Page 38 of An Unexpected Claim

Pulling my feet from the water, I turned to face my companion and tucked my legs around my side. “I’m Peyton,” I offered with a warm smile.

The woman’s lips curved slightly as she looked at me and some of the darkness in her eyes abated. “Samantha.”

“Well, Samantha,” I said resolutely, “we’re just two fish out of water, aren’t we?”

She chuckled and pivoted her body to face me. “I guess we are.”

I observed her for a minute, then cocked my head to the side and mused. “A close friend of mine is named Sam. I think maybe I should give you a nickname.”I pondered my choices for a minute, before talking through them. “Red seems a little cliché.” She nodded with a half-smile. “Bath, however accurate, is too harsh.” Her eyes crinkled at the corners as she snickered. When it came to me, I snapped my fingers and crowed, “I’ve got it! Foxy!”

She laughed again and I felt a little bit of triumph that I’d put a tiny bit of sparkle in her eyes. “Foxy?”

“Yeah, because your hair and fur remind me of a fox’s”—I snickered—“and you’re not half bad to look at.”

Samantha shook her head, even as she gave me a delighted, crooked smile.

There was something in her demeanor that kept calling to me. I felt as if she were pushing against a barrier, trying to break free. She wanted to unburden herself but didn’t have anyone to share the load.

This broken woman needed a friend and considering all the bullshit currently plaguing my life, I was shocked at myself when I realized I wasn’t opposed to having someone to talk to either. When the fuck had I become a sharing person? I eyed Samantha speculatively. Was it her? The reason I all of a sudden had the urge to spill my guts? Because it was super weird.

Still… I decided to go for it. “I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours,” I said with a wink.

Samantha laughed again, then shook her head.

“Is that a no…?”

“No. I mean it’s not no.” She smiled and shrugged. “It’s just…I haven’t laughed like this—or at all really—in ages.” Her smile spread a little further. “It feels good.”

I let her work through her epiphany and waited until she said, “Okay. You first.”

“Well…” I debated how to sum up my fucked-up situation. “I witnessed a brutal murder, fought the guy and he injured me so bad that I almost died. Which meant pain from the stupid human medications and agonizing hours in surgery. Then the night I was released and went home, he came to my apartment to finish the job, but I escaped and ran until I passed out here in Silver Lake.”

Samantha double-blinked and her mouth formed an O.

“Also, I had a one-night stand with your alpha a little over a month ago and I ended up pregnant. He doesn’t know it’s his, but he’s being extremely overbearing anyway and it’s driving me crazy. I’m a wanderer by nature and used to my freedom, but he’s caged me up in his house like a prisoner. And I get the feeling he’s holding out on me when it comes to finding the guy who tried to kill me. All in all, I’m trying to stay alive and out of jail for killing your alpha.”

Her jaw had gone slack, and she stared at me like I’d lost my mind.Maybe I have.

“Your turn,” I encouraged with a laugh.

“Wow. I mean, your situation is almost as fucked up as mine.”

“Let’s hear it. We’ll see who wins the gold,” I teased.

“Well, not too long ago, the man I loved was murdered. Then when my new alpha began to investigate, my best friend was killed as a warning to back off. After all that, I was kidnapped and taken to a facility where they began to do painful experiments on me. Once I was rescued, I just couldn’t stay there anymore. Nathan was there to help with everything and somehow, I naturally drifted from my pack into his. He agreed to the change and brought me back here.”

“Your mate was murdered?” I asked softly. The pain from losing a mate was said to be excruciating, not that I’d experienced it myself.

“No,” she clarified. “We were just…I don’t honestly know what to call us. Lovers seems so cold.” Her eyes were swimming with pain again.

I squinted at her as I pursed my lips. “Hmmmm…sounds pretty even to me, Foxy. I think we need a tie-breaker.” I was joking, but for some reason, I had an urge to confess everything to Samantha. I’d never told anyone about my childhood, not even Sam and Linette, and I didn’t understand why I suddenly had a need to share it with someone. This someone. Perhaps because she was easy to talk to, or maybe because she was a relative stranger. I didn’t think it was the latter. I felt an odd kinship with Samantha—both of us were slightly broken, though my emotional wounds weren’t fresh like hers. We’d both been through enough shit to recognize that we didn’t need a hero or to be fixed. We wanted someone to listen and admit that sometimes the world just sucked.

Samantha stared at me while chewing her lower lip, probably contemplating whether she wanted to open up even more. “I, um…” She chewed her lip again, then sighed. “I don’t know what it is about you that makes me want to spill all my secrets,” she mumbled with a confused frown.

“Kindred spirits?” I suggested, then laughed at the ridiculous notion.

“Maybe.” She trailed off and I raised an eyebrow in surprise.

“You believe in predestined connections?”

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