Page 57 of Broken Pregnant Mate
“Something wrong, Jerrod?” I taunt, circling him. “You seem slower than your reputation suggests.”
A flash of uncertainty crosses his face—so brief that anyone else might have missed it.
We continue our deadly dance across the floor of the grand hall, the guests pressing further back against the walls. Jerrod lands a powerful blow to my ribs, and I feel something crack. Pain explodes through my chest, but I use it to focus, to sharpen my awareness.
“Your father would be disappointed,” Jerrod taunts, circling me as I struggle to catch my breath. “All these years of planning, only to fail at the final moment.”
I think of my father—not the idealized hero of my childhood memories, but the man Dorian and others have described to me. A leader who cared for his pack, who sought peace when possible but stood firm when necessary.
“My father,” I say, straightening despite the pain, “would recognize what you are. Not an alpha, not a leader, but a thief. A parasite feeding off others because you have nothing of your own.”
Jerrod snarls and charges again, but this time I’m ready. I wait until the last possible moment, then step aside, grabbing his arm and using his own momentum to slam him into the marble column behind me. The impact is tremendous, cracking the stone and sending dust raining down.
For a moment, Jerrod seems stunned, and I take the moment to shift, launching at him in my wolf form, going for where he’s weakest.
I snap my teeth around his throat, digging in, tasting his blood as it flows out.
When I do, I open my eyes and meet Oren’s across the room. And the look on his face is full horror, like he’s realized something I didn’t. It’s not grief, not mourning for his father, but a slight panic. He starts to push through the crowd, toward Dorian and Emin.
I’m pulled away from watching Oren by the rancid, rotten taste that fills my mouth. Nothing like the normal metallic taste of blood, but rather something vile that’s been left to bloat inside a corpse. I pull back, spitting and sputtering, trying to keep from vomiting onto the marble floor, feeling like I’ve just eaten a slab of old, raw meat.
When I’m off of him, Jerrod lunges for me again, summoning whatever strength remains in his failing body. For some reason, he doesn’t shift into his wolf form, even though being in his human form now puts him at an obvious disadvantage.
Even though my stomach roils, I meet his charge head-on, rolling under his wild swing and kicking at him with my back legs, knocking him onto his back. There’s a crack that reverberates through the room, making the onlookers gasp, and Jerrod lies there for a moment, his body going still.
Then, after a moment, he does shift, and what the transformation reveals is more sickening than the taste of his rancid blood in my mouth.
Rather than looking like a wolf, he shifts into something different, something pink and bloody, scabbed over. A monster like a massive organ, groaning and whining in pain. When he rolls, turning on the floor, it leaves a mark like a giant sponge soaked with blood, smearing over the marble.
Someone vomits, and someone else lets out a low, moaning scream.
“What thefuck?” Dorian breathes somewhere behind me, and I can’t take my eyes off of Jerrod, my mind re-arranging the picture until I realize what I’m looking at.
Heisa wolf, still.
A wolf missing his pelt.
Bile rises in my throat again, and I stumble, the sight of him there, still alive but writhing in pain too much, even for me. Without thinking, I shift back into my human form, staring at Jerrod—a wolf skinned of his fur while still alive, and somehow walking around in his human body, ignoring the pain.
It’s impossible.
“You have to kill him,” Dorian says. Oren is still trying to make his way through the crowd, but Dorian doesn’t notice, his eyes focused on me.
He’s right. I have to kill this…wounded animal.
Even with everything he’s done, my body starts to shake when I approach Jerrod, his body oozing blood without skin or fur to cover him.
When he looks up and meets my eyes, I don’t see pleading there, or even guilt for everything he’s done. Rather, I see a coward praying for me to put him out of his misery, because he hasn’t had the guts to do it himself.
So I do, lifting my boot and driving it into his neck, snapping it clean in half. He finally stops whining, the life draining from his eyes.
I stand still, waiting for the rush of power.
Dorian described it to me, so I would be ready. When you assume the position of alpha leader, the power rushes to you all at once. He said when he assumed the position of alpha leader, the rush from his grandfather was so strong that all the shifters around him, including alphas, were made to bow down.
And yet, nothing is happening. I look down at my hands, then glance up to meet Dorian’s gaze, looking for some answer, for an explanation for what I’ve done wrong.
Oren reaches Dorian and catches my eyes first, raising his voice and saying, “It’s not him. He’s not the alpha leader!”
