Chapter Three

Chapter Three

Harper 

I stared at Pedro, my heart doing frantic somersaults in my chest. "Your mate? That is impossible. I was married to Elec for three years. If there was a bond, I would have felt it."

Pedro leaned even closer, his shadow swallowing me whole. "Elec is a fool who wouldnt know a fated bond if it tore his throat out. I have spent years waiting for a scent that didn't make me want to burn the world down. Then I found you, face down on the pavement in the rain."

I shivered, the heat from his body radiating off him in waves. "I don't understand. The bond... it just happened?"

"It snapped into place the second my skin touched yours,"Pedro whispered, his voice vibrating with a raw, dangerous hunger. 

"My wolf hasn't stopped howling since I brought you into this house. It is deafening."

I looked away, my hand instinctively flat against my stomach. He cannot know,If he finds out Im carrying the heir of his rival, he will throw me back into the street. Or worse.

"You look like hell, Harper,"Pedro said suddenly, his tone shifting back to that cold, arrogant edge Id heard about in the news. He straightened up and looked toward the door. "Mina! Sara! Get in here."

Two young women in crisp uniforms hurried into the room, bowing low.

"Clean her up,"Pedro commanded, not even looking at them. "She smells like Elecs cheap cologne and failure. Scrub it off. I want her smelling like herself when I come back."

"Yes, Alpha,"the maids whispered in unison.

I felt a flush of humiliation creep up my neck. "You don't have to be so rude. Ive had a very long night."

Pedro turned at the door, his golden eyes flashing. "And Ive had a very long life waiting for a mate who wasn't a corpse. Youre lucky Im the one who found you and not one of the scavengers looking for a piece of the Gerald fallout."

"How do you even know about that?"I asked, my voice trembling.

Pedro pulled a thin tablet from the dresser and tossed it onto the bed. "It is everywhere, Harper. Every gossip rag from London to Paris is talking about the Alpha of the Gerald Pack dumping his 'human' wife for his true mate. There are even videos of you being thrown out of the gates."

I looked down at the screen. My heart shattered all over again. There it was. A grainy video of me stumbling in the rain, my suitcase bursting open while Elec stood in the background with his arm around Vespa. The comments were even worse.

Finally, he got rid of the dead weight.Vespa is way more of a Luna than that girl ever was.

I choked back a sob, the digital humiliation feeling like a physical weight on my lungs.

"Don't waste your tears on a man who used you as a placeholder,"Pedro barked. "Go. Wash. Ill be in the study."

He stormed out, the door slamming behind him with a finality that made me jump.

The maids were surprisingly gentle. They led me to a bathroom that was larger than my entire old apartment. They filled a marble tub with oils that smelled of jasmine and honey. They scrubbed the grime of the street from my skin, but they couldn't scrub away the feeling of Elecs betrayal.

When I was finally dressed in a soft, silk slip dress they provided, I walked out into the main bedroom. Pedro was standing by the window, his back to me. His shirt was off now, and I could see the ink across his shoulders. Dragons, wolves, and ancient runes covered his skin, moving as he breathed.

"Im done,"I said softly.

He turned around, and the air in the room instantly became heavy. His eyes weren't gold anymore. They were almost black. His chest was heaving, and I could see a fine sheen of sweat on his forehead.

"Pedro?"I stepped back, my wolf senses—what little I had—screaming at me to run. "What is wrong?"

"The scent,"he groaned, his voice sounding more like a beast than a man. He moved across the room with terrifying speed, pinning me against the wall before I could even blink.

His hands slammed into the plaster on either side of my head. He buried his face in the crook of my neck, inhaling so deeply it sounded like a growl.

"Stop,"I whispered, my heart hammering. "Youre scaring me."

"I am in my rut, Harper,"he rasped against my skin, his teeth grazing my pulse point. "And having my fated mate in my house, smelling like jasmine and heat... it is testing every bit of my sanity."

I felt the heat from his body searing through my thin dress. "You need to let me go."

"I should,"he growled, his hands sliding down the wall to grip my waist, his fingers digging into my hips. "I should lock you in another wing and wait for the fever to break. But my wolf wants to mark you. He wants to claim what Elec was too stupid to keep."

He pulled back just enough to look me in the eyes. The raw, primal desire in his gaze was intoxicating. I knew I should push him away. I knew I should tell him about the baby. But for the first time in three years, I felt like someone actually wantedme. Not as a prop. Not as a deal. But as a woman.

"Pedro..."I breathed.

"Im trying to be a gentleman, Harper,"he said, his voice dropping to a dangerous, low rumble. "But you need to stop looking at me like that before I lose the last bit of self-control I have left."

He leaned in, his lips a breath away from mine. I could feel the vibration of his growl in my own chest.

"Tell me to stop,"he demanded. "Tell me right now, or Im going to make you mine."

I opened my mouth to speak, but the words died in my throat. I didn't want him to stop.

Just as his lips touched mine, the heavy scent of his power shifted. He froze, his nose moving slightly against my cheek. His eyes snapped wide, and he pulled back, staring at my stomach with a look of sudden, piercing realization.

"What is that?"he whispered, his voice turning deathly quiet.

My heart stopped. "What is what?"

Pedros hand moved from my waist, his palm hovering just over my womb. His eyes searched mine, the golden fire returning with a vengeance.

"There is another heartbeat, Harper,"he growled, his face twisting into a mask of pure, unadulterated rage. 

"Whose pup are you carrying?"