CHAPTER 3: The Price of Freedom

Jasmine's POV

"Where exactly did a little mouse like you find this much cheese?" Drax leaned back in his chair picking his teeth with a dirty fingernail.

He was a massive scarred brute of a man and his dingy office smelled of cigar smoke and the suspicious tang of old blood.

He stared down at the thick stacks of cash I had just slapped onto his scarred desk. The money I had stolen from that terrifying stranger, Glenn, exactly two weeks ago.

I kept my face perfectly blank as I crossed my arms over my chest, hiding the way my hands were trembling.

"It doesn't matter where I get the money, Drax. As long as I pay the debts my mother owed you, you shouldn't care if it fell from the sky."

Drax snorted, leaned forward and snatched up the stacks with his thick quickly flicking through the bills. He didn't have a money counter but he didn't need one. His greedy eyes tracked every single dollar.

"Just making conversation, Trivett," he grumbled. "People who suddenly come into big money usually have angry people looking for them. I don't like angry people knocking on my door."

"Nobody is looking for me," I lied.

He finished counting, pulling a crumpled ledger from his desk drawer and scribbling something down with a stubby pencil. He did some quick math with his lips moving silently. "Alright. This covers a massive chunk of the principal. You keep this up and the remaining money will only take you a couple of weeks to settle."

Relief washed over me in a wave. After years of suffocating under my dead mother's mistakes, I could finally see the light at the end of the tunnel.

"I'll have the rest soon," I told him, turning on my heel. I didn't wait for a response. I just pushed through the door and stepped out into the gloomy alleys of Cresthaven.

The moment the door clicked shut behind me, my shoulders slumped. I let out a shaky breath, wrapping my thin jacket tighter around my body and began making my way back home with my eyes darting to every shadow, every alleyway and every parked car.

I was highly cautious. Ever since that crazy run-in with that creepy mqn, Zea and I had been extra careful out in the open. I felt like a walking target.

A sudden wave of nausea hit me so intense it made my vision blur and I stumbled, pressing a hand against a cold brick wall to steady myself while my stomach did a violent flip. I hadn't been feeling well for days.. I was constantly exhausted, my breasts ached and my stomach felt like it was tied in permanent knots.

I wiped a sheen of cold sweat from my forehead. I needed medicine and I felt the strong urge to stop at a pharmacy and get some drugs just to settle my stomach so I could function. I forced myself to walk, pushing past the pain, heading toward the neon green cross of a pharmacy two blocks down.

I reached the glass doors and reached out to push them open but I suddenly froze.

The hairs on the back of my neck stood up as paranoia flooded my veins. My hand tightened on the door handle and I slowly turned my head with my eyes scanning the street.

Across the road, leaning against a rusted streetlamp was a man in a dark hoodie. He was smoking a cigarette but his head was tilted directly toward me and he was staring. Was he an enforcer? Did Glenn find me?

The silver amulet resting against my collarbone kept my wolf locked away in a painful agonizing void. I was completely blind and I had no enhanced senses. I was just a weak vulnerable omega girl.

Fear won out. I abandoned the pharmacy door, shoved my hands into my pockets and kept walking, picking up my pace. I didn't look back but I took a winding, complicated route cutting through alleys, doubling back through a crowded outdoor market and hopped a rusty chain-link fence until I was absolutely sure I wasn't being followed.

By the time I reached the rundown cramped apartment I shared with Zea, I was completely exhausted. I slipped inside, locked the deadbolt, threw the chain lock and collapsed against the door. The apartment was empty.. Zea had gone out too.

I groaned, peeling off my jacket and kicking off my shoes as I dragged my aching body toward my bed and face-planted onto the mattress. I closed my eyes, desperately trying to get some sleep.

I didn't know how long I was out but the loud rattle of the door handle jolted me awake.

I sat up with my heart pounding until I heard Zea's familiar voice cursing at her keys. She burst into the apartment with her auburn hair windblown, looking stylish but deeply stressed. She saw me sitting on the bed and her bold brown eyes widened.

"Jas! Where the hell were you?" she demanded, throwing her purse onto the kitchen counter. "When did you slip out."

"I went to see Drax," I said, rubbing the sleep from my eyes.

"Are you insane?" Zea marched over, planting her hands on her hips. "We agreed to lay low!"

