Page 1 of Broken Pregnant Mate
Chapter 1 - Aidan
I’m going to die.
The alpha I’m fighting circles me, arms up, his growl ringing out through the space. He’s a tall guy, with a barrel chest and rippling muscles. His dark brown hair is short on his head, but reaches around into a full mustache and beard, giving him a rugged, lumberjack type of look.
“You’renothing,” he spits, the hate on his face seeming, for all the world, genuine. “Are you ready to die like your family did?”
A spark of rage rolls through me, making it hard for me to pay attention, to concentrate on anything except the fury.
Sweat drips from his face, dribbling off his chin. He smiles, then snarls as he launches himself in my direction, murder clear in his eyes. He’s tired of this fight already and is going for the ultimate kill.
I jump and roll to the side, trying to dodge, to come up with a way to counter his attack, but he shifts mid-air and lands on me with the full weight of an alpha leader’s wolf—massive, angry, and dripping slobber right onto my face.
Catching me across the side, he pulls me back, and I realize my mistake—I should have waited longer before acting, before reacting to his pounce. If I had, I could have shifted, too, kept it a fair fight.
It’s the anger coursing through me, making it hard to think.
That’s the thing I can’t seem to fix about myself. Jumping the gun. Too eager, acting before I have all the information. Every time I repeat the mistake, it grates on me.
“Fuck,” I wheeze, swiping some of the goop from my face and grimacing, turning to the side so it doesn’t get in my mouth. “You got me, man, do you have to do that? With the drool?”
Laughter rings out through the training room as Dorian Fields raises his paw off of me and shifts again, turning back to his charming, chuckling human self.
Emin Argent sits against the wall, water bottle in hand, still laughing at me as I scrape the rest of the drool from my chin. He’s tall, with a head of wavy auburn hair, the kind of guy always laughing, cracking jokes. Now that I’m here, they’re mostly at my expense.
“The real question is why Dorian has so much fun acting evil like that,” Emin says, eyebrows raised.
“Jerrod isn’t going to go easy on him,” Dorian says. “We have to make this as real as possible.”
“Sure. I think you have an evil streak, though. Or a dramatic one, at least,” Emin laughs. It’s muffled by the mats in this room—marred by claw marks and weathered by time. It smells like sweat, blood, aging plastic and rubber.
“Yeah, yeah,” I say, whipping my hand in his direction so the goop flies over Emin’s sweats. “Keep laughing, ginger. Did you forget thatIjust beatyou?”
“Barely,” Emin counters, but we both know that I got him, and I’ve been besting him consistently for the past two months. While Emin laughs and jokes with Dorian, Oren Blacklock sits silently, his dark eyes on me.
I knew kids like him back in the home. Dark, brooding, never offering up a word unless you prodded them, poked them, until they cracked open. His hair is jet black, his eyes a shadeof blue so dark it nearly matches his pupils. He sits with a stiff back, his fingers laced together.
Everything about him is rigid. Unlike the kids at the home, Oren has the air about him of a kid who went to private school. Someone who’s had money rained over him since the moment he was born.
He and I already sparred today, fighting for so long that Dorian finally told us to take a break. Oren’s break was sitting against the wall.
Mine was fighting Dorian.
“You’re still getting better,” Dorian says, drawing me out of my thoughts, his voice an annoying shade of gentle, like he’s my fucking little-league coach. Anger bubbles up inside me at the tone, at the way he’s looking at me, but I douse it, quick.
Dorian has been nothing but kind to me.
Offering me a temporary place in his pack, helping me hide from the fuckers trying to murder me. In fact, Dorian even helped me fake my own death to get them off the trail.
So I’m not about to disrespect him. Make him think I’m not grateful for the help.
But after almost two full years of preparing, it’s frustrating that I don’t even come close to beating him.
“Aidan, seriously,” Dorian turns, taking my shoulders in his hands and turning me so he can meet my eyes. Since having his kids, he’s gotten a lot more paternal. I’m not used to the energy, and I get uncomfortable every time he looks at me like this. “Listen—of course you’re not going to beat me. We just need to get you close enough that you can beathim.”
“Yeah,” I grouse, turning and stripping my shirt up over my head, mopping the sweat away from my brow, and tossing iton the ground. Thehimin question is Jerrod Blacklock, current alpha leader of the Grayhide pack.
Half the time I’m training, fighting, lifting, I’m picturing that slimy motherfucker. Thinking about what it will be like to finally get my teeth in his throat, rip out his heart, and make sure he’ll never hurt anyone else, ever again.
