Page 27 of Claimed By Two Alphas

I had at the minimum four weeks until I couldn’t work anymore because my stomach would be showing. Six weeks at the most. I wasn’t sure either of us could survive six weeks at the rate she was going.

“You’ve been having a lot of accidents today,” Delvin snarled at Janie. “They seem to be all targeted at Shane.”

“It’s not a big deal,” I tried to say. “It’s just beer, not hot grease or anything.”

Great, I probably just gave Janie another idea on how to torture me.

Delvin’s jaw flexed as Joshua joined us. He looked between me and Janie, his eyes narrowed. “Didn’t we just have a talk?” he asked her.

“It was an accident!” She stomped her foot. “I bumped a chair that was left out and tripped!”

“My office, now.” Delvin pointed toward the kitchen.

When Janie stormed away, I grabbed Delvin’s arm. “Don’t do this. You’re only going to make matters worse.”

“And I’m not going to have someone targeting you at work,” Delvin shot back. “We all know it wasn’t an accident, just like when she bumped into you and made you sprawl over that table. I’m going to nip this right now.”

When I looked around, I saw all the other servers staring at us, making me wonder if Casey’s Café was hiring. I loved my job, aside from my curse getting in the way, but that seemed to no longer be an issue. I saw now that Delvin and Joshua were definitely playing favoritism, and I was paying the price for that. It wasn’t as if I’d wanted them to, either. I wanted to be treated like my coworkers, but that wasn’t going to happen since I was mated to them.

And finding work somewhere else wasn’t going to happen, either. Not while I still had a threat looming over my head and not while I was pregnant. What was I going to tell my new boss? Thanks for giving me this job, but I can only work for a month?

“This is bullshit,” I snarled at Joshua. “She’s only acting that way because you two are treating me with preference.”

“We’ll talk about this at home.” Joshua walked toward the kitchen, leaving me standing there wishing a hole would open up and swallow me.

Chapter Nine

Joshua

I felt like shit for being short with Shane. There was no excuse, but to hear my mate defending someone who was bullying him had been too much for me. Never in my life had I wanted to lay hands on a female, but Janie was pushing my fucking buttons. I knew she was doing that shit on purpose, pissed that I’d laid things out for her the day before. She was just getting back at Shane, and fuck if I was letting that happen.

Even if Shane wasn’t our mate, I wouldn’t tolerate workplace bullying. She’d had an attitude from day one of hiring her, thinking she was the shit, but she’d given me and Delvin a sob story to hire her. We’d fallen for it, and now we were dealing with the consequences of that decision.

I hadn’t gone into the office while Delvin talked with her. I hadn’t wanted her feeling intimidated. I’d said my piece yesterday in the kitchen. And now I was outside pacing, so fucking pissed I wanted to punch someone.

I got where Shane was coming from. Things would be strained between coworkers until this was settled, and Delvin and I jumping in wouldn’t help the situation, but hell if I was going to let anyone mess with our pregnant mate.

And I was convinced he was pregnant because Shane had gotten sick this morning before we’d come into work. Shane had come to mean the world to me, and I would raze this town to keep him safe. I would yell at my employees, kill anyone else who tried to kidnap him, and find a way to eliminate Nezat.

When it came to Shane, I wasn’t messing around.

My heart swelled and took a dive then skipped a thousand beats when Shane walked outside. He looked…deflated. He hadn’t seen me yet. He was both inside and outside the door, as if using it as a shield as he stared at the ground. I hated how sad he looked, how his face wasn’t smiling.

And it was my fault. I’d been short with him, heated because he wanted to make excuses for Janie or just sweep the incidents under the rug like they’d never happened. But I could have handled it better. I could have stopped myself from being pissed at him and showing it.

Even now, my anger mounted as I thought of what Janie had purposefully done. She was petty and vindictive, and I regretted agreeing to hire her. I kicked at a rock by my shoe. “I’m out here.”

Shane’s head snapped up, and his eyes rounded a bit. He finally detached from the door and scuffled outside, his hands around his gut as he walked toward me. I could see the hesitation in his eyes, anger, too.

“I just wanted some fresh air,” he explained. “I wasn’t going to come outside on my own.”

I waved toward the bench. “You can chill. I’ll stay out here with you.”

It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him that I loved him. Those emotions had been floating around inside of me for months. Yes, months, even before I’d found out we were mates. There was just something about Shane that drew me in from the beginning, something that pressed against my heart and my head, making me crazy enough that I’d worried countless nights that his headaches were more serious, that he had some undiagnosed illness that was going to take him from me.

But it hadn’t been the case. Those headaches hadn’t been headaches. And now his ability to read thoughts was gone. I had to admit that talent would have come in handy but not if it had been hurting him.

Shane moved over to the bench and sat, but he didn’t relax. He sat there leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, his shoulders stiff. I knew he wanted to say something to me, to let me have it, but his lips are pressed tightly together.

---