Chapter 10
Chapter
Ten
REID
A timid knock on the bedroom door came about an hour after I’d shut myself inside. I frowned, caught off guard. With how she’d spoken to me, I’d expected Melinda to just walk right in, and Zander certainly wouldn’t knock so hesitantly.
Nevertheless, I ignored the knock. I didn’t want to talk to whoever was on the other side. I was too busy trying to figure out what the hell to do.
I was pregnant.
With Trent’s baby.
I’d always wanted children but not like this. That said, I couldn’t punish a child because of who their father was or how they’d been created. The tiny being inside me was as much mine as they were Trent’s and they deserved to be cared for.
I was conflicted.
There was another knock and then the door opened slightly.
“Hello?” a soft voice called.
I didn’t respond. I didn’t recognize the voice which meant I hadn’t met this person yet. If they were in this house then they knew I was being held against my will and they hadn’t made any effort to help me, so I wasn’t interested in talking to them.
“Reid?”
I kept my mouth shut.
A figure eased through the doorway. His frame was petite except for the bulge at his stomach, and he had ice blue eyes and tousled brown hair.
“Hi.” He smiled, and there was a sense of gentleness about him that made me want to like him, but I was determined not to let my guard down too early, even if no one here had hurt me so far. They were still keeping me cuffed and helpless. “I’m Milo.”
“You’re not a shifter like them, are you?” I asked.
He seemed too petite for that. Unless he was, say, a rabbit or bird shifter.
“No, I’m just human.” Milo padded to the bed and perched on the edge of it. “I heard you’re pregnant.”
A slightly hysterical laugh burst from me. “Has the gossip already got around town then?”
Milo’s eyes widened and his hand came to rest protectively on his belly. “No. No one outside of the household knows, except for maybe Dr. Black if Momma called him. I’m mated to Zander’s brother, so I heard it from him. I thought that talking to another pregnant omega might help.”
I drew my knees to my chest and gazed down at them bleakly. “We have nothing in common.”
“We’re both pregnant omegas,” he pointed out. “And neither of us are shifters.”
I rolled my eyes. “You’re pregnant by your mate. I’m pregnant by my jailer. Unless…” I leaned forward, an awful possibility occurring to me. “You weren’t… forced… were you?”
There was every possibility that Milo hadn’t been allowed to choose his mate. I hadn’t, after all, and I was well aware that some magical communities abided by the old way of thinking, where omegas were considered property and their wishes were disregarded.
“Oh, Gods, no!” Milo cried, looking horrified.
Part of me was relieved, but another part twisted bitterly because he’d reacted as if he couldn’t fathom such a thing, whereas it had just been a fact of life for me.
“Then you have no idea how I feel,” I snapped, but regretted it when tears filled those pale blue eyes.
He sniffed and wiped his eyes on the back of his sleeve. “Sorry. You’re right, I can’t understand what you’re going through.”
“I’m sorry too.” I shouldn’t take my own hurt out on him. “Are you okay?”
“Fine.” His smile was brittle. “Just hormonal. You know how it is.”
“Not really.”
Perhaps my hormones were wonky thanks to pregnancy, but after the week I’d had, how the hell would I know? I could be crying because I was hormonal or it could be because my life was genuinely shit and I’d experienced the severing of a mate bond.
Nibbling on his lower lip, Milo seemed to summon his courage and scooted closer. “I might not have been assaulted like you, or forced into a mating bond, but I have been kidnapped.”
I frowned. That was the last thing I expected him to say. “What?”
He gave an awkward shrug. “There was this guy, Tomas. He was obsessed with me for some reason. He kidnapped me and was going to try to make me be his mate, although it wouldn’t have worked because I’d already bonded with Everett.
I was just lucky that my family saved me before anything bad happened. ”
I studied Milo with renewed interest. I’d met Tomas. He’d been a member of Trent’s pack at one point. He’d been cruel even before his wolf had taken over.
“What would make you feel more comfortable?” Milo asked.
“Honestly?”
“Of course.”
I gauged his sincerity and decided that he wasn’t trying to manipulate me. He might be misguided, but he did want to help.
“I don’t want to be a prisoner anymore.” I doubted that would surprise anyone. I’d made my feelings on the matter clear enough. “I won’t hurt anyone, I promise. I just want to be given my freedom and left alone so I can figure out what to do next.”
Admitting so much to him made me feel raw and vulnerable, but he seemed like the kind of person who might actually do his best to get me what I wanted. And… Well, he was impossible to be intimidated by. If sending him in to see me was some kind of ploy, it was a smart one.
Milo’s expression turned pitying and I looked down at my knees again, unable to stand it. “I’ll do what I can.” He started to reach for me but then stopped himself. “I’ll be back soon.”
I nodded but didn’t look up as he rose from the bed, smoothed one hand over his baby bump, and crossed to the door.
He closed it and the latch clicked into place, but I knew it wasn’t locked.
Right now, they didn’t need to fear me escaping because with others awake in the household, I had no hope of getting away.
A family of shifters could hunt me down blindfolded.
A while later, there was another knock, and when I called out for him to come in, assuming it was Milo, the door swung open.
But Milo wasn’t alone.
Melinda and Zander stood behind him. Zander’s muscles were coiled tight—he reminded me of a predator about to strike. He didn’t move as Melinda moved to stand beside Milo.
“We’ve been discussing things,” Melinda said, her motherly face full of empathy that I couldn’t identify as real or false. “We can’t set you free without any kind of support system in place because we don’t know what will happen, but how about we call your family to come and get you?”
My stomach rolled nauseatingly. A whimper slipped from me and I plastered myself against the wall. My eyes darted from her to Zander to Milo, who smiled at me as if this might be exactly what I wanted to hear.
If that’s what he thought, he was as wrong as it was possible to be. He might mean well, but this…
This was my worst nightmare.
“Please don’t call them, I’m begging you.” Spots appeared in my vision and I rocked back and forth. “Don’t call them. They can’t know… please, no.”
Melinda approached me cautiously, like she might a skittish animal. “You have nothing to be ashamed of. Your family will understand. They’ll want to help you heal. None of this was your fault.”
“Don’t call them,” I pleaded, my vision going blurry. I wanted to explain that they’d gotten this all wrong and that my parents were the last people I wanted to see but I couldn’t find the words.
“If it were my son, I’d—”
I thrust off the bed and leapt to my feet. “No!”
All my life, I’d been mistreated. I wouldn’t let them return me to my original abusers.
Magic swelled within me, reacting to my terror, and tried to burst free. The cuffs on my wrists scorched my skin and the smell of burnt flesh filled my nostrils.
Then everything went black.