Page 48 of Broken Rejected Mate

“Woah,” he says, eying the box. “Uh, is that for…?”

“Veva.” I swallow, nod, and tuck it back into my pocket, feeling the weight of it there. “I didn’t tell you this before, but…she’s my mate.”

“Okay,” Dorian says, frowning and crossing his arms. “That would have been good information to know.”

“I know,” I rub my hand over the back of my neck. Dorian is my leader, but that information was also private. He eyes me, then rubs his hand over his jaw.

“Don’t you think it’s a bit…premature? For that? Even if she is your mate…?”

“Well, there’s more, actually.” I cough, look to the ceiling, then go on. “I told you that Veva and I knew each other in high school?”

Dorian picks up his glass. “Yeah.”

“Well, yeah. We knew each other. For two years.”

He pauses with the glass to his lips. “Twoyears?”

“Yeah.” When I close my eyes, I see a montage of it. The first time we found ourselves together, assigned to cleaning the home economics room together the end of sophomore year. “Two years. And…I denied it to myself back then, but I knew she was my mate. She came to me one night. Said she needed to tell me something. I thought she was going to finally say it, point out the connection between us. But my dad…” I pause, glancing over at Aidan, seeing his confused expression.

But Dorian knows exactly what I’m talking about. And I don’t have the energy to explain about my dad right now.

“Anyway, he came to the door, and it was like heknew—I mean, we had never met at my house before. So I made her leave, basically pushed her out the window—”

Aidan sucks in a breath, and I amend, “I was on the first floor, man.”

“Oh.”

“You said you thought that’s what she came to say,” Dorian says, his eyes on me. “What did she really come to say?”

I bite my lip, glance at Aidan again, making sure the threat in my gaze is apparent. “This doesn’t leave the room.”

He mimes zipping his lips, and it almost makes me laugh.

“She was going to tell me…she thought she was pregnant.”

Dorian is staring at me with a deathly serious look. “She thought she was pregnant? What does that mean? She wasn’t?”

I shake my head, “I’m not sure. I didn’t…ask. I don’t know if it was a false alarm, or if she lost it—” I cut myself off, the idea of it too much to think about. The idea of her, in pain like that.

“Emin.” Dorian’s voice is so quiet, I almost don’t catch it. He clears his throat, finds my gaze. “Is it possible that…is it possible thatSarinais that baby?”

“I already told you.” I shake my head. “Sarina is eight. The timeline doesn’t line up.”

“But…what if sheisn’teight?”

Of course, I’ve thought it. She looks so much like me. I want it to be true. But—no.

“Veva wouldn’t lie about that.” I’m shaking my head too quickly; it starts to give me a headache. So I stand up and start to pace. “She wouldn’t. Not…not when I asked her, point blank. She wouldn’t keep my own child from me like that.”

Dorian holds eye contact with me. “Even if she thought she was protecting Sarina?”

I run my hand through my hair, shake my head again, and make for the secret door.

“Emin—”

“Gotta go,” I mutter, searching for the book that’s going to let me out of here. “They’re going to be done soon.”

Dorian doesn’t chase me out, but lets me go. I’m just pushing out of his office, and into the hallway, when I run into the last person I want to see in here.

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