Page 29 of Broken Pregnant Mate
When I asked my mother about being an omega, she’d always said it was something we could talk about when I was older. But she was gone, and I grew up without her.
“Aidan was my best friend,” I say, moving the straw around in my barely-touched margarita. “He walked me home from school, made sure I had the stuff I needed. When he had food, he’d always share it with me. Then, as a teenager, he got a job and started saving up for us to get out of there.”
“What happened?” Ash asks, reaching over and swapping our drinks, taking my melted one and replacing it with her empty cup. Veva rolls her eyes, pushes a water toward Ash.
“Slow down on that stuff, Ash.”
“I’m high-tolerance,” Ash says, waving her hand. “I got it from Gramps.”
“Well?” Kira asks, leaning toward me, her eyes wide open with curiosity. “What happened?”
“I, uh—” My words fail me when I realize I’ve come to the end of the happy things to share about the situation. But I don’t stop. “I was adopted. It’s pretty uncommon, but at sixteen I found my parents.”
“Were they nice?”
I feel the tears coming to my eyes, and I can’t stop them. “The nicest,” I choke, accepting a new napkin when Kira passes it over to me. “They were never able to have kids, and they were pretty old, so they asked for a teen. That turned out to be me. We got along well.”
“So you left home when you were sixteen?”
I nod, swallow. “Yeah. Aidan was still living at the home but paying to be there—he made money doing odd jobs.”
“Some things never change,” Ash says, laughing softly, her eyes still on me.
Shifting uncomfortably, I say, “Something happened to him. Something that made his memories of his mom come back, and helped him realize who he is. I think Blacklock realized, too, and sent people after him. Then Aidan found out that the house manager was poisoning him. I think there was some sort of unspoken bounty on his head?”
“Gods,” Kira says, while Ash mutters, “Fuck.”
“Yeah.” I roll my straw between my fingers, staring at the flexing plastic as I say, “So he showed up at my parents’ aloe farm. I hid him in the barn, and…I didn’t think they knew about it. He wassoskinny, and I thought he was getting better, until one day in the middle of the night, I woke up and I just—I knew that he was leaving. I ran out after him and saw him with his bag, taking off. He lookedterrible.”
“What was wrong with him?” Veva asks, her brows drawn down like she might already know the answer to that.
“My parents must have known about the bounty. Or maybe they were worried about what might happen if he was found there, but they knew they couldn’t take him on if he challenged them. I think Blacklock was spreading the message that he was dangerous. If I’m honest, I really don’t know what they were thinking. I wish I could ask them.”
Ash’s eyebrows move up, and to finish the story off, I add, “They died in a house fire right after Aidan left. I think maybe Jerrod found out that he was there, and they didn’t turn him in immediately.”
“Holy shit.” Veva shakes her head, sitting back in her seat. “And here I thought I had it rough.”
“It’s not a competition,” I shrug, then laugh a bit when I look up and around the table. “But, if it was, you have to knowthat I’d win. Thereallyfucked up shit started happening after that.”
Kira shakes her head as the waitress comes around, dropping off the bill. “Well, you’re going to have to tell us about that, too. If you want.”
“Yeah,” Ash says, the straw of her margarita between her lips, “I’m dying to know what happens next.”
Veva punches Ash on the arm, but it makes me laugh, and I weakly agree to tell them the rest of the story. I always thought that talking about what happened with me and Aidan might make me feel worse, but something in my chest has loosened.
Kira gives me a ride back to the apartment, and just before I climb out of the car, she says, “Hey, Emaline. Just know that you have friends in us, okay? And if you call me, I’ll be there.”
I freeze, look back at her, and stifle the sudden wave of tears threatening at the back of my eyes. “Okay. Thank you.”
When I step back into the apartment, I’m still thinking about Aidan.
And when my heat finally snaps into place, falling over my body like a fever, I climb into his bed, missing him more than I ever have before.
Chapter 13 - Aidan
You’re doing it again.
I turn and snarl at Oren, who’s staring right at me as we make our way back through the land, nearing the primary city in the center of the Ambersky territory. We’ve passed a few farms, little outcroppings of the pack, but I can’t wait to be back in town, among shifters again.
