Page 4 of Betrayed Pregnant Mate

My fight with the vamps was chaotic, and I only barely made it out of there with the sample still intact, tucked between my teeth. I didn’t have time to catalog how they were hitting me, and whether or not one of them got his teeth through my skin.

Maisie wrestles with her kit, abandoning the stitches and grabbing a tester instead.

“I’ll need to take some blood,” she says, panting a little as she gets the stuff out. “Percy, if this test comes back positive, I don’t know if I can do much for you.”

“Wait,” Aris says, “that stuff is true? About vamp bites?”

“As far as I know, and as far as I learned,” she says, screwing the needle onto a syringe. “Yes. Since he's a shifter, the venom takes longer to disperse through the body. But that genetic mutation also means the venom is lethal.”

“Lethal,” I repeat, letting my head fall back against the couch. I almost want to laugh out loud at that fact—going through everything I went through, only to die by vampire bite the first time I get back out into the field.

“Yeah,” Maisie says, her throat working as she swabs down my skin with an alcohol wipe, preparing it to take the blood sample. “But—I don’t know. I mean, with the long-term effects of the serum, it’s possible that that could be different for you, Percy.”

Between Maisie and Rosa, I’ve received my fair share of poking and prodding as they tried to figure out how the serum affected me. Though I’m sure both of them will be horrified by the news, there will be some small part of them that’s excited to see how the venom and serum interact inside my body.

“Aris,” Linnea says, appearing at the door to the family room. “I feel—”

She lets out a cry of pain, putting her hand to her forehead and bending her knees. Aris is there in a second, his hands steadying her, holding her. She pushes her head into his chest, and I have to look away.

It’s been so long since I was with someone, since I felt someone else holding me and comforting me, that it’s almost painful to watch Aris and Linnea interact. Every night, I go home to my empty apartment, wishing there was something to come home to.

“You should get a cat,” I remember Bigby saying, when I casually mentioned that it was kind of lonely, coming home to an empty apartment every night.

“Can’t,” I’d said, swirling my beer before taking another drink. “I’m allergic.”

“Oh!” Rosa had said from her place at the table, leaning forward to get my attention. “That could have changed! I completely forgot about that—we could test your allergies to see if they’ve changed. What an interesting idea!”

“Happy to be of service,” I’d muttered, which made Bigby laugh beside me.

“Don’t mind her,” he’d said, waving his hand at me even as he looked over at her with pure adoration on his face. “You know how those pesky biochemists can be.”

“That’s Doctor biochemist to you,” Rosa had said, throwing it over her shoulder before returning to her conversation with Linnea and Olivia.

Going to the bar with the team was one of the few things I’d had left to do after Aris benched me so I’d have time to “recover.” Now, staring up at the Cadell’s ceiling, I wish I had done it more, spent more time with the people I loved while I had the time.

The thought immediately makes me think of Veronica, and a hot wave of shame moves through me. I glance through the room to see if anyone is picking up on it, but Aris is too busy with Linnea to have a clear pull on my feelings, even as alpha. Plus, apparently, the serum has done a pretty good job of blocking a lot of the normal pack connections.

Like always, the memories of Veronica come flooding back to me in Technicolor. I remember the first time I met her in the ER at a human hospital.

The team and I were out on assignment in Florida, and I’d taken a slice across the arm from some weirdo wielding a silver blade. When I’d asked to see a local paranormal doctor for stitches, Aris had laughed at me, saying it would heal in a day.

I knew it would heal, but I wanted to avoid a scar. So, I walked into the local human hospital, holding up my wounded arm. The person at the front desk, who had surely seen her fair share of wounds, went white, her mouth forming a perfect “O” as she looked at the blood dripping from my arm and onto the floor.

“Hi,” I’d said, crouching a little to catch her eyes. “Any chance I could get some stitches?”

Out walked Veronica, and the moment our eyes met, I felt it. I knew I did, though it was impossible—I could smell her, clear as day. She was a human.

And she was my mate.

“Hi,” I’d said again, watching her eyebrows raise as she looked between me and the dripping arm. “Are you free?”

“To get you some stitches?”

“Oh, yeah, that,” I’d said, glancing at it again, suddenly not feeling a single ounce of pain. “I’d love some stitches, but I was actually asking if you’re free tonight.”

To my surprise, she’d blushed and ushered me behind a curtain, stitching me up expertly, then passing me a business card. I’d read it as I walked out of the ER.

Veronica Soto. Traveling RN.

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