The Jaguar’s Arranged Mate

“Admit what?” Miera really was regretting saving him. Her head started to ache. She should be lying down and resting, trying to recover. Being pregnant and fighting so much wasn’t doing her poor body any favors.

“Admit that you miss me.”

The gall! “Of course I don’t!”

“You miss me,” he insisted.

“How can you think that?” He was delusional. One time and he acted as if he had a claim on her.

“Why else would you be so insistent on staying away from me unless you feared you wouldn’t be able to keep your hands off of me?” His grin was leering.

It took all of her self-control to not slash him across his face. “You have it all wrong,” she said, trying to keep her voice level and not reveal that he was getting to her.

“Do I?” He stepped closer, gripping her wrists, holding them tight by her side. “You can’t tell me you feel something for Beric. Not after what we shared.”

She kicked his kneecap, hard. He stumbled back, his grip loosening enough for her to yank her wrists free. “What we shared meant nothing.”

Charles rolled his eyes and stared pointedly at her swollen midsection. “Oh, it means something all right, and you’ll never be able to forget that.”

“Charles, if you ever—”

“Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone about us.” He stepped closer to her. “But that doesn’t mean I won’t be thinking about us all the time. You’re always on my mind, Miera. You might not have been my first, but I want you to be my last.”

“Then you’re looking at living the rest of your life celibate,” she retorted.

“Oh, I think you’ll be singing a different song soon enough.” He leaned forward as if to kiss her.

She jerked backward. Her feet stumbled, and she fell. Her balance was off. Damn pregnancy.

He reached down to help her up, but she tossed his hand aside and got up by herself. “I’m married now. To your alpha! Don’t you know that Beric is your leader now?”

“For the moment.” Charles shrugged. “If one alpha can die, so can another.”

“Yeah? Well, so can I. And so can you.”

“I hate to disappoint you, but I’m not going to die anytime soon.”

“I don’t see how you can be so certain.”

“I’ve gotten everything I wanted out of life so far.” He smiled. This one was almost tender, and it reminded her of that one time when she had given in to her body’s desires, when she had been foolish. Regret would always fill her to some extent. She knew she would love her child, that she would never blame him or her, but the child’s father? He she could hate all she wanted, and right now, she did hate him. She hadn’t previously, not immediately afterward, and not even when she had learned she was pregnant. But for him to come up to her here, now, with so much chaos going on around them…

Actually, that was probably why he was here in the first place.

“Charles, your life will be very short if you don’t leave me alone. I promise you that.”

“You’re worried and anxious that I will—”

“I’m not worried or anxious about anything.” She brought a claw up and touched it against his cheek, digging hard but not pressing with enough force to cut his skin. “You will stay away from me, and the child, and Beric, or else I will kill you myself.”

The crestfallen look on his face was real, she knew it was. He might have been acting a little during their conversation just now, but his eyes revealed how hurt he was. He swallowed. “Miera…”

“Go ahead and say goodbye. This will be our last conversation.” She forced herself to press with her claw a little more. She didn’t really want to hurt him, but he had to realize his place, and his place was not by her side.

“I will always love you. And our child.”

She shuddered at his words and closed her eyes. When she opened them, Charles was gone.

Miera would never love Charles, had never loved him. It didn’t matter that he loved her. She wanted to one day give her heart to Beric. She wanted to love her husband. Maybe one day, Beric would be the one to say “I love you” to her.

She hoped so, but with the craziness of their lives, especially now that his father had died and Beric was alpha, she had a feeling that they were not going to spend much time together at all, and if one of them should be the next one to fall…

A sob broke free from her, and she kneeled down, hugging her body, and wept.

*

All of the training and preparation his father had tried to drill into Beric for when he would eventually become alpha was severely lacking. He didn’t know how to bring two packs together. He’d been naïve and thought the wedding would be enough. And he didn’t know how to stop the war, to stop the suffering, to stop the bleeding.

The doctors from the Blood Roses were helping their people, and many of them were now fit for fighting… well, as fit as they could be considering they needed more meat to eat, and Beric had halted all patrols outside the fence, and no one was allowed to leave the compound, not even to hunt. They would have to suffice on whatever food sources they already had. It wasn’t going to be easy. None of this would be easy.

Especially when he looked at the devastation the attack on the hospital had caused. Out of the one hundred and two wounded Teal Warriors, less than half had survived. All of the nurses had been killed, and only three of the twelve doctors still lived. If the Blood Roses wouldn’t lend them their doctors, and soon, the number of Teal Warrior casualties would only continue to grow.

And that wasn’t even the worst of it. Every day, at most every other day, the Brutal Claws were back. They never sent a large number, but those they sent were fierce and capable warriors who brought down many before falling themselves. At this rate, the two packs, whether they worked together or not, wouldn’t survive through another three weeks, if they even lasted that long.

The Blood Roses’ council… he didn’t even know how many members of it still lived. He and Miera had intended for there to be a meeting immediately after their wedding, but the Brutal Claws had ruined that. Now, he hardly saw Miera. His duties as alpha had him so busy he couldn’t even think, let alone spend time with her. Considering she still needed to heal and that she was spending most of her woken hours with her people, they hadn’t had any alone time, and they hadn’t shared a bed either. For being married, he sure didn’t feel as if anything had changed in his life.