Alpha Aidan’s Rejection

TARA.

“Aidan, love, I-I wasn’t sure… so I went to see the pack doctor. I’m two weeks gone,” I said. “I’m pregnant.”

My heartbeat thrashed in my ears as I finally found the courage to tell him. I was beyond terrified, but I was sure that Aidan and I would go through this together. After all, he was the Alpha of Pack Attica.

Aidan looked up from his phone, and the color completely drained from his face. “No, you’re not.”

My mouth fell open. What?

“I-I am,” I said, fumbling through my pocket for the picture the doctor gave me of the baby. “I’m preg-”

“What the fuck, Tara! Stop saying that. You’re not pregnant for fucks sake! Are you that pathetic to lie with something as dire as this?”

I flinched at his tone. Aidan was never mean to me. He never raised his voice or used foul language at me.

“Why would I lie? I swear by the moon, it’s yours,” I pleaded, tears filling the back of my eyelids, blurring my vision.

With fists clenched and veins bulging from every visible surface of Aidan’s body, I knew he was furious.

My throat went dry, my breaths became shallow and haggard, and I didn’t realize I was sobbing until the salty flavor of tears slipped past my lips.

“How long have we been mates?” Aidan barked.

“Aidan,” I began, but he cut me off.

“Answer the goddamn question, Tara.”

“Four weeks,” I cried, breaking into more tears. “But it’s true. I am carrying our child.”

He wasn’t hearing me. All Aidan could hear and see was red. “And how many times have we been intimate, Tara?”

I looked up at him with burning eyes, lungs constricting in my chest, and I whispered. “Once.”

I remembered that day vividly even if it was weeks ago. Aidan had confessed that he loved me just as much as I loved him, and caught up in the heat of the moment, we completed our mating bond, tying us as one for life.

I wasn’t so sure of that anymore.

“And we were being safe,” Aidan said. “So, why do you think this lie would stick?”

“I don’t know how it happened, but believe me, I won’t lie about something like this. Aidan, I’m scared,” I begged. “My parents… they're going to kill me. Please, I need you,” I rambled on.

In a werewolf pack, there was no worse scandal than an unmated werewolf getting pregnant. Aidan and I didn’t announce our union because the pack wouldn’t have taken me for their Luna since I was from an omega family. We were waiting for the right time to announce our bond to the pack, but it wasn’t my fault that an Alpha’s seed was so potent.

Aidan’s shoulders fell, and his voice dropped low in disappointment. “I thought you were different. I had real feelings for you, but I didn’t know you were just a fraudster desperate for a title.”

Each word from his mouth was like a dagger to my soul. How had I become the villain? I never cared about Aidan’s wealth.

My body shook as I thought of what was going to become of me. How was I going to tell my parents that their precious eighteen-year-old daughter had lost her virginity, and gotten pregnant out of wedlock?

“Aidan. I can’t do this without you. I…” my voice broke off, and I sprawled on the floor, crying.

He looked down at me from the bed, his face not giving off any more hints of his feelings, and he stood up. Without so much as a second glance at me, he walked away. From me and my baby.

This wasn’t how I imagined this to go. What was I going to do?

Was I just going to let Aidan walk away from us?

No. I would fight for him. I didn’t care what it took, I would make him see the truth.

I gathered my clothes and sped out of the building in time to see Aidan’s car leaving the premises of the hotel where we usually met.

Running in front of the incoming car, I prayed for Aidan to stop. He was on full speed and didn’t look like he was going to stop. My chest heaved, and tears rapidly fell from my eyes. The tires finally screeched loudly, and the car stopped right in front of my face.

I breathed a sigh of relief as I ran to the driver’s side.

“Aidan, please!” I frantically pulled the door open and held onto his sleeve.

“Don’t test me, Tara,” he said, gritting his teeth. “Take your pregnancy to the other person you fucked. I feel so sorry for you. You will never love someone if you can stoop to this.”

“Are you accusing me of cheating on you?” I asked with more tears marring my makeup.

Aidan pulled out his phone and tossed it to where I crouched on the ground.

On the first slide, there was a picture of a man and a woman in front of the packhouse, holding hands. My mouth slacked because I couldn’t remember ever being in a place like this. I never visited the packhouse. Not after what I went through there.

“That’s you, isn’t it?”

I swiped left, and the two people were hugging on the next slide. Left again, and they were kissing.

