Page 43 of Betrayed Pregnant Mate

“Both of you are right,” Aris agrees. “Byron, you see to the equipment, and Bigby, double the training sessions. That goes for the women, too.”

“What?” Linnea cries, turning her head to Aris. “No way! Do you understand how busy I am?”

They stare at each other for a moment, then Linnea shakes her head, mumbling something like, “Why do I always give in?”

I imagine Aris was saying something about the fact that she can’t shift, about how it’s more important for her than the other woman at this table to be able to defend herself the best she can.

Especially due to their blood-bond. Aris can’t always be around to protect her, and Linnea must know that because she doesn’t argue further.

“Let’s up it to three times a week,” Rosa says, “I look forward to kicking Bigby’s ass three times as much.”

“When you slam me on the mat,” Olivia says, “it always pops this one spot in my back that I can’t get to on my own, so I’m down.”

Byron’s eyes flick to her, flaring, before returning to his laptop. A moment later, she glances over at him, sees he’s not looking, and looks back to Rosa, who rolls her eyes.

“You guys have training sessions?” Veronica asks, and they all turn to look at her.

“Yeah,” Rosa says, softly, “but they’re pretty intense.”

“I can take it,” Veronica says, her eyes sliding to me. “Trust me.”

Fire licks through me when I understand what she’s implying. She survived our sex; she can survive their training session.

“You can join,” Bigby says, flicking his eyes to me and raising an eyebrow, as though he’s making sure it’s okay with me, too. Veronica would kill me if she noticed this little exchange, first, because to her, we’re just scratching an itch, and second because she’d be pissed at the idea that I had any say in something that should be solely up to her.

But this little sign of respect from Bigby is about more than just acknowledging that Veronica is with me—it’s another little thing that’s helped me feel closer to the group.

“Good,” Veronica says, her eyes glinting, “because I want to hold my own if a fight comes our way.”

“I’m still trying to set up a meeting with the leader of the vampires,” Aris says, making Linnea, who’s started to fall asleep next to him, jolt awake. “So let’s hope that can happen, and we can avoid any fights coming to Rosecreek soon.”

Chapter 21 - Veronica

“This is so exciting!” Rosa says, bustling around the lab. I’ve only been here for an hour, and so far, Maisie and Rosa have run every sort of test on me I can imagine. They’ve drawn my blood, tested my reflexes, made me run on a treadmill, seen how much I could lift—it was astonishing to them both—and Maisie quietly commented on how the scar on my palm had healed surprisingly quickly.

“Here,” Maisie says, handing me something, and when I glance down at it, I shake my head, tears coming to my eyes with how hard I’m laughing.

“No,” I say, and when Rosa looks back, she starts laughing, too.

“What?” Maisie says, “It’s routine!”

“Oh my god,” I say, “you’re really going to make me pee in a cup right now?”

“It’s routine!” she cries again, which sends Rosa and me into another fit of giggles.

“What can you find with the pee test you can’t get from a blood draw?” Rosa wheezes, but Maisie has crossed her arms and is pouting, so I hop off the cot, promising to return quickly with their sample.

Peeing in a cup has always been difficult for me. As a traveling nurse, I had to complete on-the-spot drug tests for a lot of different hospitals. There’s just something inherently gross and humiliating about it. No matter how much water I drank, I would always find myself trying to relax, stuck between feeling like I was going to pee my pants and feeling like I would never be able to go again.

But now, for some reason, it comes easily, and I seal it up, setting it in the little alcove so I don’t have to carry it out. When I return to the lab, Maisie and Rosa are nowhere to be seen, so I sit back down on the cot, grabbing Rosa’s magazine from her station and flipping through it to pass the time.

More and more over the past few days, I’ve found myself picturing a life here in Rosecreek, almost against my will. In all the places I’ve visited, I’ve never fantasized about moving to one of them, and it always sparks a little bit of anxiety inside me. While driving through town this morning in Percy’s Bronco, I saw a little blue house for sale, and thought to myself casually that maybe we could take a look at it.

Except I’m not staying. I’m leaving as soon as Percy doesn’t need me here anymore. Even though he wasn’t feeling symptoms, we did a blood transfusion after we woke up this morning and before we took off in our own separate directions. Percy will go on some mission with Ado, and I will come to the lab and let Maisie and Rosa poke and prod at me until they have all the data their little hearts desire.

We’d woken up tangled up in one another, my legs between his, him behind me, his breath on my neck, my hips pressing back into his. After another round of mind-blowing sex, he’d tugged me into his chest and held me like that until I insisted we had to get up. Then, I insisted we do a blood transfusion. It had already been several days since the last one, and I didn’t want something happening to him while he was out in the field, away from me.

While I was setting up the line from my arm to his, I caught him watching me closely, his teeth working on his lower lip.

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