Raine
The drive back to the penthouse was the longest fifteen minutes of my life.
My hands wrapped around the steering wheel so tightly that my knuckles turned white.
Every time I closed my eyes, the memories came rushing back in a violent, chaotic loop.
The sickening smack of my mother’s palm against my cheek, the searing heat of the impact, and the venom in Miguel’s voice as he whispered his vow to make me regret being born.
I pulled into the underground garage of the apartment building, turned off the engine, and just sat there in the dim, concrete silence.
I reached into my bag and pulled out the crumpled white paper Lena had given me.
LABORATORY REPORT: HCG BLOOD TEST
RESULT: Positive
STATUS:Confirmed Pregnancy
My vision blurred as a single, hot tear finally spilled over my eyelashes and dripped onto the black ink.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, pressing my flat palm against my stomach.
“I am so, so sorry.”
If I told Miguel now, he wouldn’t see a child.
He would see a calculated trap.
He would think I pushed Raina down that slope to clear the path, and that I was using a pregnancy to blackmail him.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” I said quietly.
My voice sounded strange in the empty garage, too loud and too honest.
“But I’m going to figure it out.
I promise you that.”
I folded the paper into a tiny square, shoved it deep into the zippered pocket of my purse, and forced my shaking legs out of the car.
I couldn’t run.
Running meant guilt, and I had done nothing wrong.
I had to stay and explain myself.
I had to look Miguel in the eye and make him see that what happened to Raina was just a terrible accident.
The penthouse air was thick and heavy.
I tried to take a deep breath and tell myself it was going to be fine.
I forced myself to move around the kitchen, preparing for the night when he returned.
I wiped down the clean marble counters, brewed a fresh pot of coffee, and tried to gather the scattered pieces of my courage.
I needed to be steady.
I needed to breathe.
I was about to enter into the bathroom when the heavy front door of the penthouse slammed open. Enjoying the story? Read on at g.com.
The impact was so violent that the glass mirrors made a sound against the wall.
A heavy, suffocating wave of Alpha aura flooded the apartment.
My wolf shrank back instantly, curling into a tight, trembling ball of terror.
“RAINE!” Miguel’s voice cracked through the quiet apartment, harsh and heavy with a raw, furious panic that made the walls feel small.
His heavy, furious footsteps marched down the hallway and the bedroom door flung open completely.
His hair was completely disheveled, his chest was heaving, and his eyes were entirely black…his wolf fully pushing to the surface.
He didn’t look like a man who had left to tend to his fated mate.
He looked like an executioner who had returned to finish a job.
He looked at me, his lip curling with an ugly, mocking disgust that made my skin crawl.
“You have the nerve to actually come back here,” he said, his voice dropped, dripping with pure hate.
Panic seized my throat.
“I swear, Miguel, I didn’t do it…
I’ll never hurt her…”
”Are you that shameless and desperate?” The words I’d rehearsed in my head disappeared.
The absolute cruelty in his voice made me drop dead inside.
Any lingering spark of hope, any desire to defend myself, withered and died in a single second.
“You’re acting so cheap and it’s completely disgusting.” He snapped, stepping closer, his dark eyes flashing with a cruel satisfaction.
“Did you really think you could ever replace her?
You’ve spent three years walking through this house like an empty shell, bitter with envy because you knew you were just a placeholder.
You’re a parasite, Raine.
You’ve fed off her life, her title, and her man while she lay helpless in a hospital bed.”
He took another step, his towering frame casting a long shadow over me, pinning me with his hateful glare.
“And the worst part?
You sat back and watched your own twin sister suffer for years.
You watched her body fail, watched her need blood transfusions, watched her kidneys give out, and you didn’t offer her a single drop of help.
Someone who wasn’t even family did.
What kind of monster watches their own flesh and blood wither away and doesn’t even offer a kidney to save her?
You kept your health, your perfect little life, while she fought for every breath!”
The words detonated in the quiet room, cutting through me mesilessly.
My lungs completely locked.
I stared at him, my lips parting but no sound coming out.
The irony of his accusation hit me so hard I felt the room tilt.
I didn’t help her?
My mind flashed back to the cold, operating room four years ago.
I remembered the blinding surgical lights, the sharp scent of iodine, and the agonizing, tearing pain in my side when I woke up with one less organ in my body.
I remembered the heavy plastic tubes draining the dark red blood from my veins week after week, leaving me so dizzy I could barely stand, just so the bags could be carried across the hall to keep Raina’s translucent skin flushing pink.
I wanted to scream the truth at him.
I wanted to tell him to look at the surgical scar hidden right beneath the waistband of my leggings.
I wanted to rip his perfect, arrogant world apart by telling him that the woman he worshiped was walking around with a piece of my own flesh keeping her alive.
But the memory of Raina’s weeping face stopped me, locking the words tight in my throat.
“Please, Raine,” she had sobbed into my shoulder the night before the surgery, her voice small and desperate.
“Don’t let the pack know.
Don’t let Miguel know.
I’m the Alpha’s fated mate.
If they know I’m broken, if they see me as the weak twin who survived through her twin organ, they’ll look at me as not being the right twin or Luna.
Miguel will look at me like a liability.
Let them think it was an anonymous donor.
Protect me, please.”