Semua Bab Cheating on a Frenzied Alpha, Pregnant with his Child: Bab 1 - Bab 10

Eventually his breathing deepened, slow and even, and I waited, counting the seconds, before easing myself out from under his arm."Where are you going?" he murmured, voice thick with sleep, eyes barely open."Bathroom," I whispered, and he did not argue, already sinking back into rest — which somehow felt worse than if he'd caught me outright.The moment the bedroom door clicked shut behind me, the phone buzzed again in my palm. I stared at it in the dark hallway, thumb hovering, heartbeat loud enough that I was almost sure Kael could hear it straight through the wall.I answered. "Hello?"Silence, then a man's voice, low and unbearably familiar. "You still answer."I glanced at the closed bedroom door like it might overhear anyway. "Not tonight.""You said that last time.""I mean it this time."A pause stretched between us, heavier than it had any right to be. "I just wanted to hear your voice," he said quietly, and my chest tightened in a way I refused to examine too closely, stan

"Serena," he said, voice dropping soft, the kind of softness that used to be a home I lived in once."Don't," I said."You still feel something," he said, not a question, just an observation he was laying down between us like a card on a table.I closed my eyes. "This is a mistake," I said."Probably," he agreed easily, no fight in it at all."You shouldn't have contacted me," I said."Probably," he said again."You shouldn't be sitting in my car.""Definitely," he agreed, and when I opened my eyes to glare at him he was already smiling, and a laugh slipped out of me before I could stop it, betraying me completely."You're impossible," I said, half-laughing despite myself."I remember you saying that," he said. "Frequently, in fact. I used to keep count.""You remember too much," I said."I remember everything about you," he said, low, and the laughter died in my throat as the air inside the car turned suddenly, dangerously warm, thick with all the things neither of us was supposed to

The bathroom door closed behind Kael, and I stayed frozen in the hallway, my hand still locked around my handbag like it was the only solid thing left in the room. My heartbeat was so loud I could hear it over everything else. For a few seconds I just stared at that closed door."Idiot," I whispered, and I wasn't entirely sure whether I meant him or myself. Probably myself.The phone was still vibrating inside my bag. I already knew who it was before I checked — Adrian, one missed call, and then a message sliding onto the screen: Are you okay? I locked it immediately. I had no business caring whether he was worried about me, and yet I did, and that was the part of the whole mess I hated most. I'd always assumed cheating started with hatred. It didn't. Sometimes it started with dissatisfaction, or curiosity, or one person making you feel desired while another made you feel safe — and sometimes, apparently, it started with being stupid enough to think you could keep two worlds from coll

"Serena, if you stare at that dress for another minute, the mannequin is going to start charging you rent."I glanced at the mannequin, then at Mia, then back at the dress. "It's beautiful.""It's overpriced.""Those two things usually go together in this store."Mia snorted and looped her arm through mine, tugging me deeper into the boutique. "That's exactly why your mother worries about you.""My mother worries because worrying is her favorite hobby. She'd find something to fuss over if I became a saint."She laughed, and for the first time in days I felt something close to normal. No Kael. No pack council. No cryptic messages waiting on my phone like landmines. Just me, my best friend, and an afternoon that belonged to nobody but us.I needed this more than I'd admitted to myself. I had spent so many weeks measuring my life by how it fit around my mate that I'd nearly forgotten I existed as anything else.Mia stopped at another rack and held up a dress, elegant, fitted, and far mor

That night, sleep never came within reach of me. My body felt wrong in a way I couldn't name, restless under my own skin, humming with something that had no business waking up at this hour. The baby moved more than usual, small insistent shifts against my palm every time I settled."What's wrong with you tonight?" I whispered into the dark.Another kick answered me, sharper than the last. I almost laughed. "You're talking to me now? Good timing, as always."Then the craving returned. Quieter than the version from the kitchen that morning, but it found the dry ache already sitting in my throat and settled there like it had never left at all. I reached for the water glass on the table beside my bed and drank. Nothing. I drank again, longer this time, until the glass was empty and my throat was somehow drier than before.My heart started slamming hard against my ribs, and underneath the fear was a dread with no logic attached to it — a certainty that water was never going to be the thing