Rejected and Pregnant by the Alpha King (Forbidden Alpha Kings #4)

44. Raine

44

Raine

We end up down by a beautiful watering hole that’s just outside of Soleus’s pack line.

I can see why Rose forced me to promise her that I wouldn’t tell anyone we were out here, mainly because I think we both know that if either her brother or Nyx were to find out we snuck outside packlines, we’d be toast.

“It’s nice, right?” she says, a towel draped over her neck.

Smiling, I let the soft breeze blow over me, cool from the water a few feet away. Rose’s little oasis is just that—a watering hole that’s connected to a healthy-looking river about five feet across and four-and-a-half feet deep.

The water is a gorgeous amber color and cool to the touch when I stick one of my feet in, a nice contrast to the swelteringly hot desert air surrounding us.

Rose slips off her swimsuit cover and tosses it next to her towel, then heads right over to the water. “You’re coming in, right? I won’t have to talk you into it?”

I laugh a little and spread my towel next to hers. The nice thing about where she’s brought us is that there’s a smooth rock shelf that hangs directly over the water, giving us a nice place to come back to once we’re tired of swimming.

I slip off my shoes and disrobe myself, my borrowed swimsuit just barely fitting over my small bump. Rose may be similar in height to me, but her body is much slimmer than mine is, even without me being pregnant.

“I haven’t gone swimming in a while, so you’ll have to grab me if I drift too far,” I tease.

Thankfully the current in the river isn’t too fast—just enough to float by on in a tube without getting stranded in the middle.

“Okay, cool.” Rose plunges into the water all in one go, completely submerging herself.

I watch her rippling figure move under the water and then pop up a few feet from where she jumped in.

“Ahhh, that’s the damn life,” she says as soon as she pops up from underneath the water. Her long hair is slicked back from her face, showing off her prominent rosy cheekbones.

I grin. “How is it under there?”

“Perfect.” She splashes water toward me, not quite hitting me. “Come on in. I don’t think the fish are out to bite today.”

I dip my toes in the water again and then slowly let myself sink into the water where it’s a little more shallow. It’s a bit of a shock going from hot desert air to the cool water, but it’s a welcome change. I tread water to get my shoulders wet and then stand again.

“This is nice. I can’t believe you found this place on your patrol,” I say.

“Okay, so maybe I was doing a little more than patrolling.”

Raising a brow, I swim over toward her. “Do tell.”

“Maybe while I was out on patrol, me and my partner made a detour so we could be alone and we came upon this place.”

I laugh. “Don’t tell me you hooked up here!”

She splashes me. “What, you’ve never snuck out to the woods to have a little fun with someone? The town is always so nosy. We all live on top of each other so it’s hard to get some privacy. You know?”

“I don’t, actually.”

Her eyes widen. “Wait, are you some kind of exhibitionist?”

Oh, Rose. Only she’d jump to that conclusion. “No.”

Her eyes narrow for a second and then realization dawns on her. “Oh shit. I forgot about the breeder thing. My bad.”

Well, okay. I guess that’s kind of the same line of thinking. No one was allowed to touch me back at the pack because they thought I was tainted. But I suppose letting Rose think the reason was little less horrible is fine for now.

It’s not like she has to know what really happened. Being honest with Nyx is different, anyway. I want him to know everything, even if it’s the dark and ugly secrets of my past.

Funny though how she looks at me, genuinely sorry and not how some people I know would—with pity. It’s kind of a shifter’s rite of passage to be young and free with other shifters your own age.

Settling down is a big deal in our culture, so before any of that happens, we try to make the most of the short bout of freedom we’re given. Or well, most of us do.

“Have you ever been interested in anyone?” Rose wades over to me. “I know it’s kind of a taboo thing with you being a breeder and all, but you’re still a female. You had to have had a crush on someone at some point.”

“It’s…complicated,” is all I can think to say.

While I never really had much in the way of romance when I was still living in Andromeda, that didn’t mean I wasn’t ever longing for it. Delilah had always been popular among the males in our pack, which had been a surprise to no one—her charming personality and beauty would make any male weak in the knees.

“Shit,” Rose mumbles again. “Sorry. I’m being an ass.”

“Why do you say that?”

She nods to my stomach, just below the water. “Well…”

Oh. Right.

“Yeah,” I sigh. “Like I said. It’s complicated.”

She treads water over to where the watering hole grows deeper. Other than us, there are a few birds chirping overhead, flitting through the canopy of trees quickly enough that it’s hard to catch what species they are.

I wonder if anyone else has discovered this place before and, much like Rose, treats it as their own oasis. She can’t be the first one to have discovered this place.

“What happened to him?” she asks. “The guy who…”

Getting this same question twice in one week must be a record. Not exactly one I want to have under my belt, but here we are. “We had a misunderstanding.”

“What about?”

I hold in a sigh.

Maybe it’s wrong of me to want to air out my dirty laundry, especially to someone like Rose, who barely knows me. Is that really fair to expect her to shoulder all of my emotions while I vomit them out of me? She’s probably only asking to be polite, or is just nosy like my Delilah.

I watch the water’s surface roil under my hand while I drag it through the soft current. My reflection distorts with each pull of my hand. I’m dying to tell someone though—to share the burden of this horrible secret I have to carry.

With Delilah no longer being here to act as my confidant, everything remains trapped in my own head with nowhere else to go.

“He was lied to,” I finally say, my voice quiet. “About me. Someone…who I was supposed to be able to trust told him a bunch of things about me that weren’t true. So he rejected me. Said he wanted nothing to do with me or our baby.”

“Shit. I’m sorry, Raine.”

I shake my head, not wanting to look up just yet to see that pitying expression that I know she must be wearing. It’s what everyone wears whenever I’m honest about what’s gone on in my life.

Today it seems that I’m feeling extra self-deprecating, because after a moment, I say, “You want to know what the worst part is?”

“What?” she asks.

She drifts over toward me, catching my attention and drawing my eyes up from watching the water move.

“He’s my fated mate.”

Her jaw drops instantly. “ What ?”

Nodding, I say, “Yeah. And he still rejected me.”

“He knew?!”

“Of course. It’s not something you can hide.”

Rose stumbles back, looking completely bewildered. “How…why? Does he know about the baby?”

“He doesn’t think that it’s his.”

Her brows pull together. “What an asshole. Is he stupid?”

For some reason, that makes me laugh. She may not know who we’re talking about, but hearing someone call an alpha king stupid is a little vindicating. “I don’t know.”

Though I’m sure even if Rose did know who we were talking about, her opinion would remain the same.

“Does Nyx know?” she asks. “About that guy being your fated mate?”

I shake my head. “If you wouldn’t mind not telling him…or anyone actually, I’d appreciate it. It’s just…it still really hurts, you know? I’m not really ready to talk about it in depth with anyone…just yet.”

To my surprise, she grabs me and pulls me into a tight hug. “You have my word. My lips are sealed.”

“Thank you, Rose,” I mumble into her shoulder, and squeeze her back.

It feels nice to have a friend in a foreign land I don’t know. I don’t feel as alone anymore. It’s probably shitty of me to be asking her to keep secrets from her brother and her pack alpha like this. I’m grateful that she’s willing to, though.

“Excuse me,” a third voice says. “What do you two think you’re doing on my land?”