Page 9 of Broken Pregnant Mate
I keep wanting him.
For a long time, I’d thought that all the years stacking up since the last time I saw him would dull the ache, lessen the pull I felt toward him. I thought that when—orif—I ever saw him again, it would be with the faint recognition of age-old friends.
Instead, my body is betraying me with not only the desire I felt all those years ago, but something more.
Because Aidan isn’t the same scrawny teenager he was when I last saw him, when I watched his form disappear into the aloe fields, growing smaller and smaller into nothing, the moonlight glinting on his hair, the last thing I saw before he was gone forever.
Now, he’s bigger. Stronger, his muscles corded and swollen, his biceps flexing, like baseballs I could hold in my hand. His back and chest are broader, filled out, and when I raise an unthinking hand to his shirt, I find his chest warm and solid under my palm.
My mind whirls with questions. I’m not completely sure where I am, but I thought I was in the Ambersky territory. Why is Aidan here? Why is he suddenly so muscular, healthy-looking?
But something else much more pressing stands at the forefront, begging to be answered.
“You…you’re alive?” I manage to choke out, tears forming at the corners of my eyes. If he asks, if anyone asks, I’ll lie and say it’s from the pain of falling.
But that’s not true. I’ve been grieving Aidan for a year now, ever since I saw him—his head—placed out front of Jerrod Blacklock’s mansion.
I didn’t see it in person. But Vern, who often made deliveries to the alpha leader himself, had taken a picture of it, showing it to me, laughing at it.
I’d thrown up so violently I pulled a muscle in my back, then lay on the floor crying until Vern kicked me in the side, telling me to get up—that it was just a fucking head, for the Gods’ sakes.
“Emaline,” Aidan says, drawing my name through his teeth like a breath. I realize he’s on the floor of the cell, the door wide open, and I’m cradled in his arms. “Breathe—breathe.”
“Isawyou,” I insist, thinking of that photo on Vern’s greasy phone, the clear sight of Aidan’s head, that hair so distinctive, the face I knew better than my own. “You weredead.”
Aidan’s face falls, his eyes widening as realization crosses his face. “Fuck, Em, I—I’m sorry. I’m okay, it’s okay—that was a ruse.”
“A ruse,” I repeat, dumbly, not understanding how the man I thought was dead could be here right now, holding me in his arms.
“Yeah,” he says, weakly, and I realize he’s pulling my hair away from my sticky neck, propping me up a bit. “Are you okay? Can you breathe? Try and take a few deep breaths for me, okay?”
He helps me sit, uses his thumb to tip my chin back, and I suck in greedy lungfuls of air, my mind feeling like the static on a TV. Aidan’s eyes scan me up and down, drinking me in, lingering on me.
I cross my arms over my chest, suddenly self-conscious of my appearance. Even before coming here to the jail, I’d let myself go, not shaving or doing anything for skincare. I know my hair is limp, dry, and my skin is dry and cracked.
And I hate that he’s seeing me like this.
Not that it matters—Ihaveto remind myself that it doesn’t matter. That I could be the most gorgeous shifter on the continent, and I would still be nothing to him.
There are so many questions to ask that I don’t even know where to start. Now, with my back against the wall and ourphysical contact broken, my mind starts to clear, but Aidan beats me to asking a question first.
“Em,” he says, brow furrowed. “What are you doing here?”
I bite my tongue, looking away from him, hot shame flooding into my stomach. It all flashes through my mind quickly—falling in with Vern’s crowd after my foster parents died, losing myself to that life, sitting in that car on the way to the border, not realizing everything was about to change for me.
“Emaline,” Aidan presses again, when I’m too choked up to answer. “You can tell me—”
But I can’t tell him anything, the reasons compounding inside me. First, I’m too ashamed. Second, I still can’t believe he’s alive, and I’m not convinced I’m not having an episode on the floor of this cell. And third—I’m stillangrywith him.
Now that the relief of seeing him alive has passed, the anger comes rushing in, so palpable and real that I have to swallow it down like blood in my mouth, turning my stomach soft and sour.
What I manage next makes Aidan’s eyes go wide.
“Get out,” I whisper, voice barely audible. He leans forward, reaching a hand toward me, and I jerk away like it might burn me. He looks hurt, eyes going wide, but I’m so furious that I don’t care.
It’s not his fault that I was wrong about us being mates—that he has his real mate to think of.
But itishis fault that he left me behind. It’s his fault that he took off into the night, so fucking stubborn about handling everything on his own that he never even thought it might be best for me to come.
