My mind had become sharply focused on protecting my child. It could have been the pregnancy, but perhaps I was just done with being used as a pawn in Cal's games. It wasn't hard

to find him. He was outside the building where the debates were being held early on in the day, making engagement announcements. His engagement to me. Well, he could marry my dead body. It wasn't happening, and neither was his mayoral career. Not if I could do anything to stop him.

I shifted back into a human and slipped my pants on as soon as I found a safe alley to do so. After that, I'd bought myself a new, disposable cellphone in the nearest bodega and headed for the center of town.

They wouldn't have let me into the building by myself, of course, not without a press pass. But all I had to do was wait outside near where the press was, and he found me, all by himself. For the first time in a long time, I faced the man who thought he owned me. He seemed small, compared to Ben. Smaller than I remembered him, but I had been younger, then. Not even an adult. Not ready to face him, not like I was now. He would barely recognize the upright shape of my spine.

"Hi," I said, putting on my best little smile. Maybe even a little flirtatious.

My year of freedom had taught me a lot about acting, about how everyone was doing it, all the time. It was my turn. He had such grand delusions about himself, about his power over me as an alpha and our fated union (which I knew now was bullshit--Ben was my fated mate, and anyone could see that from a mile away,) that he might just fall for it.

"James," he said. "What a wonderful surprise. I see you finally decided to honor your side of our arrangement."

"I came to talk," I said coyly. "I don't agree with everything you've been saying, but... you had to know I couldn't resist you forever. Can we go somewhere private?"

Little did he know that in my pocket, I was already recording our conversation, livestreaming it so it couldn't be erased or ignored. A little trick I'd learned from Tyler’s own livestream last year.

"Of course," Cal purred, and his voice seemed so smooth, so reasonable, that I almost would have believed he wasn't a horrible human being. We were about to see for ourselves, me and the whole world with me, who Cal Henderson really was.

He took me into the building, and as we walked toward his private dressing room, he bragged about how they'd given him his own room to prepare pre-debate.

"Don't all the candidates get that?"

He shrugged, unlocking his door, and I took the moment of distraction on his part to bring out my phone and get a live image of him by the door, so everyone could see it was really him talking.

Once we were in the room together, and he thought he was safe, the cellphone tucked back into my pocket, I started to prod, fishing for something I could use against him.

"So why did you announce our engagement today?" I asked.

He scoffed, pouring himself a glass of bourbon. He offered me one, too. I shook my head no.

"Because we are engaged, of course."

"Why do you think we're engaged?"

He rolled his eyes at me. I ignored it, and outwardly, I must have appeared calm. I was focused. I needed something, just a one liner, something to ruin his career.

"Because you're bought and paid for, of course." There it was. His real opinion about omegas, slipping through.

"You can't buy a person," I protested, trying to sound less passionate about that than I really was. As if I were simply having a friendly debate with him. Maybe even a flirtatious one. Maybe, I hinted with my body language, if he convinced me, he could have me without a fight.

"I'm sure your parents must have explained this to you before they died, James. My family gave your family money to secure our marriage. So you are mine."

"I was just a baby," I said, and it actually started to hurt, the possession in his voice. It was getting to me. "I didn't know what was going on."

"Do you truly think that matters to me?" he laughed. I tried to focus on how that line would look, quoted in the morning papers. "You're mine. I own you. That's how it works Omega, and the sooner you learn to accept that, the better. Why do you think your parents kept you locked up all those years, put aside for me? It was to protect you from yourself. From your own...will." He sneered. "A common trait in omegas, before they're broken, of course. I own you, from the tips of your toes to those pretty blue eyes, you belong to me."

I stood, angry, now. I couldn't help myself.

"My parents locked me away because they're monsters. Just like you're a monster. I'll never be yours." I stepped even closer as I saw his expression turn from smug to furious. He didn't like being told he was wrong. He didn't like being contradicted. Good. I got up real close, staring up at him with all the will I could summon.

"And my eyes. Aren’t. Blue."

He hit me.

"You reek," he growled, and while I was still reeling from the back of his hand making contact with my cheekbone, still trying to catch my breath, he hit me again, this time with a closed fist, hard enough to knock me to the ground. "That alpha you've been hanging around. I can smell it now. You're tainted." He kicked me in the thigh, and then hard against the back, right at the base of my spine, making me cry out in pain, paralyzed for a second as the memory of breaking my back against a cold brick wall came back all at once. I should have known. I should have known better than to take on another alpha one-on-one. With Ben I would have had a chance, but he wouldn't be able to find me here. I'd made sure of it, and the anger in Cal's voice, in his twisted face, got more and more intense with every second. He was going to kill me.

"You didn't save yourself for me at all, did you, you fucking whore?"

He grabbed me by the longer part of my hair and dragged me to my feet, spitting in my face.

"You went and got fucked by the first pseudo-alpha-scum that made you feel safe," he said, the word mocking, acid on his tongue. "I bet he told you he loved you, didn't he?" He leaned in and inhaled even deeper, and then snarled. "You're fucking pregnant, stupid bitch. Now you're no use to me at all, you know that? Now I have to kill you, and the little brat. You're a shit smear on your family tree, James. Your father would be ashamed of you."

That was it.

All of the rest of it I could have taken. I was used to the abuse, I had a tough skin, after everything. It was nothing I hadn't thought I could get out of Cal with just a little pressure in the right places, and if I died, I would die a martyr. The whole city, the whole world, would know just what sort of person Cal really was.

But he threatened my baby. He made the mistake of reminding me of it, of the life inside of me, of the potential. I had a family to look forward to. One day, Ben and I could raise a child together. We could be happy. And he did make me feel safe. And he did love me. He hadn't just said it. He loved me. He had stuck through a week of the rudest behavior I could come up with, he had stayed by my side through all of it. I wasn't going to let this son of a bitch lay a damn finger on our child, unborn or not.

Right there in his hands, I shifted. My clothes tore. The cellphone fell to the ground, still recording. I fell out of his hands, because he couldn't hold on to just a tuft of fur on the top of my head, and I lunged at him, fangs and claws bared. I felt him shift, too, felt his teeth sink into my neck with sharp pain. I growled and kept fighting. I fought as if my life depended on it.

No one was going to hurt my baby.