“Calm down, Mom!” Oh God, this was not how she wanted to start this conversation. “I’m fine, I—”
Alynna pulled her to her feet. “We’re going in there and—what the fuck is that?” Her eyes went wide as she stared at the obvious bump on her stomach.
“I can explain.”
“You better, young lady!”
“Mika! Are you okay, baby?”
Oh, Jesus. “Dad!”
Alex Westbrooke sprinted toward her and pulled her into a hug. “I came as soon as I heard. I was on overnight shift.” When he let go of her his gaze went to her chest. “Fuck! What happened?”
“She’s pregnant,” Alynna stated.
He didn’t seem to hear his wife as he continued to stare at the bloody stain on her sweater and his nostrils flared “Why are you covered in blood? You—” Her father’s eyes nearly popped out their sockets as his gaze slowly dropped to her belly. “Oh. Oh.” Something must have short-circuited in his brain, because he just stood there with his mouth open.
“Explain,” Alynna said, crossing her arms over her chest. “Now.”
“H-how did this h-happen?” Alex stuttered.
Where to begin? “The usual way?” When both of them glared at her, she clamped her mouth shut.
“God, Mika!” Alynna began. “You disappear for three months—”
“I did not disappear, Mother. I was working in Russia, trying to negotiate an important alliance so we can win this war against the mages.”
“You leave for three months, and then next thing we hear is that you’re in a shooting and you come back pregnant? How did you even—” Her jaw dropped. “Wait, you’re not hurt?”
She nodded.
“That means … oh!” Her mother’s face brightened; all traces of anger gone. “Oh, my God! You found him. Your True Mate.”
Mika found herself buried in a flurry of arms and chests as her parents embraced her. “Mom, Dad, I can’t breathe.”
“Oh, sorry, baby,” Alex stepped back. He cleared his throat. “Who is he? When are we meeting him?”
“Is he from Russia?” Alynna grabbed her hand excitedly. “He must be. How did you meet? Did you know right away?”
“Er, maybe we should—”
“Mika, are you all right?”
Oh, for God’s sake. This was turning into a farce. Did they call the entire clan in here?
Astrid, the new Beta of the New York clan, strode into the waiting room, followed by Lucas and Nick Vrost.
“Astrid,” she greeted. “And Nick. I’m surprised you’re here.”
“Zac had to stay with Annaliese,” the former Beta said, referring to his granddaughter and Astrid and Zac’s pup. “Welcome back.”
“She found her True Mate,” Alynna said. “Isn’t that exciting?”
“Hello, someone also tried to kill me,” she reminded them. “I think that’s the more pressing matter.”
“We’ll get to the bottom of this,” Lucas said.
“It has to be the mages,” Astrid began. “But they’ve only gone after Adrianna or Lucas until now.”
“That’s what I said,” Mika began. “We should—”
The door leading to the treatment rooms opened. Mika’s heart skipped a beat, waiting for Dr. Blake to come out and relay Delacroix’s condition, but to her surprise, the Cajun himself staggered out. His skin was still pale, and his chest was bandaged under his leather jacket, but he was upright.
“Mr. Delacroix.” Dr. Blake followed behind him, an annoyed look on his face. “I told you, you can’t leave yet. You need rest.”
But he ignored the doctor and marched straight to Mika. “You’re not hurt.” When his gaze lowered to her belly, his eyes widened.
“Of course not,” Alynna said. “She’s carrying her True Mate’s baby. It makes her invulnerable to almost anything.”
Dread crept into her chest, and Mika prayed he wouldn’t say anything. We had a deal, she said silently, trying to catch his eye. But he wouldn’t meet her gaze as he continued to stare at her stomach.
“Oh no, are you moving to Russia?” Alynna cried. “I mean, I know you have to be with your True Mate, but Moscow is so far away.”
“You met your True Mate while abroad?” Astrid inquired. “How cool.”
“I didn’t say—”
“Russia?” Delacroix snapped out of his trance. “What the fuck are they talking about?”
