Page 28 of Pack Baby for the Bratva
“I spent nine months thinking I had lost you before I even had the chance to know you properly.” His voice roughened. “There is nothing about anything that disappoints me.”
“Nothing?”
“We smell you, Maeve. I smell my mate, but it’s more than that. I feel you. I felt you in Prague, and I feel you now.”
His words hit me low and deep.
I took a sip of tea to hide the fact that my throat had gone tight. It was bitter. I’d left it too long.
Typical.
Artem watched me over the rim of the mug. “Why did you leave Prague?”
I closed my eyes for a second.
There it was. He felt me and I ran.
I knew he wanted to ask the question since he walked through the door.
“I was scared,” I said.
“Of us?”
“Not exactly.”
I set the mug down before I dropped it. My arms folded across my middle, more shield than comfort.
“I was scared of what this could turn into,” I said. “Of being wrong again. Of being claimed and trapped and miserable and expected to smile about it.”
His expression changed at once. Darkened.
“You had an alpha once?”
“Yes.”
Even now my shoulder seemed to remember him. I rubbed the skin there through my shirt.
“He wasn’t mine,” I said. “And I was never his. Not really. He just had me.”
Artem said nothing. So I kept going.
“He had a mistress. He made sure I knew where I stood. Every time she came to the house. Every time he looked at me like I was something inconvenient he’d stepped in.” I swallowed. “I couldn’t do that again. I couldn’t be the tolerated one. The hidden one. The omega people made excuses for.”
Artem’s jaw tightened so hard I heard his teeth click.
Still he let me speak. And that mattered more than I would have expected.
“And I left him.”
“He let you?”
Our eyes locked.
“I needed something. I went to Prague. And then I found out I was pregnant,” I said, my voice thinner now as I rushed through the events that led to this pack being in my life. “And I thought...” I laughed once, quietly and without humor. “Actually, I didn’t think much at all. I panicked, got on a plane, and continued my life.”
“You wanted to do this alone?” he asked.
“Wanted is a generous word.” I rested my hand over my stomach again.
