Chapter 3

Gemma’s POV

“Oh, yes!” the woman screamed as her hips buckled energetically under her. “Just like that, don’t stop Ian! Oh—ah—!”

The sounds made me sick to my stomach, and as I watched their sweat-slicked bodies move I felt the sudden urge to hurl up the meager lunch I had managed to choke down earlier.

All this time I had been worried, waiting to hear back from Ian, and now I walked in to find him fucking another girl?

Or… wait—

Feeling my heart sink to the pit of my stomach, I realized that this wasn’t some random girl.

The woman currently riding Ian was my coworker Karen, from the diner. Instantly, I felt a lightbulb come on inside my head, and I frowned as my mind ran over moments of hostility from her that I never understood.

Now the mystery was solved.

“I bet that skank could never make you feel so good,” Karen continued between pants.

The venom in her tone at the mention of ‘that skank’ made it clear that she was referring to me, and Ian’s response only confirmed it.

“She was too busy pretending to be some prissy virgin to ever satisfy me, and all along the whore was going around and getting fucked. Now she’s gone and gotten knocked-up by some rando and—”

The rest of his words cut off in a shuddering moan, and at that moment it crossed my mind that the reasonable thing to do would be backing out of the room slowly to make a quiet exit out of Ian’s place. I could block him and move on with my life. Pretend none of this ever happened.

But my blood reached a boiling point, until a fuse burst in my head.

“YOU BASTARD!” I roared, slamming the door fully open and stepping inside.

Through the tears blurring my vision I watched the two of them jerk apart and start to scramble on the bed.

Ian’s features darkened as soon as he saw me, but Karen’s reaction was the exact opposite as a wide smile settled across her mouth while she tugged the blanket up to her chest, covering her breasts.

“Haven’t you ever heard of knocking, Gemma?” Ian grunted once he had settled, and he had the audacity to flick off a bead of sweat from his forehead as he looked up at me while Karen huddled up to him.

The casual nature of the question caught me off-guard, but before I could think of a response he continued.

“What?” Ian asked in a mocking voice, before proceeding to blame me. “You’re mad I fucked some other girl when you did it and got pregnant first?!”

If I wasn’t looking at him at that moment, I would’ve been able to convince myself that Ian believed what he was saying, but as he spoke, he struggled to hold my gaze, and a rest flush crept over his features.

It betrayed the fact that all of this was bullshit that even he didn’t believe, which led to another realization: I didn’t know Ian at all, and in another life, I could’ve found out too late.

I had been prepared to let things come to a peaceful end with him. But Ian wanted to humiliate me, and the thought of getting into a relationship with someone capable of that made my skin crawl.

He was still talking, but I could barely make out what he was saying over the pounding in my eardrums.

“… You think the whole world revolves around you sweetheart? Well, think again, because you’re about to watch me knock someone up.”

With those words, he grasped Karen’s arm and pulled her closer to him, before burying his face in her neck.

My idiot coworker let out a girlish squeal as his teeth grazed her neck, and she pretended to try and pull away but the attempt only made him pull her closer.

The sight made my stomach churn, and without thinking I stepped away from them and continued until I had completely backed out of the room.

If my day wasn’t already so bad I might’ve jumped at the sight of Shane’s pale face standing just out of sight of the doorway with a can of some cold store-bought energy drink held aloft in one hand.

Condensation dripped down one finger, as Shane’s sleepy eyes looked pityingly at me but apprehensive too, like he feared I was about to collapse on the floor from crying… which wasn’t far off what I actually wanted to do.

I steeled my nerves though.

If Ian wanted to humiliate me then he had another thing coming, and without thinking I plucked the drink from Shane’s hands and strolled back into the room, where it looked like Ian was about to have a second round with Karen, with him on top of her this time.

My hand jerked forward, and for a moment time seemed to stop as I watched the drink spill out, arcing through the air before landing with a sudden splash on Ian.

“What the hell?!” he screamed, but I didn’t stick around to see the rest of his reaction.

Instead, I handed the now empty can to Shane, whose eyes held a hint of admiration, and I forced a smile on.

“Thanks,” I murmured.

Then I left as quickly as I could, because as Ian’s insults rang through the entire house, I could feel a sob rising in my throat.

When I let myself out of the house it had grown even darker, but a quick look at my phone showed that I hadn’t even been at Ian’s for up to fifteen minutes.

It was funny how time dragged when your whole world was falling apart, I thought as tears swam in my eyes once more. I dashed them off, and looked in the direction of the route I usually took to get back home.

Sniffing, I realized that I didn’t want to be alone on my own right now, and after a moment of searching through my nonexistent list of friends, I began to retrace my steps back to the diner.

Every step hurt, and by the time I got to Paula Eats, my reflection in the windows showed that my eyes were red-rimmed and puffy. I was ashamed of how beaten-down I looked, and had just started to step away from the diner to head back home when the doors swung open suddenly.

Paula’s face, haloed by her frizzy white hair and a beanie peeked out, and her eyes settled on me.