"Zea, it's been two weeks already of us hiding like rats," I emphasized, running a hand through my messy dark hair. "I can't just pause my life. The interest was piling up."

"You shouldn't be out in the open!" she argued with her voice rising with protective anger. "I can blend in. I didn't do anything. You were the one who ended up in that creepy stranger's bed! You stole his wallet! You stand at a massive disadvantage out there. If he's looking for anyone, it's you."

I winced, knowing she was right but I held my ground. "If I didn't go pay off the loan shark today, Drax would have come kicking down this door tomorrow. That would have meant serious trouble. Real, violent trouble."

Zea opened her mouth to yell again but then she sighed with her shoulders dropping. She ran a hand over her face. "How much did you pay him?"

"All of it," I said softly. "The whole wallet. I only have a couple of weeks of payments left, Zea. I'm almost free."

Zea's expression instantly softened as she walked over and sat next to me on the bed, wrapping an arm around my shoulders. "Okay," she murmured, resting her head against mine. "Okay. That's huge, Jas. You're almost home free from that hideous debt. Just... please don't sneak out without telling me again."

"I promise," I whispered.

We rested with the comforting idea that my nightmare was almost over but my night was far from peaceful.

Later that evening, Zea brought a guy home from the bar. It was a regular occurrence so I quietly gathered my blankets and retreated to the small, cramped space in the living room corner where I went every night she had company.

I curled up on the thin floor mattress, pulling the pillow over my head but it didn't help. The apartment walls were paper-thin.

I lay there in the dark, forced to listen to the loud squeaking of the bedsprings, the breathy moans, the dirty talk and the heavy grunts of Zea fucking whatever guy she had brought home today.

Usually, I just rolled my eyes and tried to ignore it but tonight, the sounds did something strange to me. My body felt overly sensitive with a hot amd heavy flush washing over my skin.

Without my permission, my mind drifted away from the cramped apartment and pulled me back to that luxurious suite at the Elysian Moor. I remembered Glenn's dark, glowing eyes and the way his large hands had felt sliding over my bare skin.

I bit my lip.

Even though I wanted to fight it, even though he was a creepy stranger who had basically blackmailed me, I felt incredibly horny as I thought of it. It was without a shadow of a doubt, the greatest sex of my entire life. He had touched me in ways that made me feel things I didn't even know existed.

My breathing grew shallow and my hand slowly slipped down beneath my blankets, drifting over my stomach and tracing the edge of my underwear.

I started touching myself with my mind conjuring the images from that night but then the silver amulet dug sharply into my chest as I shifted.

The pain snapped me back to reality and I gasped, yanking my hand away as if I had been burned. I harshly scolded myself, forcing my eyes open and staring into the darkness.

"Stop it," I whispered fiercely to myself. "He's a monster. You're just stressed. Go to sleep."

I forced myself to stop, tossing and turning until exhaustion finally dragged me under.

By the next morning my sickness had grown completely unbearable and it wasn't just nausea anymore.

I woke up with the room spinning violently around me and barely made it to the bathroom before I was vomiting everything in my empty stomach into the toilet. The dizziness was so tough I couldn't stand up straight.

Zea found me sitting on the cold bathroom tiles, pale and shaking and didn't ask questions. She just grabbed my coat and forced me to visit the hospital.

Now I was sitting in a white waiting room anxiously waiting after a bunch of blood tests and a physical exam.

I was seated in an uncomfortable plastic chair, tapping my foot restlessly against the lfloor while Zea was at work, leaving me completely alone with my racing thoughts.

What if I had some terrible disease? What if my suppressed wolf was finally dying from the amulet, taking my human body down with it?

"Jasmine Trivett?"

I jumped as a nurse in blue scrubs waved me over. I stood up on shaky legs and followed her down a long hallway, entering a small brightly lit exam room.

A moment later, the doctor walked in holding a manila folder in his hands. He smiled softly at me, sitting down on a rolling stool.

"Well, Jasmine," the doctor said, talking calmly and nicely. "We got your test results back. The good news is, you aren't sick. There is no infection and your vitals are relatively strong."

I let out a massive breath I didn't know I was holding. "Thank the Moon Goddess. Then why have I been throwing up for days? The dizziness..."

The doctor opened the folder, looking at the papers inside with a gentle, reassuring smile.

"Those are perfectly normal symptoms," he revealed, looking up into my wide terrified eyes. "Jasmine... you're pregnant…”