Anger emanated off him in waves, making her flinch. “I didn’t say anything about my True Mate,” she said and sent him a warning look that said, and you better not either.
But he wasn’t listening to her as his obsidian eyes hardened. “How could she meet her True Mate in Russia when he’s right here in New York?”
“Here?” Alynna looked at Alex and then back at her daughter. “I don’t understand.”
“Delacroix,” she hissed. “Stop—”
“Me. I’m her True Mate. And that baby is mine.”
The silence that filled the room made her ears ring. Five seconds later, chaos erupted.
“What does he mean—”
“Delacroix?”
“But you were in Moscow—”
“Did he—”
Mika held her hands up. “Stop, stop!” When the room quieted down, she turned to Delacroix. “We had a deal. We agreed not to tell anyone about … this.”
His mouth curled up into a sardonic smile. “You said you weren’t going to tell anyone I was the father. I don’t recall agreeing to such a thing, cher.”
“You and your stupid loopholes!” She wanted to scratch his eyes out.
“Did you know she was your True Mate?”
All eyes turned to Alex. His jaw was clenched and fists curled up at his sides.
“Oui. She figured it out. I didn’t know anything about True Mates at that point.”
The older Lycan’s eyes narrowed. “But you didn’t know she was pregnant.”
“I … did.”
“You motherfucking bastard!” Alex lunged for Delacroix, but Lucas and Nick managed to restrain him. “You got her pregnant—”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Dad.” She put herself between Alex and Delacroix. “It takes two to tango. And should I remind you both that my birthday comes only seven months after your wedding anniversary?” Alynna turned bright red and Alex seemed to calm down. “My personal life is not up for discussion. Now if you’d all like to discuss who tried to end my actual life, then I’d be willing to talk.”
“All right.” Lucas stepped forward, raising his palms up. “It’s late and we’re all tired. There’s nothing more we can do tonight. I think it’s time we all went home.” No one would disagree with the Alpha. Mika sent him a grateful smile.
The atmosphere in the room calmed down considerably. As her mother approached her, she shot her a warning look. “I’m not in the mood, Mom.”
“Mika,” she began as she gingerly placed an arm around her shoulder. “I’m here, okay? The last couple of years have been hard with J—”
“I know.” It wasn’t that she didn’t want to hear his name aloud. She still thought about Joe, but being away from New York, there were no memories of him around, nothing to remind her that he was dead and gone. Maybe it wasn’t fair, but she had to try and move on. If not for her, then for her child. “We’ll talk, I promise.” Her father didn’t say anything but hugged her fiercely. His scent and his strong arms nearly had her bawling, but she managed to get a grip.
Everyone slowly slipped out of the room; everyone except—
“I think we should talk, cher.”
She whirled around to face him. “There’s nothing to talk about.” If he didn’t nearly die, she would have wrung his neck for the chaos he caused.
His eyes flickered to her belly. “Isn’t there?”
“This shouldn’t come as a surprise,” she pointed out. “You knew what you signed up for.”
“I did.”
“And so now, you need to stay out of my way.”
A smile spread across his lips. “I changed my mind.”
“You changed …” Jesus, he was worse than a woman. “You can’t change your mind again. I can’t become un-pregnant.”
“Oh no, cher.” He stalked toward her, and for some reason, she felt like a rabbit being hunted by a predator. “I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about us.”
“Us? What are you talking about?”
“You. And me.” His fingers clenched together, as if he were trying to stop himself from reaching out to touch something. “All these months … I know there’s something there.”
“Ha, you’re delusional.” She crossed her arms over her belly. “I haven’t thought about you since I left.” Lie. Total lie, a voice in her mind screamed. But she squashed that thought.
“You thought I was going to die tonight. And you were scared you were going to lose me. You cared.”
Arrogant bastard. “I’m not a monster. I would have been scared for anyone.”
“So you say.”