“How is this possible?”

It looked too real, but I was certain it wasn’t me, because I couldn’t ever cheat on Aidan.

“Aidan.”

“News flies, Tara. Not only did multiple people tell me about this, but there’s also a video of you two in bed. Swipe again if you’d like to see it. Why would you think you can hurt me, and then turn around to pin a pregnancy on me?”

I shook my head vehemently. “No. No. No. Aidan. You can’t believe this. It’s not me!”

A humorless laugh escaped his lips and he ran a hand through his dark hair. “I knew you would deny it. Do not let me set my eyes on you ever again. You are as good as dead to me,” he spat and kicked the car to life.

I held onto his pants. “Aidan. Look at me, you’ll see that I’m not lying,” I said, hoping that I could reach the man I had quickly fallen in love with in a short time.

With an annoyed growl, Aidan grabbed my neck, and his claws unsheathed, drawing blood from my tender skin. He swung his free hand back as if to hit me, and I whimpered, cowering in fear.

He didn’t hit me, but I could feel the heat radiating from his flared nostrils. “You. Are. Dead,” he gritted, pushed me to the dirt, and sped off, the tires barely avoiding my feet in the process.

I scooted to the side of the road and cried long and hard. I didn’t know how long I was there for, but when I regained myself, it was getting dark.

Memories of the last conversation I had with Aidan flashed through my mind, and I burst into a fresh round of tears, clinging to my flat stomach and my bruised neck.

I had too much to lose. I was too young and unprepared for this. My father barely had enough to take care of myself and my sick mom, and even if he did, he would never forgive me for disgracing the family. The pack would ostracize us even more than they already have.

Pulling out my phone, I dialed my closest friend, Kayla. Kayla was the pack’s previous Beta’s daughter, and she had been with her mate for over four years. She was older than me, so I was sure that she would have a clue about what I would do.

She picked on the first ring.

“I was just about to call you, baby,” she said in her peculiar sing-song voice. “I have something for you.”

“Kayla,” I croaked, more tears running down my cheeks.

“What’s wrong, babe?” I could feel her sitting upright and taking on a serious face.

“I…I need you to help me,” I said in between sobs. “C-can you help me? Please?”

Determination dripped from her next words.

“What do you need me to do?”

TARA.

By the time I got to our house at the edge of the pack, my parents were in the living room of the small apartment, so I ran up to my room, so they wouldn’t question me or see my puffed face.

Kayla arrived barely ten minutes after I did, and I was temporarily relieved.

“I’m pregnant,” I confessed, picking my cuticles as I paced the length of my small room with her sitting on the bed.

Kayla blinked in rapid succession. “Wh-what?”

“I am…”

Kayla’s words could have passed for a scream. “You’re. Fucking. Pregnant!?”

My heart skipped, and my eyebrows jumped as I flew to the bed to seal my hand over her mouth.

“Shhh! My parents could hear.”

Even if my parents were omegas too, they might still hear without the heightened senses.

“I’m sorry,” she said, tears brimming in her eyes as she understood the gravity of the situation.

“It’s Aidan’s, and he doesn’t believe me. I’m finished.” Fresh tears leaked from my eyes, and Kayla wrapped her hands around me.

“What can I do?” She asked after I pulled away, sniffing.

Resolution burned in my eyes. “I can’t keep it. You have to help me take it out. If my parents found out that I lost my virginity to a man almost a decade older than me, got pregnant, and he’s refusing to own up to it, they’ll …”

Too late.

The words died in my throat, and my knees buckled as the door to my room was whipped open with force and banged against the wall.

Outside, my father stood with a heaving chest and disbelief in his eyes, while my frail mom looked like she was trying to prevent him from barging in.

My mom gasped and covered her mouth with her hand.

“Dad?” I whispered, praying that they didn’t just hear me.

“Kayla, goodnight.” My father’s tone was collected, confirming my fears.

****

Tears flooded down my face as I crouched on the living room floor. My father barked at me, and my mother sobbed at the side.

“Tell me it’s a lie, child,” my father pleaded with tears in his eyes. I’d never seen him so weak.

Dropping my gaze, I muttered. “Dad, I’m sorry.”

My father let out a choked sound and ran a hand through his thinning hair. He staggered backward till he hit a chair, and he suddenly spun around, grabbing it like it weighed nothing, and flinging it across the room.

