Page 30 of The Wolf's Pregnant Rejected Mate

Tess’s head snapped up. Her blue eyes widened as her cheeks turned pink. She opened her mouth, then shut it again.

Did she regret their time together? Was that why she had been avoiding him over the last few days? Ryder lifted the punching shield and gestured for her to go at it again. Tess concentrated, her expression growing serious. She punched but pulled it at the last second.

Ryder sighed. “You’re not going to hurt me through this thing.”

Tess took off her gloves and shook out her hands. “This doesn’t come naturally to me.”

“I saw you fighting the demons. It does. You just need to let yourself listen to your body. Stop trying to be perfect, Tess. Form is important, and we’ll get more into that later. Right now, I want you to hit this like you mean it,” Ryder growled. He lowered his voice. “Tap into your desires. Tap into the rebellious part of you that won’t take shit from anyone.”

She hit harder this time.

“Good! Again. Don’t let them tell you what to do,” Ryder encouraged. “Don’t let them say that you’re not a fighter. You are a fighter. You’re a warrior.”

Tess growled and double-punched the shield. The blows landed hard enough that Ryder had to brace himself to stop from stumbling. His wolf pranced around, excited. He grinned, nodding his encouragement to her. She punched, and he started to move backward, leading her into a dance. Tess kept advancing, continually beating on the shield. Her dark hair, pulled into a bun at the back of her head, glistened in the sunlight.

Sweat beaded her forehead and neck. Her breathing grew harder, and so did Ryder. The concentration in her expression, the way her lips pulled together. The solidness of every blow. She really was amazing, even for being so uncertain at the start.

After ten minutes, Ryder called for a stop. “Get some water, and we’ll stretch out your arms,” he said. “We don’t want to overwork those muscles.”

Tess nodded and jogged over to the water bottles. Ryder took the opportunity while she wasn’t working to adjust himself, to make sure his bulge wasn’t showing in his loose-fitting pants. He joined Tess at the water and took a few sips of his own.

“I was imagining Elin’s face,” Tess said, not looking at him. “Mica says I need to be civil with her. I don’t get it; Elin was so cruel to her, too. But I’m the one that has to be the bigger person, even though she’s the one that told my parents about us.”

Ryder scratched his chin. Ah, there it was. He wondered if she was going to bring up the cabin again. However, he would have preferred her to have actually brought it up rather than do it this roundabout way.

“When I got home that night, Mom knew we’d slept together,” Ryder said stiffly. He wasn’t a fan of Elin, but he didn’t want Tess to unfairly blame her. “She could smell you on me. No doubt people could smell me on you, too. Everyone we talked to would have known Tess. And with this town being the rumor mill it is, it’s no wonder how your parents found out so quickly.”

Tess screwed the cap back onto her water slowly.

“I don’t think Elin told anyone,” Ryder continued, looking up at the sky. “It was just obvious. I understand if you wish that it hadn’t happened that way. I’m sorry that—"

“No, don’t apologize,” Tess whispered. She stared down at the ground, her cheeks turning red. “I don’t wish it hadn’t happened. I just wish that it could have stayed between the two of us. It felt so… um… well, it was special. When we were in the cabin. It wasn’t this huge life-changing event that permanently changed me, but it was just sospecial.”

Ryder wasn’t sure how to take that. Not lifechanging? He felt that it should be a blow to his ego. But calling their time together special had a way of softening it. He felt the same way. He was the same person as before; nothing tangible had changed. But being with Tess had been different than he expected. It meant something important, and he didn’t want anything to cheapen it.

Tess kicked the ground. “I suppose this means I owe Elin an apology. I should tell Mica, too. She won’t have smelled it.”

“That’s probably a good idea,” Ryder agreed.

Tess brushed a hand behind her ear in habit, since she had no loose hair. “But I just want to make sure that you know the whole thing about my parents? It doesn’t change anything.”

Ryder took a swig of water. “Doesn’t change what?”

Finally, she looked back up at him. “It doesn’t change what I said in the cabin. I don’t expect anything from you, and I don’t expect you to take me as your mate. And as for what my father said about… well, about me possibly getting pregnant.”

His wolf grew still, waiting in eager anticipation.

“I did the math, and it’s very unlikely that I’d be ovulating, which means it’s highly unlikely that an egg would get fertilized, much less all that other stuff about implanting and whatnot.” Tess waved a hand, her face bright red. “And even if, by some weird coincidence, I do end up pregnant, I still won’t expect you to make me a mate.”

Ryder scowled.

“I’m not pregnant,” Tess said quickly.

“It’s not that. Your dad is just a dick.” He shrugged.

It was a testament to how dickish he actually was that Tess didn’t protest that language. But despite his words, that wasn’t what made Ryder scowl at all. It was this insistence that they weren’t going to be mates. It was what they agreed on. Besides that, he wasn’t in the market to have a mate. He had too many responsibilities.

But something about the way Tess kept saying it bothered him. Why? Was it because it was essentially a rejection? That didn’t sound right. She was just telling him that the agreement they had already made was still intact.

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