Page 28 of The Careless Alpha

"But that's not..." I started, then stopped. The memory of waking up next to Scarlett felt so real, so solid.

"You convinced yourself it was all with Scarlett," Jackson said quietly. "Maybe because you felt guilty about not waiting. Maybe because it was easier than dealing with the reality of what you'd done. But it happened, Marshall. You were with Annalise that night, and now she's carrying your pup."

My blood ran cold. The fragmented memories Jackson was describing began to slot into place, not as a dream, but as a horrifying reality. The way she had looked at me with such trust. Her whispered, "I love you." The feeling of her body yielding to mine. It hadn't been a drunken fantasy. It had been real. And I had just called the most precious moment of my life a lie and banished the woman at the center of it.

How could I have been so stupid?

"There's something else," Jackson continued relentlessly. "If Annalise had been with another man, you would have felt it. The mate bond would have caused you physical pain from her betrayal. Did you feel any pain, Marshall? Any sense that she'd been unfaithful?"

I thought back over the past few months, searching for any sign of the agony that should have accompanied a mate's infidelity. Since I was of age, I would have felt it. Annalise would not have felt anything while I was satisfying my Alpha needs with any she-wolf available over the last few years, since she wasn’t yet of age. That was one of the excuses I’d used to justify my actions. There had been nothing; I hadn’t felt any signs of betrayal. If anything, I'd felt more content than usual, more satisfied with life.

"Oh goddess," I breathed, the full weight of what I'd done crashing over me. "What have I done?"

"You rejected and banished your pregnant mate," Jackson said coldly. "You humiliated her and sent her out into the human world alone and terrified."

I looked at the clock on my office wall. It had been over an hour since I'd given Annalise thirty minutes to leave. She was gone. Really, truly gone.

"I have to find her," I said desperately, jumping to my feet. "I have to bring her back—"

"It's too late," Jackson said harshly. "She's been gone for over thirty minutes. She could be anywhere by now."

"But I can track her—"

"Can you? You severed the mate bond and banished her. Can you still feel her or her wolf?"

The question hung in the air like a sword over my head. I thought about the look in Annalise's eyes as I'd called her a whore, the way she'd crumbled when I'd banished her. The heartbreak and betrayal I'd seen there.

"She'll forgive me," I said weakly. "She loves me."

"Loved," Jackson corrected. "Past tense. And can you blame her?"

I couldn't. I'd taken the most precious thing she had to offer—her love, her trust, her body—and then forgotten about it completely. When she'd tried to tell me the truth, I'd called her a liar and a whore. And now she was out there somewhere, carrying my child, believing I'd thrown her away like garbage.

"How do I fix this?" I whispered.

Jackson stared at me for a long moment, then shook his head. "I don't know if you can. Or even if you should. That girl deserves better than what you've given her."

He turned and walked toward the door, then paused with his hand on the handle.

"When you find her—if you find her—don't expect her to fall into your arms with gratitude. You've got a lot of groveling to do before you earn the right to even speak to her again."

He left, and I was alone with the weight of my mistakes. Somewhere out there, Annalise was carrying my child and believing that I'd thrown her away like garbage.

The discovery that should have brought us together had instead torn us apart.

And it was entirely my fault.

Chapter 11

Annalise - Age 17

The bus ticket said Crescent Bay, Maine, but felt like it should say The End of Everything.

My hands shook as I clutched the thin piece of paper, sitting in the cramped bus station in the nearest human town, forty miles from what used to be my home. Everything I owned in the world was stuffed into a single duffel bag at my feet—a few changes of clothes, some photos, the small amount of money I'd managed to save from my Luna training allowance.

It was even less than I’d had when I moved into the Alpha house all those years ago after Marshall first scented me. I’d left behind all the clothes Marshall and Luna Etta had bought me, all the items I’d collected during my Luna training. None of that seemed necessary now.

Thirty minutes. That's all Marshall had given me to pack up seventeen years of life and disappear forever.