Page 50 of Betrayed Pregnant Mate

“No, just a mix-up of smells. She’s very much a shifter,” Aris says, his eyes trained on Paul. “And you can apologize to me. I can relay the message to her.”

I feel Veronica relax next to me, and I put a hand on her thigh. She puts her hand over mine, squeezing, and though I know it’s not the right place for it, and I should be focusing on the meeting, I think about what Bigby and Aris said to me in the woods.

After how Veronica was feeling yesterday, she must be having some residual stress, because her heart is beating so hard it’s like I can hear an echo of it, faintly sometimes not keeping time. I wonder if she might have a heart arrhythmia, then decide I can talk to her about it later.

When I glance back toward the table, I see Paul’s eyes linger on her for just a moment too long, and the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. But nobody else seemed to notice it, so I just scooted a little closer to her.

“I’m glad you invited me here today,” Paul says, his eyes returning to Aris. “Because I am so tired of this old fight between shifters and vampires. We just want peace, like you, and I’m sure we can actually be quite prosperous, if we work together.”

“Right,” Aris says, running a hand over his face. After a moment, he nods, and I get the feeling he and Bigby are communicating about something. “I got the feeling that might be your sentiment,” Aris continues, “so I took the liberty of bringing in a mage.”

From the other end of the hall, as though she was waiting for a cue, a tall woman with white hair and a billowing robe walks into the room, looking very important. She has her head held high, and doesn’t look at any of us, addressing Aris only.

“Sir,” she says, when she reaches him. Paul looks nervously between the mage and Aris.

“I thought,” Aris says, pushing up his sleeve to his elbow, “that we could put together a little life-pact on it. To show our seriousness and commitment to the peace between our people.”

“Right,” Paul says, eyeing the wand in the mage’s left hand. Every mage I’ve ever seen wears normal street clothes, like the rest of us, and I imagine Aris asked her to put on a show for the vampire.

“You are serious about it, right?” Aris asks, cocking his head and looking in the vampire’s direction.

“Of course,” Paul says, coughing a bit and rolling up his sleeve. I see Rafael and Veronica sharing a look again, and I don’t like it. I squeeze her thigh, and she squeezes my hand back, but doesn’t look at me. Instead, I catch Paul glancing at her, and I don’t like it.

We all watch in rapt silence as Aris and Paul hold their forearms out, side by side, and the mage casts her spell. As she speaks, the words foreign to me, black lines appear on their arms, moving and twining around one another, until they have matching and linking marks on their skin that would look to anyone on the outside like tattoos.

“It is complete,” the mage says, still with her nose tipped up to the rest of the room. “Should either of you break this vow purposefully or accidentally, the cost is your life.”

Linnea stiffens next to Aris, but he doesn’t glance at her. He holds the gaze of the vampire, who offers him another wide, white-toothed smile in response.

“To the continued prosperity of our people,” he says, raising his plastic water cup, “and to our future successes as allies.”

Everyone raises their water cups in response, but it feels empty. When I look around the table, I realize, suddenly that Byron isn’t present, despite Aris calling the entire team in for this one.

It’s not until Aris walks Paul, and a few of his golf buddy-looking followers, out of the room that we all let out a collective breath.

“What the fuck was that?” I finally say, after we’ve been sitting in silence, looking at once another for a full minute.

The entire table breaks out into laughter, and we launch into our observations and opinions on Paul Smith, leader of the Midwest vampires. It’s absurd, and hilarious, and I’m so drawn into the conversation that I don’t notice for at least five minutes that Veronica is in the corner of the room, talking to Rafael in a hushed voice, their heads so close together, their lips would touch if a strong wind blew.

What the fuck?

I stand, intending to cross over to them and ask Veronica what she’s doing—how she could be talking so intimately with someone she assumed was her stalker just days before, but Aris intercepts me.

“Hey,” he says, “what was your read on that guy?”

“Super fucking weird,” I say, “and probably lying through his teeth.”

I look past Aris, trying to get a glimpse of Veronica and Rafael, but Rafael is gone, and Veronica is just standing in the corner alone, her arms wrapped tightly around herself.

“How’s it going with her?” Aris asks, his tone light. “Have you convinced her to stay?”

“Or come to an agreement on how to work it out if she wants more?” Bigby asks, stepping into the conversation like he was there the whole time.

“No,” I sigh, “she was really stressed out last night, and this morning, or today, I mean—she’s so anxious I can hear her heart beating in doubles.”

“You mean double-time?” Bigby jokes.

“No, like, it’s beating and beating again,” I shake my head, realizing that’s not a good description of the sound. “Like one heartbeat and an echo.”

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