Page 28 of The Alpha's Forced Pregnant Mate

“Cheesecake,“ she said without hesitation. “And like, two bites of the chocolate cake too.“

I got up and grabbed the cake, placing both plates in front of her.

Whitney looked at the cake, then me, then the cake again. “You don’t want any?”

“I’ll take a bite of yours if you don’t want it.”

She narrowed her eyes and pulled the plate closer to herself, stabbing a large piece of the cheesecake with her fork. “Fine.”

“So…how do you want me to start? From when Danny and I were kids? The beginning?”

Whitney chewed for a moment, then nodded. “Yeah, if you know where the root of it all is.”

“It’s…complicated. There are a lot of factors.” I leaned forward in my seat, rubbing my face. “I mean, I can just give you the short version, but I think you would appreciate more of the history.”

“Just start talking, Julian,” she said, her tone flat. “I’ll decide what’s relevant.”

I let out a long sigh and began, knowing she wouldn’t be happy with any part of what I had to say. “Fine. So I’ll skip the shit with my parents, but basically, they dumped me with Peter when he was still the Alpha, and I grew up alongside Danny…”

Chapter 11 - Whitney

I had told Julian to tell me everything he deemed important to his history with the Red Canines, but he skimmed over his early life and only really began getting into detail when Naomi came around.

It was pretty much what I expected to hear, and while I wasn’t surprised, I was a little disappointed. I guess I was still looking for some way to look at Julian in a better light, especially now that we had slept together and the sex had been mind-blowingly good.

He told me that he’d been thrilled for his best friend and Alpha when the news first broke that he had been matched at one of Faye’s matching ceremonies, but Naomi wasn’t what he expected. Danny had already been frustrated with how the pack had stagnated, and Naomi had only exacerbated that frustration. Not only that, but she had also been the catalyst for him to make a real change.

But to Julian, it was a betrayal to change the pack that had been his solace his entire life. Julian liked all the motorcycle gang activities and was one hell of a good drug and weapon runner. He couldn’t imagine lowering himself to working some normal job to help fund the pack, losing all of the freedoms that he valued in the process.

Naomi represented the domesticated life that Julian had grown to despise, and when Danny began to agree with her more than Julian, his lifelong friend, it had sent him reeling.

He had left the pack to start the Reckless Stalkers but had held out hope that Danny would realize he’d made a mistake. That never happened, and he and Naomi had left Julian with no other choice. They had been the Red Canines since the beginning, and if she wanted to be the reason he lost everything, then she was going to pay.

“So…you just had her poisoned?” I asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

Julian sighed and ran his hand through his hair. “It sounds bad when you say it like that.”

I couldn’t help letting out a humorless laugh. “Really? Because to me it sounds exactly like what it is. You ordered your lackeys to have her killed because you couldn’t handle that she was changing your pack into something different.”

Julian stood up suddenly, his chair clattering to the floor behind him as he glared at me. “I didn’t mean to have her killed, dammit! I meant for them to just knock her out. I did NOT order them to use wolfsbane.”

“How do you expect me to believe that?” I countered, standing up and facing him across the table. “You wanted her dead!”

“I didn’t!” he snapped, his voice rising. “You have no idea what it was like for me. She was ruining everything!”

I scoffed. “Everything? You’re kidding, right?”

His eyes were wild. “You don’t get it. I grew up in this pack. Danny was like my brother and our lives were good. And then that bitch came along and fucked everything up!”

I could feel my blood begin to boil, and I stepped around the table so I was standing directly in front of him. “You want me to believe that you only had her poisoned because she changed the pack and made Danny grow up? Your pride and arrogance are why you lost everything.”

Julian’s eyes darkened and I could see the rage building in them. He was on the verge of losing his control.

“You don’t know anything about me or what I’ve been through,” he snarled, his hands curling into fists. “I would have done anything for Danny, but he decided that being some domesticated family man was more important than our way of life.”

“Yeah, well, he got his priorities straight. I would rather have a friend who loves me than a friend who will try to kill my mate.”

“I told you, it was an accident!” Julian bellowed, slamming his fist into the wall hard enough that the wood cracked. “I didn’t mean for her to die! All I wanted was for him to realize what he was throwing away!”

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