Page 26 of Pregnant Wolf's Mate

She wasn’t exactly sure how she knew it, but the moment that she said the words, she knew without a doubt that they were true.

“How can you say that? He’s Ray McCormack. Everybody always worries about what he will do next,” Lottie pointed out, and Macie couldn’t help but scoff at the fact Lottie was so bothered about Ray’s actions after what she had just admitted to.

“Do you trust me?” Macie asked, gripping her sister’s hands just a little tighter and staring her dead in the eye.

For just a second, Macie thought she would shake her head. Then, finally, she said, “I trust you more than anyone else in the world.”

“Well, if you trust me, then you can trust him,” Macie insisted and it was only when her sister looked at her inquisitively, clearly looking for something a little more solid, that she finally admitted, “Ray is the father.”

Confusion turned to shock and shock turned to fascination as Lottie glanced down to follow Macie’s own gaze, which had fallen to her abdomen. She felt as though she could feel the tiny little heartbeat pulsing inside of her.

“You have got to be kidding me!” Lottie explained. “How?”

Macie cringed at the disbelief in her sister’s tone and she quickly shook her head. “I’ll explain everything later but for now, I think we have kept the pack waiting long enough.”

Macie wasn’t sure which she wanted to face less, her sister’s questioning gaze or the gazes of the entire pack when she stepped into the meeting hall to join them as though she had any right to be there at all.

Chapter 14 - Ray

After a few minutes of waiting for Lottie and Macie, he quickly came to realize that it wasn’t going to be so simple. What little he could hear of the conversation, he could guess that it was definitely not one that should be overheard by anyone. Clearly, Lottie had decided to tell her sister the truth and as much as he was angry with the she-wolf of her actions, he couldn’t bear the pain that he felt coming off Macie as she realized the extent of her sister’s betrayal.

Deciding it was best to give them both a little space, he sucked in a deep breath and pulled open the door of the meeting hall to step inside. One glance around the room told him that pretty much every member of the pack was already inside. At least if they were there, they wouldn’t be in the hall, listening to what Lottie and Macie were talking about.

“Good of you to finally join us, McCormack,” Dash hissed under his breath. “Is that everyone?”

Ray struggled to stop himself from snarling back at the alpha. No, it definitely wasn’t everyone. He was about to say so when the door behind him suddenly opened with a creaking sound. Stepping out of the way, he was a little surprised to turn around and find that Lottie and Macie were entering together. He had half-expected for Macie to avoid coming in after how she had been out in the woods.

She did look more than a little sheepish as she stepped into the room behind her sister. And the moment that the rest of the pack caught sight of her, Ray couldn’t say he blamed her. Several of them began to mutter to each other while others simply stared at her in shock. A couple even growled deep in their throats as though they were warning her to turn right back around and go wait in the hall, as though she was just another one of the pups in the pack.

And the way they all treated her made Ray clench his jaw.

“Macie? What are you doing in here?” Dash said, though his tone was not immediately dismissive. “This is a meeting for fully-fledged members of the pack only.”

“I…umm…” Macie said, looking like a deer caught in headlights. Ray wanted nothing more than to sweep her up in his arms and hold her tight until she could no longer feel the scrutiny of the rest of her pack. He wanted to snarl and slash at every single one of them until they wiped the horrendous looks off of their faces.

Instead, he stepped up and spoke directly to Dash, “I vouch for her.”

The alpha’s eyes widened with surprise at that, and he glanced around the room as though he automatically expected someone to step up to challenge the fact.

When nobody said a word loud enough to challenge it, only muttering among themselves, Dash turned back to him and asked, “Why?”

“Because Macie is a fully-fledged member of this pack,” Ray announced.

“She failed to shift at the full moon ritual!” Max, Dash’s most annoying second in command, pointed out. “On her eighteenth birthday no less.”

Several of the pack snarled with laughter and Ray could practically feel Macie shrinking in on herself. If she had been in wolf form, he was certain she was have been bowing low, submitting herself to them with her ears pressed back against her head, whimpering like a pup.

And yet, he knew he had to be strong for her. He had already put her through enough and encouraging her into the room had all been down to him. She had been strong enough to enter. Now he had to be strong enough for them both, to get her the place she rightfully deserved within the pack.

“She has shifted since,” Ray assured them and glancing around to Macie, he held out his hand before he added, “Besides, she is welcome within the pack for the simple fact she is a Silverdale, is she not?”

Macie looked at him as though he was insane, but he smiled at her warmly and sucked in a deep breath, preparing for what he was going to say next. “And even if she wasn’t, any mate of a fully-fledged pack member is also a pack member themselves, are they not?”

He looked around at the table in the center of the room where the heads of the pack were sitting. Dash and Raya, the alpha and his mate, Max and Tara, the second and his mate, Cole and Malia, a senior wolf and a goddamn witch. Worse was the witch’s sister, Emily, sitting beside her own mate Daemon, a damned demon wolf and the only one who still lived among the pack while having full access to his wolf, all because he had earned their trust by helping them save all of Silverdale from his own pack.

If anyone knows how to betray a pack, it’s him, Ray thought, feeling sorry for a second that Lottie was clearly struggling with the guilt of what she had done.

“I was not aware of any mating?” Dash growled, his tone a challenge, but Ray held his head high and reached his hand out further to Macie. He barely gave the alpha a second look as he turned to look at the man’s cousin and offered her an encouraging smile.

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