My mother and I flinched as we watched my dad destroy the place I called home.

The table went next. It crashed on the wall with bits of glass flying everywhere, and I couldn’t help but scream in fear.

“Dad! Please, stop!”

“You’ve gone against every single doctrine your mother and I instilled in you,” he barked. “Years! Years of training you and this is what you give us? Years of taking out loans to put you through school, and you come home with this?”

I hated myself at that moment. I wished I would just die, but all I could do was watch and listen to my parents break.

“Who owns it?” My dad asked in a small voice. “Do you even know? Or did you sell yourself to the pack guards?”

“James.” My mom spoke to her mate for the first time.

“Stay out of this, Sarah,” Dad snapped.

He turned back to me with questioning eyes, and the words died in my throat.

“Who!?”

My cries got louder as I flinched in fear, but I managed to speak. “He rejected it,” I cried, and my mother fell from the chair, wailing.

My dad looked between us and shook his head. Giving one final look at me, he walked away from the both of us.

“Mom, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” I crawled to where she was weeping. “I hate myself for doing this to you, but I swear, I’m sorry.”

She stood up with resolve, and haphazardly made her way to the kitchen and back.

“You call this number. My sister in the southern packs, she’ll take care of you…”

“Mom,” I cut her off. “You’re scaring me. What do you mean?”

She went on. “This is my burner phone number. Call me once every week and let me know how you’re doing. Mindlinks won’t work with the distance.”

My eyes frantically searched hers for answers as she scribbled numbers and an address on a paper, but I got nothing.

“No. I don’t want to leave y…”

“You have two choices,” my father's voice thundered from behind us, making me yelp, and my mom, freeze.

No. This wasn’t my father.

The man standing before us, with a shotgun loaded and cocked to my and my mother’s heads wasn’t the same man who raised me with love all my life. The bloodshot red eyes that stared at me vacantly didn’t belong to my dad.

“James! Put that down!” My mother screamed.

“You either come back here with the person responsible for this and bear the consequences of your actions, or you leave and never show your face here.”

“Dad, I’m sorry,” I screamed.

“You have till the count of five.”

“James! You know it’s dangerous out there. Stone Wolves are wreaking havoc this period,” my mom protested.

Stone Wolves were cursed wolves who had lost touch with humanity, and running into even one of them could mean death. Nobody stepped outside the safeties of their pack, but Dad wasn’t listening.

“One.”

“Dad!”

“Two.”

“At least let her pack some essentials.”

“Three,”

My head began to spin, vomit rose to my throat, and voices whined in my ears.

“Four.”

“She’s carrying a child for God’s sake!”

A deafening shot was fired, just as my mother screamed out long and loud, and for the next ten seconds, all I could hear was a painful ringing in my ears.

I slowly looked behind me to find out that my dad had shot a hole through the television screen and blasted the wall in the process.

“One. Second,” he bit out, cocking the gun straight to my head.

A silver bullet was all it would take to end my life and that of my child.

With eyes as wide as saucers, adrenaline pumping through my veins, and the unmistakable desire to see another rising sun, I picked myself up to my feet, and staggered backward.

“Hey,” my dad called, and I almost groaned out with relief at his change of heart.

Who was I kidding?

“Drop that note.”

And so, with nothing but my clad clothing, and the life clinging to me, I stepped into the stormy night.

I blindly trekked for hours, and when I started to feel cold and sore all over, I found an open laundry store at the pack’s square, and I staggered inside after making sure it was empty.

It would make matters worse if I ran into a bully.

This had to be a dream, I thought. I just had to believe that I’d wake up tomorrow, and none of this would have ever happened. I plopped down by one of the machines and sobbed.

Right before I drifted off to sleep, a ding from my pocket startled me.

I hadn’t even realized I had my phone with me. Half-sobbing, half-laughing, I pulled it out. The time was just past midnight, and the text was from ‘Babe with a red heart’.

My heart roared to life, and I shot up to my feet.

Aidan was texting me.

[Meet me at the hotel?]

‘Is he okay? Does this mean he wants to talk and work things out?’ I questioned myself.

I tried to mind link Aidan, but he wasn’t responding.

I heaved a sigh of relief just from the thought that we could still make things work.

But I couldn’t ignore the nauseous feeling that crept into my stomach as I asked myself out loud.

“Why does he want us to meet at this late hour?”