Page 94 of Rejected and Pregnant By the Alpha King

“Are you okay?” Camden asks.

“It’s just…” Delilah shakes her head, her long golden brown locks falling all around her face in messy waves. “Since we got back from the ball, it’s been a mess.”

I frown. “What happened?”

“Well, nothing at first. Raine’s never been treated well here. Her dad, uh…used to be our beta.”

“Used to be?” Constance says.

Delilah nods. “He defected years ago. Left Raine behind, and Daniel’s been treating her badly ever since. He’s always used her as an outlet for her dad. It’s been horrible.”

The words cause my stomach to sink.

When I met Raine, she’d been slow to trust, but I figured that had been the result of us not knowing each other. To hear that her pack alpha had been abusing her has me wanting to shift and run back to that damn mansion and tear him apart with my teeth.

Regardless if she lied to me about the baby, Raine’s still my mate. Protecting her is ingrained into my bones.

“After we found out she was pregnant,” Delilah goes on, “I talked her into telling you…I regret that now. But at the time, I felt like it was the right thing to do. I figured you’d come and take her. But you didn’t.”

Her eyes are hard when she focuses them on me.

She doesn’t need to lay the guilt on me—I already feel it tenfold. Dragging my feet in coming to see what was going on after the letters stopped is my biggest regret. There had been no excuse for me not to.

What if she’d been hurt badly? I would’ve never known because I’d simply figured she’d gotten busy, or whatever other excuse I’d made for myself because I’d been too afraid of my growing feelings for her and facing my elders.

My cowardice cost Raine so much in the end, and now my karma is a race against time to try to find her.

“Daniel caught her sneaking into town sending the test and the letter telling you she was pregnant with your kid. He threw her in the cellar. He’s got a jail down there. Next time you’re there, ask him to show you. You’ll see I’m not lying.”

I feel both Camden and Constance’s eyes on me.

“Where in the mansion?” I ask.

“His office. There’s a hidden door. Take it and you’ll end up in a room in the cellar right about where the trapdoor in the floor is. It’s not hidden once you’re in the room.”

“How do you know all of this?” Camden asks.

She glances over at him. “Who do you think broke her out? I was so happy when she got free. I thought for sure in two weeks, there would be an army on the doorstep of Andromeda coming to get the rest of her things and take them back to Pollis.”

She shakes her head.

I know exactly where this is going but I’m too frozen to stop her from speaking it out loud, telling both of my closest confidants my dark secret.

“But you never did. You never came and then she was dragged back here and sold off like a pig.” Her glare is filled with heat when she turns it on me. “Why couldn’t you believe her? You believed a pack alpha over your ownfated mate.”

I did.

And a part of me still does.

I hate that I can’t shake it. That I can’t trust everything from Raine and Delilah like I should. My father raised me to be too paranoid—that fated mates were just fairytales told to children at bedtime.

I’d been a firsthand account that they aren’t, and yet still I can’t bring myself to admit that I was wrong. Not until I can see the proof with my own eyes.

I don’t deserve Raine, no matter what the outcome of all this is.

Constance sighs. “There’s no use passing the blame around when it’s already happened. For now, we need to get your pack alpha to tell us who he sold her to.”

“There should be records,” Delilah says, perking up. “He’s always been meticulous about that.”

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