Page 30 of Betrayed Pregnant Mate

Outside, Rosecreek is gorgeous. It’s a perfect, sunny near-autumnal day. Warm, but with the slightest hint of cold in the air, the promise of what’s to come, soon. Children are bouncing around outside their houses, giggling and squealing together.

I can hear sports shows playing through open windows and smell drifting bacon and eggs from the fathers who make breakfast every Saturday morning on their flat-top grills.

My feet hit the sidewalk, and I think about making breakfast for my kids every Saturday morning. I think about this morning.

Veronica, standing there in my kitchen, had a smear of pancake batter over her nose, which was too much. It was too domestic. Besides the near-constant thrum of need that’s been rolling through my body, the idea of seeing her like that but not getting to have her here, in Rosecreek, in my life, was too much.

I want it. I want her to make seasonal pancakes on Saturday mornings and us to stroll through the town square together. I want our kids asking for their mom’s amazing pancakes, and settling for the bacon I make on the grill. I want traditions and sleepovers and swimming at the lake with everyone else.

I want it more than I’ve wanted anything, but I can’t have it for a host of reasons that I already knew back in New York, when I decided to leave the first time.

But in the kitchen isn’t the only way I want her. Every time I think back to last night, the feel of her silk nightgown in my fist, how she had gasped and hitched her leg on my hip, how soft and silky her hair felt in my hand, like it always had—it makes my body feel like it’s bursting into flames.

It’s hot and scratchy behind my eyes, restlessness under my skin. It’s a miracle I was able to pull away from her, keep from dragging her into the room. Luckily, my mind was able to put up a barrier, blocking me from doing that.

“Good morning,” someone says, when I pass through the main area of the pack center, and I raise my hand in a greeting, too surprised to speak. It’s an older woman with a couple of kids dancing around her. Her smile is warm and genuine.

I thought the townspeople pretty much hated me, but maybe this one doesn’t understand who I am. Doesn’t know what I’ve done.

The pack center is as lively and amazing as ever. Down the hallway, I can hear a cooking class taking place, and across from that, in the children’s library a story time is taking place, whoever’s reading doing amazing voices to go along with the characters.

When I walk into the meeting room three minutes late, everyone looks up, then cracks into laughter.

“What?” I ask, heart, pounding, for some reason sure that me being invited today was a fluke. I watch Byron roll his eyes, leaning back in his chair and reaching into his pocket. He pulls a twenty out, then hands it across the table to Ado, who’s actually smiling.

“I thought you’d be at least five minutes late,” Byron says, groaning. “Come on, man, you just lost me twenty bucks.”

A smile spreads across my face, and I take a seat at the table. Things are starting to feel normal again.

“And you didn’t bring donuts,” Olivia says, pointing a pen in my direction.

“Yeah, you literally live above the bakery,” Aris says, eyes narrowing. “Donuts next time, and that’s an order.”

“You got it,” I say, unable to keep the smile from my face.

“Could have just brought us whatever you had,” Byron grumbles, crossing his arms. “Smells good.”

I must still smell like the pancakes Veronica made. My heart jumps at the thought of her in my apartment, and the knowledge that I could go to her.

But it could literally kill her. Which would kill me, too.

“Alright,” Aris says, clapping and breaking me away from that line of thought. “Now that we’re all here, let’s get down to business. Percy and Ado reported yesterday that the last mission was a bust—nothing to be found.”

I nod, and Ado taps the table once we are in agreement.

“However,” Aris says, “I have made contact with the leader of the vampires. I’m going to try to put together some sort of peaceful, diplomatic meeting with him. I think it would be good for us to avoid any more casualties.”

“What?” Byron asks, and we all turn to look at him, shocked that he’s raised his voice to Aris, the alpha. But instead of biting back, Aris just crosses his arms, looking vaguely empathetic. Does he know something we don’t. I catch Olivia giving Byron a strange look from across the table.

“We don’t need any more human…issues,” Aris says, glancing at me quickly, and my chest sinks. Of course, a lot of humans—including Veronica—are still pissed at me, and the rest of the shifters, by association, for what happened when I was under the influence of the serum.

“What’s this about vampires?” someone asks from the door, and we turn to see Bigby and his wife, Rosa, grinning at us.

Bigby, as usual, is the biggest dude I’ve ever seen, and I always forget that when I haven’t seen him for a while. His head is shaved close, and his body occupies most of the space in the doorway. Rosa’s blond hair is even brighter than normal, both of their bodies washed with a sun-kissed look that must have come from plenty of days spent on the beach.

Apparently, when they went to California, Bigby’s newly discovered daughter, Kaila, participated in a surfing competition. According to their updates, she took second place and vowed to get first the following year.

Just a few months ago, Rosa’s father tracked her down in Rosecreek when she had to flee California to be safe from him. His pack fought with the Rosecreek pack, but Bigby overpowered him, letting Rosa’s brother finish him off. They went back to California shortly after to help her brother settle in and take control of the pack. This is the first we’ve seen of them since they left, but I’ve been too absorbed in my own misery to think about them much.

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