Page 12 of Betrayed Alpha Bride

“Clara,” Galen speaks behind me, his voice soft but so sudden it makes me jump with fear.

“I thought you were hanging out with Nico,” I mutter, turning around.

“He was obviously getting tired, so I helped him upstairs and get him settled in for a nap. Meeting me seems to have taken it out of him.”

I nod helplessly. I can’t speak. I’m so full of desperation and desire I can practically feel it emanating from my skin. We stare at each other for a few seconds, and Galen’s deep green eyes get colder and harder by the second.

“I’m sorry—” I blurt out, but Galen won’t let me speak.

“You’re sorry?” he hisses. “You think sorry is going to cut it after hiding my son from me?”

“Galen—”

“No! Clara, no. I came here to plead my case, to beg you to give this marriage a try. All I wanted was to make it up to you. But now I don’t even know what I want to say.”

“How could I tell you?” I ask, a pleading note in my voice. “Tell me, what was I supposed to do? Youdumpedme. By the time I knew I was pregnant, it was too late to call you, even if I wanted to!”

“I never expected you to leave town!” Galen snaps. “I did what I had to at the time. I was always going to explain myself to you and make a plan for us to be together. You’re the one who left!”

“Don’t act like you don’t know!” I cry, trying desperately to keep my voice down. “I was teased every day of my life—treated like a disease, worse than an outcast. You made me feel valued and special. When you rejected me, it didn’t just break my heart—it broke my spirit. I couldn’t stand the stares and the laughter anymore. Not without you by my side.”

Galen’s fury falters slightly, and the rage dies out of his eyes.

“Imagine if Nico was like me,” I plead with him. “Imagine he had no shifter gene. I’d just be taking my son back to the key to be ridiculed like I was, and completely rejected by his father. Would you even have claimed him as yours?”

“Of course I would have!” Galen snaps in a fervent whisper. “He’s my son—the scent is undeniable. I would have raised him proudly as my own.”

“Even after rejecting me?” I say, my voice low as my anger is replaced by a dull, permeating helplessness. “After telling me you couldn’t be with me, you want me to believe you still would have raised Nico as your own. And what if he wasn’t a shifter, Galen? What then?”

“I’d still love him just the same,” Galen states firmly.

“I guess we’ll never know,” I murmur, wiping a tear from my cheek.

Galen turns away and walks back to the living room, and I let him go. I feel completely exhausted by the conversation and can’t think of anything else to say.

“Clara!” Galen’s panicked voice cracks through me with a shock like a cutting whip.

“What is it?” I ask, hurrying out to the lounge room.

“Nico’s gone.”

“He might have just gone to the bathroom,” I say, hurrying through the house. Galen looks, too. My house isn’t that big, so seconds later, we meet again in the living room, both of us barely holding back our fear.

“I don’t think he’s here,” Galen says, confused. “Where would he go?”

I shake my head helplessly, feeling the tears start. “I don’t know!” I wail. “He’s just gone!”

Chapter 4 - Galen

Panic floods through my bones, a cold terror like nothing I’ve ever known. A series of horrific images race through my mind, and a sharp pain stabs me through the chest.

Is this what it feels like to be a parent?

I never imagined the world could be so dangerous!

“Where would he go?” I ask, hoping that Clara has a mundane answer.

“I don’t know,” Clara wails, shaking her head. “Sometimes this happens. He’s been having terrible nightmares these days, and he just runs off—”

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