Page 46 of Bred By the Beast

Alder sniffed the air. “Something smells good.”

“It’s soup,” she said. Before she got a chance to offer him a bowl, he immediately went to it and started to eat from the pan where it was still simmering. “You, of course, can have some.” She held her hand out, but there was no point in directly offering, seeing as he had already taken a bowl.

“I told them not to kill the fucking bears. Wilder was right to kill them. Fuck me, that is good. You cooked this?” he asked, glancing over his shoulder to look toward her.

“Yes.” She also jerked her head in a nod. “You didn’t think I could cook?”

“I didn’t expect humans to do ... anything good.”

“You’ve had an awful experience, haven’t you?” she asked.

Chapter Seventeen

She watched him eat, still wondering when Wilder would return. Although he hadn’t done anything to hurt her, she didn’t trust him. How could someone go from wanting the entire human race to die, to wanting to offer help only months later?

“Awful experience?” he suddenly answered. “Yeah, I’d say I had an awful fucking experience. Not much different than your mate’s. Humans slaughtered my family and burned our forest to ash. Not sure how I survived.”

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“It opened my eyes, made me stronger.” He finished the soup and began pacing the room, touching a lot of things with interest. “I focused on shifters and realized the damage humankind had on our race, on our world.”

“I can’t argue with you. Sometimes I’m ashamed to be a human myself.”

He turned and looked at her, his head tilted in curiosity.

“I was going to kill you. And the little half-breed growing inside you.”

She immediately hugged her stomach. There was nothing she’d be able to do to protect herself and her unborn baby from Alder. It didn’t stop her motherly instincts from firing off. She took a couple steps backward.

“Relax, I said was. Past tense.”

“So, I’m supposed to believe you had an epiphany and suddenly love humans?”

“Hell, no. I still hate them. Things just took a detour of sorts and I started researching,” he said.

“Researching what, exactly?”

“Wilder put the idea in my head. He was worried about your mixed mating. Wanted some kind of reassurance that the baby inside you wouldn’t hurt you.”

That’s why he was acting so strangely the past few months. He didn’t hate the baby, he was just worried about her safety. She wished Wilder was home so she could hold him and tell him how much she loved him.

“And?” she asked.

He shrugged. “I found evidence of a couple other such unions in other forests. Seems it is possible for our species to procreate,” he said. “But not guaranteed safe. The fertility rates are low, and the risk to the mother is great in the last trimester. If the baby shifts before it’s born, it could inadvertently kill the mother.”

She began to panic. Poppy wanted to raise her child and start a family, not die in childbirth.

“Well, how do I stop that from happening?”

“I’ve found some ways,” he said.

She wasn’t sure why he was suddenly on their team, but she was suspicious. Why did he even want any of this information if he hated humans?

“Are you going to tell me?”

“First I need some information from you.” He sat down on the arm of the sofa.

“From me?”