Sally
“You can’t keep the baby,” Alpha Ashton growls.
Tears well in my eyes as Alpha Ashton’s words strike me like a blow to the gut. He wants me to abandon our baby?
I blink back the tears and try to steady my nerves. I want to be strong and fight him on this, but deep down, I’m terrified of losing everything. “Why not?” My challenge comes out less determined than intended. I sound weak and afraid...probably because I am. “Why can’t we keep our baby?”
Ashton snarls, flashing his sharp canines. “You’re just an Omega, Sally. I’m the Alpha. Our child is a monstrosity.” His lip curls in disgust. “Besides, you aren’t even marked yet.”
His response is filled with disgust and disdain, as if the mere thought of a child from an Omega and Alpha pairing is repulsive to him. I shudder at his coldness. Is this the mate I thought I knew? The one I know and love? He is acting weird and unrecognizable. And if I don’t stand up to him now, I may lose everything.
“And?” I ask. “What does it matter if I’m not marked or not?”
My protective hand instinctively covers my growing belly as he spits out his twisted reasoning. “It’s a bastard child, Sally. An abomination that must be destroyed.”
“How can you say that? It’s your child!”
“No. It’s an abomination that must be destroyed! Since you have been pregnant for longer than two months, it probably is not even a werewolf child! You’re having an abortion!”
I take a step back, one hand protectively covering my swollen belly. “Ashton, please...” I beg, my voice cracking.
But my pleas don’t reach him. His eyes blaze with possessive fury, and fear latches onto my heart.
This isn’t the boy I grew up with, the one I fell in love with. How did we end up here? Just last night, we were laughing over pizza, discussing different baby names. Now, he is scaring me and threatening me. For the first time, I’m afraid of my own mate and the father of my child.
“No. I’ve already decided.”
I look up at him with tear-filled eyes. “Please, Ashton. Getting rid of the baby would be like committing murder!”
“It’s not the same thing!” he growls. “We are getting rid of the baby.”
I’m surprised by the lack of emotion in his voice, and I take a defensive tone when I speak back to him. “What if I don’t want to?” I ask, ready to bolt since I have a sinking feeling I won’t like how this will end.
His eyes narrow. “Then I will have my warrior wolves take you to the pack doctor by force.”
“What? No, you can’t do that!”
“I can...I will...”
My bloodcurdling scream pierces the air as two hulking warrior wolves emerge from the shadows. Ashton’s cold threat chills me to the bone—will he really force me to have an abortion?!
I search his steely eyes for any sign of mercy but find only ruthless determination. The wolves close in on me, and Ashton doesn’t even care. I brace for a fight, adrenaline flooding my veins, but my desperate struggle is no match for their brute strength.
“Let me go!” I scream, thrashing against their iron grip as I’m being dragged. When I look at Ashton, he is smirking in a way that tells me this nightmare has only just begun.
An icy chill races down my spine. Why does he look so happy? I search his cold blue eyes, praying for the mate bond to make him regret doing this to me, but that never happens.
Instead, Ashton says, “I, Alpha Ashton of the Claw pack, reject you, Sally, as my fated mate.”
I jolt awake in my bed, heart pounding. I had the same nightmare again. A year has passed. I’m nineteen now, older and more mature, yet the memory still haunts me. How could it not?