She wished he would do … something. Get angry. Shout at her. Or even try to touch her. It would give her a good excuse to kick his ass. But the way he remained still, those ebony eyes fixed on her as if he was thinking hard, was unnerving. The wheels in his head were turning as if he were making big plans. Oh no. Surely, he wasn’t thinking that there could be anything between them. That wasn’t the plan, damn it! “This doesn’t change anything, Delacroix.”
“So you say.”
“And I’m having this baby by myself.”
“So you say.”
“You got what you want. You can’t change the terms of our deal.”
“So you—”
“I swear to God, I’m gonna claw your eyes out if you finish that sentence,” she snarled.
The bastard grinned at her. “Come, cher, you should get some rest. Besides, it’s bad for our baby—”
“My baby.”
“So you—” He stopped when she shot daggers at him. “I’ll escort you back to your place.”
“You’ll do no such thing.” She held her hands up at him. “Stay away from me, Delacroix. Or else.” She stormed out of the medical wing, indignant fury coursing through her veins. Her wolf yowled woefully, wanting to go back to Delacroix and see him. Scent him. The damned animal had gone from happy to excited to angry and now sad, that surely it was confused. She reminded it of their pup, but that only seemed to agitate the wolf.
What a fucking shitshow this night turned out to be. Maybe he’d been pumped with so much drugs that he had been hallucinating. Cared for him? He really was delusional. Well, surely the next few days couldn’t get any worse. By morning, all those drugs would have been cleared out of his system, and he would leave her alone.
Chapter Nine
Three months.
Delacroix didn’t quite believe she would be gone that long. Truly, he didn’t expect her to leave at all. He had gone through a maelstrom of emotions when she left. Anger. Betrayal. Disappointment. Yes, he knew they had a bargain, but he didn’t plan on feeling this way. Wanting her so much, but not just her body. He wanted her. Wanted to be around her and know if she was sad or happy or angry. Wanted to see her every day and take a whiff of her wonderful scent. Wanted to see her body grow and change as she carried their child. His wolf felt exactly the same way, its mood swinging from melancholy to rage; miserable without her and furious at him for letting her get away.
But the days and weeks passed. He couldn’t even get any news as to what was happening with her because he couldn’t go to the GI headquarters since he was now officially part of the Alpha’s security detail. Even Jacob couldn’t tell him anything, and Lizzie was tight-lipped because Mika’s mission was need-to-know only.
He tried to forget her, tried to distract himself with all kinds of activities, but nothing worked. When he tried to approach other women, he just felt disgust, especially when he came near another female and smelled her scent and realized they just weren’t … Mika.
After months of torture, he finally heard her name. Just his luck, he had been in the car with the Alpha when she called. His ears perked up, and he listened in, getting all the information he needed. Waited for her to come back to The Enclave. While he had appeared confident and relaxed, in truth, he’d been a nervous wreck. Seeing her again brought back all the memories. He couldn’t even bring himself to be angry with her.
And then, all hell broke loose. God, he had been so scared when he saw the blood on her chest, he didn’t even realize the bullet had gone into him. Why the hell didn’t anyone tell him about pregnant True Mate females being invulnerable? Would have saved him a heap of trouble.
But, as scared as he had been last night, he was glad, because it proved one thing: Mika cared for him. As he lay there with the bullet lodged in his rib cage, he saw her face. Saw the concern and fear in her eyes and the words she said. Please don’t die. You can’t die, you hear me?
That was enough for him, to convince him that this whole thing of them being apart, with her raising their pup on her own, was wrong. She was his. The pup was his, and he was damned if he was just going to walk away from that.
But how was he going to get her to listen to him? He couldn’t even get near her, not when she was all the way at the Brooklyn Bridge, and he was stuck guarding the Alpha. Even now, he desperately wanted to go to her, but he had the morning shift. He had escorted the Alpha from his penthouse in The Enclave and to his office.
And now, he was standing outside said office, waiting for the Alpha to leave for his lunch meetings. He wished he could just leave this cushy job and tell Vrost to stick it where the sun don’t shine.
