Page 47 of The Alpha's Forced Pregnant Mate

“Yeah,” she replied, but she sounded miserable. “I’m fine. Go away.”

I frowned, leaning against the door. “Uh, okay. I’ll leave some water by the door. Yell if you need me.”

I waited until I heard her soft reply before heading to the kitchen.

I filled up a glass of water and set it beside the bathroom door, then went to the bedroom and finally collapsed into the bed. Damn, it had been a long day. I lay there in the dark, my mind racing as I tried to process everything that had happened.

What the hell was I doing?

Whitney was my mate. My mate. She wavered between rejecting me and begging me to let her bite me. It made no damn sense.

I groaned, rolling over onto my side. I needed to stop thinking about it, but every time I tried to push it away, it came back stronger than before. I couldn’t get the taste of her out of my mouth or the feel of her skin against mine out of my mind.

I hated it.

No, that was a lie. I hated the fact that I enjoyed it so much and that I wanted to do it again.

I wanted to make love to her over and over until she couldn’t walk straight. I wanted to touch every part of her, kiss her everywhere, worship her body, and make her scream my name. I wanted to give her everything she could possibly want, to be the one that she trusted above all others.

But she didn’t trust me. She wanted me, but trust was something different, and that stung.

After some time I felt Whitney crawl into bed with me, smelling of toothpaste. She sighed heavily. “I think I ate too fast is all, but I’m going to sleep. I’m exhausted.”

I turned on my side, watching her silhouette in the moonlight. “Okay,” I replied, my voice low and husky.

“Goodnight, Julian,” she said, turning away from me.

“Goodnight, Whitney,” I whispered back.

Chapter 17 - Whitney

I was drifting in possibly the most satisfying night of sleep I’d ever had when the first buzz against my thigh woke me up. Confused, I patted my leg and felt my phone still in the pocket of my borrowed sweatpants but decided whatever was going on could wait until morning. My eyes drifted shut once more…

Only to snap open a minute later when my phone vibrated again, this time twice in quick succession. Someone was calling me, and that meant it was probably important. With a groan, I rolled over onto my back, reaching into my pocket and pulling out my phone. The screen was too bright in the dark room, and it took a few seconds for my eyes to adjust.

1 New Message

1 New Voicemail

My heart skipped a beat when I realized that it was after 3:00 am. Who would be calling me so late? And why did the number say ‘private’?

I slid out of the bed as silently as possible, careful not to shake the bed and wake Julian. Thankfully he was sleeping just as deeply as I had been and only offered me a single snore as I crept out of the room and into the hallway, shutting the door behind me.

I held my breath as I pressed play on the voicemail, hoping that it was just a spam call.

But I wasn’t so lucky. It was a man with a low, raspy voice. “This is the person that has your friend,” he said, his words rushed. “You must come alone, or we will kill her. You have one hour.”

The line went dead.

What the fuck?

I stared down at my phone in shock, wondering what the hell was going on.

I opened the text message, dreading whatever it would say, and found a picture of Laura tied up against a tree with her mouth gagged. She looked pissed off and uncomfortable, but unharmed.

“If you want to see your friend again, come alone to these coordinates,” the second text said. I scrolled down to find a pin on a map. It was only about ten miles away, and I had no idea why they would choose to be so close. Then again, they were demons, and their kind liked to torment us. There’s no one else it could be.

I bit my lip as I considered my options, my pulse pounding in my ears. I could go get Julian, but what if Laura got hurt? I knew how to defend myself, and I had blades along with the charmed weapons in the car. I could do this.

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