Page 28 of Broken Pregnant Mate
The waitress comes back with three margaritas, one non-alcoholic, glancing around the table with uncertain eyes at the laughing and Kira’s head in her hands.
“I’ll take those,” Ash says, scooping two of the margaritas in front of herself. “And can we get another NA margarita? We’ll also do the guac flight. We’ve got celebrating to do!” Then, to Kira, Ash says, “Dor is gonna flip when you tell him.”
Kira sighs, sliding down into the booth, and I sit down next to her, seeing her hands are shaking—I’m assuming with excitement, based on her reaction to the news.
“Sorry if that was a lot,” I say, sheepishly. “I just blurted that out—I should have tried to tell you more privately.”
Kira laughs, waves at Veva and Ash. “Nah, anything you tell me, you can tell them. There is nothing sacred here.”
“And boy, I wish there was,” Ash grumbles into her first margarita. “Do you know how many times I’ve had to remind Kira that Dorian is mybrother, and I don’t want to hear aboutthosedetails?”
“I’m sorry!” Kira starts to throw her hands in the air. “I just get so caught up in it—”
Veva snorts, “Those details arewhyKira’s expecting right now.”
“Yuck,” Ash mimes gagging, then takes another swig of her drink. When she sets it down, she settles her gaze on me. “So, Emaline, anything to change the topic. Tell us about Aidan.”
I swallow, feeling the weight of three sets of eyes turning to me.
“Aidan?”
“Yeah,” Ash tilts her head, watching me carefully. “That’s got to be a lot. Mated to him, with his whole…situation.”
“Yeah,” I laugh, folding and re-folding my napkin, feeling silly for the trepidation just under my skin. There’s no reason I should talk to these women—but I’m so unused to it, to having friends, period, let alone other girls, that it feels strange.
There’s also the fact that I’m lying to them—that Aidan only said I was his mate in the street to make me feel better about Vern.
For a second, I wonder if I should just come clean about the whole thing, tell them the truth about our situation. That since I was a girl, I thought Aidan was my mate, but only because I didn’t know any better.
I conflated his love with that of the mating bond.
But he has someone else, and there’s nothing more damning of what I thought than that. If he didn’t, there might be a chance that I was right, but knowing he has his mate—and that she’s probably back in the Grayhide territory, just waiting for him to come back and take over as the alpha leader—means there’s no chance.
I realize I’ve gone quiet, and they’re all staring at me.
“Sorry,” I cough, wrapping my hands around the cool margarita glass. I don’t really drink—don’t like substances at all, after living with Vern for so long—but I bring the cup to my lips and take a small sip, wanting anything to do with my hands, a reason to delay saying anything for another moment. “Yeah, it is.”
“You know, when Aidan first got here, Dorian wasn’t sure about him,” Kira says, her voice soft. “Thought that he might have been some sort of spy.”
I snort, a little too loud, and Veva raises an eyebrow.
“What?” she asks. “You know something we don’t about him?”
“Well, I know plenty about him.” I grab a napkin from the stack in the middle of the table and start to sop up the little puddle of margarita I spilled. When I’m done, I ball it upand look back at the women around me, adding, “We grew up together.”
“Youdid?” Kira looks shocked, like the concept hadn’t even occurred to her.
“Yeah.” I shrug, run a trail through the condensation on my glass, feeling out of my league. All the women around this table have a few years on me—two of them already mothers, and expecting more.
When they continue looking at me, I feel a blush spread over my face. “What?”
“Well,” Ash says, waving her hand as though ushering me in. “Tell us about it! Tell us all about it!”
I laugh, press the back of my hands to my cheeks, and decide to tell them all the best parts of growing up with Aidan in the home. There are plenty of horrible things I could share—the ways we were treated, the hunger, the cold drafts that would blow through on particularly brutal desert nights, but I leave those out.
Instead, I tell them about Aidan protecting me on my first night at the house. I was twelve, he’d just turned fourteen, and when the house manager’s husband came to the door of the bedroom, Aidan grabbed me and pulled me into the closet, jamming the door shut and holding it there, even as the husband growled and tried to get it open.
“Don’t worry,” Aidan had whispered in the dark, his brown eyes glinting in the moonlight that slipped through the cracks. “He’s just a beta, but I’m an alpha. And I’ll protect you.”