The door opened behind him, and he straightened his stance. He expected the Alpha to step out, but instead, it was the Beta.
“Delacroix,” Astrid began. “Lucas wants to speak with you.”
“With me?”
“Yes.” She motioned for him to step inside. “I’ll see you later.”
His brows wrinkled. “You’re not staying?”
“No, I have stuff to do.”
Puzzled, he hesitated before going in. What could the Alpha possibly want with him? Not wanting to keep him waiting, he carefully crept inside. “Primul?” he asked, using the traditional honorific for one’s Alpha. “You wanted to see me?”
As usual, Lucas Anderson sat behind his large desk. He was, perhaps, one of the few men Delacroix thought looked intimidating while wearing an expensive tailored suit as he signed documents. Power emanated from the Alpha, and even without a single word or movement, Delacroix’s wolf cowered, recognizing the pure dominant nature of the other wolf. No doubt, Lucas Anderson was a trueborn Alpha.
“Sit down.” Elegant fingers placed a gold fountain pen into its holder.
He did as he was told, choosing the seat just opposite from his desk. “What can I do for you, Alpha?”
“Let’s not mince words, Delacroix.” Eerie mismatched eyes stared into him, as if boring right into his soul. “I know everything about you. Where you came from. What you did before you came here.”
He gritted his teeth but didn’t flinch. “I’m not proud of what I did back then. If Vrost has told you about my past, then it’s probably all true.” While Nick Vrost was a bastard, he wasn’t a liar.
“So, you don’t deny it? All the stuff you did? No excuses?”
“No.” He could make excuses. Blame it all on Remy. On being scared to disobey his orders. But he knew there was always a choice. “You know what Pont Saint-Louis’s reputation is. How we make our living. You could have turned me away.”
Lucas nodded. “I know. But I was intrigued by what Nick said you could do.”
He didn’t want to think of that night. Wanted it erased from his memories. “I thought we weren’t mincing words, Alpha. So, did you call me in here to kick me out?” Going Lone Wolf now wouldn’t be so bad. He had some money tucked away from the last year. He could even give King Karim a call, and he would offer hi
m a place back at the palace in a heartbeat. But that would mean leaving New York, and he couldn’t do that. Not now.
The Alpha threaded his fingers together and leaned forward on his desk. “What are your intentions toward Mika?”
“And this is your concern because …”
“Because I’m her Alpha. And her family.”
He didn’t conveniently forget that fact. Everyone knew she was the Alpha’s cousin. “That pup is mine. I intend to be a father to the child.”
“And Mika?”
“I intend to have her too. If she would have me.” And she will. She had to.
For a moment, he thought the Alpha would lunge at him, the way her father did last night. To his surprise, he grinned instead. “Good.” His shoulders relaxed. “Mika’s a tough nut to crack, so you’ll have a challenge ahead of you.”
He blinked, wondering if he’d heard right. “I … I don’t understand.” The Alpha was giving him his blessing to go after his cousin? Even after knowing about his past?
“You’re True Mates,” he stated. “You’re meant to be together. The sooner you both accept it, the happier you both will be. God knows, if anyone deserves to be happy, it’s Mika.”
From his tone, there was a lot of meaning behind those words, but for now, he couldn’t quite unpack everything that was happening. But he knew not to look a gift horse in the mouth. “Thank you, Alpha. I don’t know what to say.”
“Just say you’ll win her over.” He rose up from his chair. “I don’t know how you did it, being away from her all these months. It would have driven me crazy.” His gaze flickered to the frame on his desk, the one Delacroix knew contained a photo of the Lupa and his son. “I can’t even stand to be away from them during the day. Now,” the Alpha patted him on the shoulder. “Let me give you a little push in the right direction.”
As the Alpha told him what he had planned, Delacroix couldn’t help but grin as hope bloomed in his chest. You better watch out, cher. He was coming for her, and coming fast and hard. Mika wasn’t going to know what hit her before it was too late.
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