between the two of them.

“She means that if you start to feel the symptoms of this again, you’re going to need another blood transfusion. Quickly.”

Maisie chews on the inside of her thumb, glancing between the two of us.

“That either means that you need to spend every waking moment in this clinic,” she says, “or—”

“No,” Veronica says, getting to her feet and shaking her head. “Absolutely not. This whole thing has already been way too much.”

“What are the two of you talking about?” I ask, wondering why Veronica is so up in arms. Without taking her eyes off of Veronica, Maisie continues.

“If Veronica just stays near you, she can do the direct transfusion herself.”

Stays near me. It sounds perfect and amazing; it's all I’ve ever wanted. It also sounds like a nightmare. I wonder how I could possibly manage if she was near me all the time.

“She doesn’t have to,” I start to say, thinking that I’ll just let the venom end me and be done with the whole thing, until I remember that if I die, she dies, too.

“Wow, thank you,” Veronica snaps, all friendliness from earlier gone. Apparently, the idea of needing to be around me sounds horrific to her. “I didn’t realize you respected consent now.”

“I’m sorry,” I say, lowering my eyes. “I don’t know if I ever got the chance to say that to you, but I am.”

“Sorry, it is not very helpful compared to what happened to me, Percy.”

“I know that.”

“Do you?”

“I don’t even remember it, Veronica,” I say, feeling a tear slip down my cheek. Maisie is looking between us, a question in the quirk of her eyebrow. “There are very few things I remember from that time.”

“Oh, and I’m not one of them.”

“I was sick,” I say, balling my hands into fists. “I know that when you look into my face, all you see is the face of a monster. But that monster was wearing my body once it got inside me, and I wish, more than anything in the world, that I had been able to stop it from doing the things it did while wearing my face.”

I stand up from the table, even though I feel like shit, and stalk out of the room, even as Maisie and Veronica call after me.

Chapter 9 - Veronica

I try to go after Percy, but Maisie reaches out, catching my arm and pulling me back.

“Just give him some room,” she murmurs. “We can go and find him in a second. Besides, I need to do this.”

She picked up the syringe from the tray, and I glanced at it curiously. Do I trust her enough to let her stick me with this mysterious substance that she apparently just made herself?

“I took some of Percy’s DNA and information from the computer,” she says, a little self-satisfied smirk on her face. “Used some of the scent erasure process, reversing some parts to create this,” she flicks the needle before plunging it into my arm, “which should, theoretically, change your scent to that of a shifter and also show Percy’s scent on you.”

“Great,” I mutter, biting my lip as she pushes it into my body. I don’t feel a thing, but twenty minutes later, Maisie insists that I smell like the real thing. She looks really pleased with herself.

“Let me know if you have any symptoms,” she says, snapping off her gloves and dropping them in the trash. “I’ll probably need to give you that shot once a week to keep the scent right, but I’ll keep an eye on it and adjust the potency if I can.”

“Sounds good,” I say, giving her a thumbs-up in the absence of knowing what to say to a statement like that. According to her, I now “smell” like a werewolf, whatever that means. When I turn to leave the room, thinking it might be a good idea to go after Percy, she pulls me back.

“Listen,” she says, lowering her voice, “it’s going to take a bit of gaslighting to get the others to believe this. You’re going to have to lie about shifting for the first time here, and Percy and I will back it up. Say you need to call your parents and see why they never told you, that it’s a really big deal. Tell them it felt like stepping into the right skin for the first time.”

“That’s really what it’s like?”

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