Page 19 of Betrayed Pregnant Mate

“Don’t hide, sweetheart,” Ms. Pearl had said, leaning around me so she could watch him leave through the glass. “Hold your head up. You’ve got quite the catch with that one. And I don’t just mean the butt.”

“Thank you, Ms. Pearl!” Percy had called from the road, waving to us as he climbed in his car.

“How in the world did he hear that?” she’d said, chuckling to herself as she poured herself another cup of tea.

Now, we walk into Percy’s apartment, which is bare-bones. In the living room, there’s a couch and bookshelf, and when I walk down the hall, clearly snooping, there’s a queen bed in the center of the room. A small dining table is pushed against the wall in the kitchen. No other furniture, no other decorations.

“I love what you’ve done with the place,” I say, and to my surprise, Percy lets out a loud laugh. “Wow, if you liked that, I can keep them coming all night,” I say, smiling as I take a seat on the couch. He pulls over a chair from the dining table and sits across from me, lacing his hands together and letting them hang between his legs.

Now that we’re sitting here, looking at each other, I feel this undeniable pull to crawl into his lap, straddle his legs, tip his head back, and—

I catch myself, shocked at how easily I just started fantasizing about him like that. After blinking and clearing my throat, I set my tote bag down on the ground and crossed my legs in an effort to calm myself down.

Percy’s nostrils flare, his eyes dipping to my legs for a moment as I move, and I swallow.

This might be harder than I thought. I take another deep breath.

“Is what—is what you said earlier true?”

“You might have to be a little more specific,” he says, laughing a bit.

“About, well, about not remembering anything from that time?”

“This is kind of a dark story,” he murmurs, putting his hands on his neck and leaning back to stretch in the chair. “Are you sure you want to hear it?”

“Yes,” I say, something in my chest skipping at the thought of him sharing this with me. When we were dating, he gave off the vibes of being an open book, but would frequently change the topic when I tried to ask about too much, like what he did for work and when his family was going to visit.

“Okay,” he sighs, running his hand over the golden stubble on his face. Even after everything, he’s still as handsome as ever. Now, instead of the golden retriever look, he looks a little more like a weathered sailor, or a woodsman. Those images aren’t doing much for the warmth building between my legs, so I try to refocus on him as he talks.

“A few years ago, I was part of a special ops team. It operated under a specific branch of the government responsible for maintaining paranormal peace. Specifically, our team dealt with rogue alphas and packs that didn’t respect the humans living near them. Then, we got the call to go to Rosecreek.

“When we got there, we learned that the rogue alpha there was working on a serum that would prevent a shifter from taking their animal form—a fate worse than death. Many of the subjects tested with the serum died from the stress. Some of them made it through but became severely depressed and had chronic pain daily.

“Right after learning that our leader at the agency had betrayed us, we were ambushed by a group of Varun’s men. During that fight, I was—”

He stops talking, and I lean forward without thinking, putting a hand on his knee. Both knees are bouncing up and down, and he’s wringing his hands together so hard I’m worried they might pop off.

“Hey,” I say, tugging on him, and he pulls his chair a little closer to me. I take his hand and turn it over in mine, gesturing for him to go on. A voice in my head screams, What are you doing? It reminds me that this is the man who kidnapped me. I tell it that’s not true—this is only the body that kidnapped me. The man there now would never do that.

And I realize, at once, that I believe it. Percy may have ghosted me all those years ago, but I don’t think him capable of kidnapping and trapping people. For the first time since he took me from that running trail, I believe that it wasn’t truly him.

“During the fight,” he continues, his voice rough. “I was poisoned. With the serum. I’d heard stories about what happened to people who had it in their bloodstream, and I could already feel it starting to block my shift. It was terrifying. Like suffocating.

“I asked Aris for his gun, and I took it out into the woods, far enough away that I hoped the others wouldn’t hear it, but when I raised it to my head, and said a prayer to the Gods, I suddenly felt faint. I passed out, and heard the gun going off when I hit the ground.

“The team had so much going on—I don’t know how long I was like that, face-down in the forest, but eventually I came to. I got to my feet, already feeling stifled and bottled up without my ability to shift. Imagine if you had your arms and legs tied tightly together, and all you wanted to do was move.”

“Like when you’re wearing a tight shoe,” I ask, “and you can’t wiggle your toes?”

“Yeah,” Percy says, laughing a bit, his other hand coming to mine, his fingers tracing over mine lightly. He’s telling me a tragic story, and I meant for his touch to be more comforting than sensual, but I can’t help it—the way he’s touching me sends zips of electricity up my arms. “Exactly like that, but about a million times worse.”

We sit there quietly for a moment, as he traces up and down my hands. Again, that voice in the back of my mind screams at me. Even if he wasn’t in his right mind when he kidnapped me, he still ghosted me all those years ago.

I pull my hand back, clearing my throat.

“Anyway,” Percy says, looking physically pained. “I don’t remember much after that, until I woke up in the clinic, in a holding cell. They say I went out into the town and fought some shifters who had come from California, but I don’t have any memory of that. I just remember a few snapshots.”

“Like what?” I ask, my voice quiet.

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