Page 44 of Rejected Pregnant Mate

I quickly threw my magic supplies back in the wicker basket I kept them in, threw on a hoodie from my old university, shimmied into a pair of leggings, and all but ran out the door.

***

I parked haphazardly on the street, my failed spell forgotten as I rushed inside. There were a few people watching the spectacle from the floor-to-ceiling windows on the front of the coffee shop, and I could feel the fury of the two wolves trembling down the pack bonds.

That made me freeze, hand still in the air, extended towards the door handle. It was the first time I'd felt anything from the Shadowbay bonds, and it shook me. Was it because Scott and I were growing closer, or because of my botched spell bond?

"Hurry!" Gwen yelled at me from where she was standing by the door.

Okay. I couldn't think about the implications of my bond strengthening right now. I had two wolves about to turn this coffee shop into a war zone.

I opened the door and walked inside. As soon as I stepped into the cafe, the two pack members stood and growled at me, their eyes glowing, the air filled with aggression.

"What the hell is going on?"

"I don't know, they won't tell me," Gwen said, wringing her hands together.

I had an idea, but wasn't about to say it out loud. Gwen was still a Saltfang, and Scott's pack business had nothing to do with her and it wasn't my place to share it. But I'd heard whispers that Rhie, the outcast Omega, had gone into heat, and then into hiding, and it'd made some of the more out-of-control wolves lose their minds.

I was mated, thank God, which meant the hormones I put off during my heat affected Scott and Scott only, even if our bond wasn't quite right. Rhie, an unmated Omega, though...oof. She'd already been kicking up tensions, and now hormones were involved.

Well, I didn't give a damn about that. These were grown men and wolf shifters, and they needed to learn to control themselves. I was suddenly so thankful for Scott and hispowerful self-control, even when I'd been in heat just inches away from him. He'd never been angry, never pushed.

He was a good man, and I was about to lose him.

But I couldn't fixate on that, not when there were two shifters about to destroy Scott's shop. Chairs had already been knocked over, and one table was overturned. Both men were average-sized, one with a thinning blond ponytail and the other wearing a baseball cap that had somehow stayed on.

"Um...hey!" I yelled, trying to sound authoritative. They, of course, ignored me.

The two wolves were locked in a struggle, teeth gnashing, growls and snarls echoing through the room. Everyone was watching the show, and Gwen was a little paler than usual.

"I said, stop." I was surprised at how calm my voice was. "You guys, come on, knock it off before Scott gets here."

"You don't speak for the Alpha, freak," one of them snarled, swinging on the second man."Go back to the Saltfangs where you belong."

Ouch. Okay, apparently, simply being married to Scott wasn't going to stop me from being a punching bag to these jerks.

"This is not the time for bickering," I said, stepping forward and trying to sound firm. "You're going to damage the shop."

"Bickering?" I heard Gwen mutter, and I glared at her, but stopped when I saw how worried she was. She'd called me to stop this, and I was just flitting around, being as socially inept as ever.

Enough is enough.You carry some of his influence, Gwen had said. And then I'd felt the pack bonds clearly for the firsttime...maybe our mating was temporary, but if it was even partially legitimate, then I could perhaps channel Scott's power as an Alpha to stop this thing.

They were full-on fighting by the time I raised my hands in front of me, reaching into myself and looking not for my golden magic, but the intricate spider's web of the pack bonds. I choked up when I truly saw that it wasn't the Saltfang web anymore, but something new: the Shadowbay web. I was really a part of them, at least for the moment.

I found Scott's thread easily. It was the thickest of all of them, glowing with a deep, umber light that reminded me of his eyes. It was the main piece of the pack bonds that everything else was connected to. He was their Alpha, and their anchor, and right there next to his thread was my own. It was thinner than the rest, but attached so closely to Scott's they were almost touching. It was a shimmering gold, like my magic, but bits of black floated through it like pepper in water.

I pulled on Scott's thread, just like I would my own magic, a gentle request for help. And just like that, his power flowed freely to me like a tap had been turned on. It filled my core, flooding every part of me with his energy, his scent, and his power. I was overwhelmed, my knees wobbling, and the pack bonds glowed brighter as if feeding off of his power, too.

The two men stopped their fight, frozen, their heads turning to look at me.

"Enough!" I yelled, voice vibrating with the echo of the Alpha. When they didn't move apart, I called forth my own power, and it answered easier than ever before. Something about connecting with Scott opened up all new pathways inside of me, and I felt high on it. Pushing my hands apart, I threw bothwolves away from each other, and they went crashing into the chairs they'd knocked aside earlier.

I'd done that. With just my magic, I'd stopped the fight. I was reeling.

"Both of you, stop acting like children and control yourselves. If I ever see you fighting again, I'll throw you out of the pack." I didn't have the authority to actually kick them from the pack, but with the way their heads were lowered, they didn't need to know that.

Power was still crackling at the tips of my fingers as I looked them over, seeing the blood dripping on the cafe floor from the broken nose of one man and the split lip of another. I could still feel Scott, so clearly that it was like he was in the room, and felt his love for his pack, even when they were being fools. So I raised my hands once more, but this time when I poured my magic over them, it was to heal.

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