Page 5 of Alpha Queen
She rolled her eyes. "I came to tell you that the last of the rogues has returned."
"Last?"
"Yes. He says the others are… not likely to come back."
Titan growled. "Where is he?"
RIVER
River waited until the door shut and then sagged against the footboard of the bed and clutched her stomach. The food Titan brought made it roil for the millionth time. Man, sometimes she hated her shifter's super sense of smell. And being pregnant has made them even more acute.
He wanted her to eat. She scoffed. Hell, she wanted her to eat, but her body had other ideas. It had been having those other ideas the entire week. Luckily, Titan hadn't spent more than a few minutes with her at a time, so he'd only noticed that she hadn't eaten much. Not that she wasn't eating at all.
She'd taken small pieces of the food and flushed them down the toilet every day. She drank the ice water he brought, but even water was something her body had decided it no longer liked. Not that she could blame it. She had hated drinking water before getting pregnant. Still, she at least had to stay hydrated at the very least. She had wondered if she'd become dehydrated, if he would take her to a real hospital, but she doubted it. He probably had someone he'd call to give her an IV. She didn't want to take the chance.
She pressed her hand to her belly. A slight bulge in the front and an inch or so of widening in her waist were the only signs- aside from the constant vomiting, of course.
When her stomach calmed and the room stopped spinning, she sat on the bed. The bed didn't make a sound as she smooshed onto it. It took only a second, and then she sank into the foam mattress. It cocooned every curve until she felt as though she floated weightlessly. Her body involuntarily relaxed, and she sighed. She allowed herself to breathe and for the mattress to hug every inch of her. For the first time in a week, everything floated away, and she just lay in complete silence, pushing all thoughts from her mind. No fear for her unborn baby. No sadness from missing her mates. No calculating how she would escape. Nothing, just… nothing.
Minutes drifted by, and she found herself falling asleep until her wolf grumbled, bringing everything back to the forefront of her mind.
Thanks a lot.
Her wolf whined.
Her wolf was right, though. River couldn't afford to let her guard down. Not for a single minute.
She reluctantly sat up and prodded the mattress. She loved it more than any bed she'd ever slept in. Too bad it had been a gift from Titan. If she'd had scissors, she'd cut it up inch by inch and left it in a pile for him. She'd have cut up or destroyed everything in the room if she'd had the energy.
The first moment she'd awakened in the room had completely confused her. It was a replica of her loft at her studio in New York. She'd thought everything she'd been through was a dream, but then she'd smelled him. And it had all come flooding back.
New York. Ares. Apollo. The mating ceremony. Titan shooting both of them. The rogues. So many rogues. She'd had no idea there were so many out there.
She looked at the tray of food longingly and noticed a red can peeking out from behind a glass of ice.
Soda!
River got to her feet and hurried to the table. She snatched up the can and ripped the top open. She poured it over the ice and chugged it. For a moment, she wasn't sure her stomach would agree with her decision, but when nothing happened, she poured the rest of the soda in the glass and chugged it as well.
The taste was sweeter than she remembered; she hadn't gone without at least a soda a day for so long it tasted different somehow.
She tossed the can in the trash and looked over the plate. Chips, a sandwich, fruit, and chocolate. A variety, as usual, but the array only seemed to punch her in the gut harder. It reminded her of the basket lunch Apollo had brought her, and of the meal she and Ares and Apollo had shared on her bed after her heat.
Those moments felt a lifetime ago, and her heart ached. Her wolf remained unusually quiet. She had been that way since River had awakened. She assumed that Titan had put her on blockers. If she figured it out how, though, she sure as hell was going to stop that.
In the almost two months she'd been off the blockers, she'd come to realize how much of a comfort her wolf was to her. Now she felt more alone than she had before she'd met her wolf.
The smell of the food soured in River's nostrils, and she turned away, but stopped and looked at the plate again… the food.
She hadn't taken a pill or been given a shot since arriving. So, the only way they could have been feeding her controlled doses of blockers was through her food.
Did that mean if she didn't eat long enough, the blockers would wear off? If so… how long could she go without eating and not harm her baby?
River threw her hands into her hair and screamed.
Stupid Titan! Why? Why was he doing this? She'd rejected him. Why was he so determined to have her? To get back at Ares and Apollo? Because he wanted the throne? Or something else? She couldn't decide.
She'd expected Titan to demand she agree to mate him the moment she'd woken up on the first night. She'd expected him to demand a lot of things, actually, but he hadn't. In truth, he'd not spent any time with her since her kidnapping.
