Page 48 of Impregnated By the Alpha

“Hello?” He called.

There was no answer. Moira passed him and went to look in the kitchen, shaking her head when she returned. “No one in there either. Should I check upstairs? I feel like I’m invading her privacy.”

“If she weren’t elderly, I’d agree, but what if she fell? Let’s go up.” They climbed the stairs together. “Hey, I’m sure she’s okay.”

Moira’s face was growing more worried with every step they took in the silent house. “I know, I’m sure she is. It’s just weird, and with everything else going on, I can’t help but worry.”

At the top of the stairs, they split off and searched the rooms, returning to the hallway empty-handed.

“Maybe she just stepped out for groceries or something,” Jonah offered as they headed out of the house.

Moira lingered in the entry. “Maybe, but you don’t believe that, do you?”

Jonah weighed the benefit of lying to her to ease the worry etched across her face and decided against it. One of the things he liked about Moira was her ability to face things head-on, and there were already enough lies between them.

“No, but there’s not much more we can do here. Why don’t you ask around at the Rosewoods? I’ll see what I can figure out with the Silversands. We can meet up later.”

She nodded, and for a moment, Jonah thought she was going to hug him goodbye. Her bouts of affection were sporadic, impulsive, and he tried not to get his hopes up for them. It was even harder now, knowing that their child was growing inside of her. That they’d created life together.

It hadn’t been something he’d thought of much before, when the idea of a relationship was at the farthest reaches of his mind. His life was too erratic for that. He couldn’t promise stability when he didn’t have any inside of himself to begin with. Yet here he was. Fated mate and a future father. If only he could make his mate care about him.

“See you later,” he said, finally, when the silence had stretched too long and the desire to grab her, to hold her, was too great to ignore for another second.

He left her on Mrs. Alden’s doorstep and forced himself not to look back.

Chapter 16 - Moira

“And you think he had nothing to do with this?” Vera said with a cold laugh, throwing her hands up. “You’re not a fool, Moira, think this through. Who benefits from Mrs. Alden going missing? The person about to pay her a huge chunk of money for like, no benefit to himself. It’s Jonah. It has to be.”

Moira didn’t want to believe it, even if she could see how the pieces fit together, how everything had started with Jonah getting to town and continued to escalate ever after. He was the common thread. She’d let herself fall for him a little bit, more than she’d wanted to, and the baby tied them together as much as fate did. But she couldn’t trust him. Vera was right; he was the one with something to gain here.

“But why promise me that he’d buy it? He didn’t have to do that. It doesn’t make sense,” Moira protested.

Loaf was curled up on her lap, and he meowed in protest when she grew agitated, stretching his paw out to brush against her arm, claws extended. A little warning that if she moved too much, she’d get it. The horror movie they’d been watching had lost its bite. After all, her life was a horror movie. No chainsaw could scare her.

Vera sighed and ticked off the reasons on her fingers, one by one. “He gets here, and he’s got a bad reputation, deservedly so. He needs to show he’s a good boy now, so he makes amends with the woman he bullied. Then, to build up his credit so he can become alpha, he makes up a story about how you two are fated mates, and the pack’s fate is tied to you two. No one else hears this prophecy. Convenient, huh?”

She emptied the last of the popcorn bowl into her mouth. Vera had kept her eyes closed for half of the movie and seemed eager to turn the attention away from what was happening on screen. Her sister had never been one for horror, which is how Moira knew how pathetic she looked.

“Why me?” Moira wondered aloud, voice small. It made some sense. She couldn’t deny that, but of all the potential mates, why had he chosen her?

Vera’s face turned sympathetic, almost pitying, in a way that made Moira bristle. “Because you were already his target once, and he knows you’re weak against him. You’re an easy mark.”

Moira’s cheeks burned. Was that all she was to him? She wanted to deny it, but that was impossible, because it was the deep fear at the core of her already. That this time with Jonah was just a continuation of the games he’d played with her in high school.

She stopped herself from touching her stomach, from feeling the soothing presence of her baby inside of her. “I don’t want to believe it.”

“Oh honey,” Vera said, reaching across the counter to take Moira’s hand. “I know you don’t. Who would? You’re having his baby. But you can do it on your own. You don’t need him, I promise.”

Memories of moments with Jonah replayed in her mind in a loop, and she tried to hold them up, to parse out what was real and what wasn’t. Impossible work, when her own feelings toed that line. She couldn’t tell how much of what she’d done had been on the pretense of being his fake mate and how much of it she’d just wanted to do. Attraction was an easy excuse. Jonah was hot. Maybe she could convince herself that’s all it was.

She knocked the tears off her cheeks and straightened up, refusing to waste time crying over something that was nothing more than a business transaction gone messy. “I don’t, you’re right. Right now, we just need to focus on finding Mrs. Alden. I’m worried about her. Do you think she’s hurt?”

“I think it’s likely, given what we know about Jonah. Remember, he’s a White Winter.” Vera’s tone left no room for argument, even as Moira wanted to leap to Jonah’s defense. He wasn’t a White Winter anymore. Or was he?

Had she only seen what she’d wanted to see, a man that had bullied her once, now begging for her? Vera was right. It made her the perfect target. The sap that would go along with his plan.

Vera got up from the couch and grabbed her coat from the hook as the credits started to roll. “We have to get going. We’re meeting the pack in ten, remember?”

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