I opened my mouth to give an excuse, but the words died in my throat, and after a beat she nodded simply before stepping back and holding the door back for me to come in.

While I did, she turned the sign the other way around so it read CLOSED, and I started to protest but she waved me off dismissively, disappearing into the kitchen for some minutes only to reemerge with two cups of hot cocoa.

She handed one over, and then plopped herself beside me, and for a moment the two of us sipped on our hot drinks in silence until she finally turned to me.

“Do you want to tell me why you look like a lost cub outside my diner at this time of the night?”

I began to tell her there was nothing wrong, but then a wave of exhaustion hit me all of a sudden and I sagged in my chair. For the last two months it had felt like I was living on borrowed time.

I didn’t know who I was or where I had come from, and finding myself alone as a woman in Rogueland meant that I’d always kept my guard up.

But I was so tired of pretending like everything was okay, and to my surprise I started to tell Paula about my day. The words came out of me haltingly, and even though I tried not to let my emotions get the best of me, I had to take long pauses to stop myself from breaking into a sobbing mess.

Through all of this, Paula listened carefully, her eyes alert and dark as she stared off into some distance.

By the time I finished, her cup of cocoa had gone cold, and for a long moment after that she didn’t say anything and I feared that she had dozed off midstory even though her eyes were clearly open.

I was about to test my theory and poke her when she suddenly clapped her hands on her knees and turned to me, letting out a low whistle.

“If I knew any of these things a few hours ago, Cole and his crew would be getting turned into pie in my kitchen right now.”

She pointed a crooked finger in the general direction of the kitchen to emphasize her point. A giggle escaped me without warning.

“What?” she asked after a moment, when I tried to stifle the laughter. “If you think that was a joke then you don’t know me, sweetheart?”

I started to laugh in earnest at that moment, but then at one point I began to cry too, and when Paula held her arms wide open, I dove in for the hug and sobbed until the entire front side of her blouse where my face was pressed against was wet.

Eventually, I stopped crying, and as I straightened out of the hug, I noticed that my heart felt several tons lighter. This was all well and good, but feeling better about my problems did not mean that they had gone away.

Paula handed me a paper towel, and as I blew my nose into it, I continued.

“I think that what I’m worried about now is how much trouble I’ll get into as the pregnancy progresses. The further along I get, the more difficult it will be to mask my scent. And I’m so scared, Paula.”

There was nothing more seductive than the scent of an unmated pregnant shewolf. My body had become a factory of hormones that relentlessly tried to attract males (AKA potential mates.) The baby’s father was a total jerk for impregnating and deciding not to mark me. Maybe I had always had bad taste in men.

Well, that’s one more thing I learned about myself.

The thought of spending the next couple of months dodging males like Cole and his crew (basically the whole of Rogueland) sent a shiver of dread down my spine, and for the second time that night I felt another onset of tears coming in.

Without a word, Paula got up from the booth seat and disappeared to the kitchen, and for about five minutes I was left alone in the diner wondering what could’ve set her off until she returned holding something concealed in a velvet pouch.

Her movements were furtive as she sidled over, reaching over to pull the blinds down behind me before lowering herself down into her former spot.

When she spoke, her voice was barely a whisper.

“You’re a smart girl, Gemma” she said, and I leaned in close to catch her words. “I’m sure you know you couldn’t possibly be the first and only unmated female in Rogueland to get pregnant.”

While she spoke, she pulled out a vial from the pouch, then she handed it over to me.

“Smell it,” she said, and cautiously I did. Immediately, I recoiled—not because it smelled bad, but because it smelled of an unnatural absence. Like nothing.

Paula shot me a satisfied grin when she saw my reaction, and when I tried to hand it back to her, she shook her head.

“Sweetheart, that is the goddess’s answer to all of your prayers. It won’t mask just your scent, but greatly dull the effects your hormones have on males. Try it.”

Hesitantly, I did, dabbing it on my wrists and rubbing them together cautiously as Paula instructed. A minute passed before I felt a calmness settle over me like a cloud, and I didn’t need to look up at Paula to know that it had worked.

My sense of smell wasn’t exceptional, but I got by fine enough and for the next few moments I sniffed myself experimentally to see if I would catch the slightest whiff of my scent.

There was nothing. Nothing.

When this realization hit, I almost jumped out of my seat to break into a victory dance, but instead of that I settled for pulling Paula into a hug and squeezing her as tightly as I could before she swatted me off.

“Get off me, you pest,” she grumbled, and when I did, she smoothened her blouse and cleared her throat. “Is it a boy or a girl?”

The question stomped me, and with a start I realized that I didn’t ask at the hospital. I had been in such a hurry to leave that I forgot to. In fact, I hadn’t even asked if I could actually keep the baby, but in this quiet moment now, when doing so no longer put my life in danger, I realized that I was going to.

I was going to keep this baby, because unlike the Luna that had every man pining after her, there was no one searching for me.

There was no one looking out for me. No family. So, I would have to make my own.

This baby was going to be my family, and I would love and take care of it no matter what.