Alpha King's Missing Mate (Book 1 Of The Regal Eclipse Pack Series)

Chapter 22

Dr. Ben Gray sat down at his desk in his packhouse a few hours later, dropping the sample of Jenna's blood next to him. Tyler had told him that Jenna was a single mom, which Ben found rather intriguing. He had seen Jenna cover the mark on her neck before Tyler came into the room.

Some werewolf had claimed her at some point, and that caused Ben to have many questions. Why was she single now? And was the baby she was carrying that werewolf's pup? More than likely, it was, unless she'd been pregnant before she was marked. Had the male found out she was pregnant and left her? Ben doubted it. That mark was permanent. Did Jenna have any idea about werewolves? It was still a bit early to pick up the scent of an unborn werewolf pup, but before long, any wolf that came near Jenna would know what she was carrying.

His other concern was the fact that Jenna was not a wolf herself. She shouldn't have a problem delivering the pup, but she was going to be extremely tired towards the end of her pregnancy, and the baby would eat more than a normal human baby. Her baby would always be at the top percentile of growth. At least she wasn't having a male pup. That kid would probably eat her out of house and home. She already was going to have her hands full as it was.

Ben himself had been raised outside of the werewolf community by human parents. He'd had no knowledge that he himself was a werewolf until his fifteenth birthday, when he had begun to hear a voice inside his head. Ben had thought he was losing his mind, and he'd completely ignored it. His life was perfect. He was the star football player and was dating the head cheerleader. There were talks already of him being scouted by the biggest colleges in the country. His future looked bright.

But then his sixteenth birthday had come along, and Ben had unexpectedly shifted. His entire life literally changed overnight. Ben had gone from being the popular high school superstar jock to being practically a nobody.

He'd quit football, as he'd come to realize this was why he was so much better than everyone else at the sport. He'd dumped his beautiful cheerleader girlfriend because he was afraid he would hurt her, and he became a recluse. Being in high school was hard enough, but Ben was different. He suddenly had a very big secret, and he knew that if he told anyone, he'd sound crazy. What if he was locked up and experimented on? At that point, he'd had no idea that he'd been born a werewolf.

He was angry for a long time, angry with everyone because Ben felt as though his life had been ruined. He was mostly angry with his parents for not telling him, but after a bit, he realized his anger was unfounded because his parents really had no idea that their only son was a werewolf. They just thought he was being a typical teenager, making split decisions because of mood swings. They weren't happy that he'd quit the football team, but how did one go about telling one's family that everything they knew about themselves had suddenly changed?

He also hated the strange voice that was suddenly much more prominent in his head now. It had never gone away. The voice claimed to be his wolf, and for a long time, Ben blocked the voice out, ignoring it completely. But after several months of feeling like he was going to jump out of his own skin, the voice finally pushed through and convinced Ben to shift.

The hour he spent in the woods that night was one of the most freeing in his life, and suddenly everything felt like it might be okay. Over the next few months, the voice in his head, whom he came to know as his wolf, Blu, became his best friend. Ben had isolated himself so much that he had become very lonely, but now he had someone whom he could confide in, someone who knew his biggest secret, someone who could explain all of this craziness to him.

Ben did as much research as he could online about werewolves, but he quickly realized that there was no definitive proof. He could never confirm anything. He was convinced that he had somehow been changed into a werewolf, though Blu disagreed and insisted that they had been born that way.

'I've always been here,' Blu told him. 'All of your life.'

Ben disagreed with that, but arguing with his wolf was pointless. Both of them were as stubborn as the day was long. He didn't understand how he could be born to human parents. People weren't just randomly born as werewolves, were they? And Ben was 99% sure his parents were completely human.

The only other thing he could think of was that they both carried a werewolf gene and hadn't been aware of it. Maybe with two werewolf genes, they'd unknowingly created a werewolf baby. Of course, he knew that was ridiculous now. The werewolf gene was always dominant. If his parents had carried that gene, they'd both be werewolves.

During his junior year, Ben decided to become a doctor. He knew he was a little late to the ballgame, but he had nothing better to do than study. He wanted to learn more about himself and why his body had undergone the strange changes it had.

Several years later, while Ben was finishing his residency, his life changed drastically again. His parents were killed in a car accident, and while going through paperwork in his house, he'd found an adoption certificate. It had stunned him. Never once had his parents ever told him he was adopted, but it made him realize Blu really did know what he was talking about. Perhaps Ben had been born this way.

After his residency, Ben had taken a job at a small clinic in Pennsylvania. He wanted to be out in the country where he and Blu had freedom to roam, and he wanted time to do research, something working at a big hospital would never afford him. But he wasn't in town long before he unknowingly attracted the attention of the local wolf pack and a certain beautiful she-wolf that Ben couldn't resist.

One of Ben's biggest rules since he had discovered he was a werewolf was no females. He had not had a girlfriend or even a casual fling since his sixteenth birthday. He knew how strong he was, and he was afraid of hurting someone. But Marissa, he'd been unable to resist. They'd met in the local grocery store and had barely made it out the door before he'd broken his own rule.

A visit from her Alpha a few days later had shaken Ben up a bit, but it had also opened up a whole new world for him. Now, two years later, Ben was a member of a pack, mated to Marissa, and both the pack doctor and a doctor at the clinic part-time.

When Ben had joined, the previous pack doctor had been planning to retire. He took Ben under his wing and taught him as much as he could. Ben's office was full of books, and he spent a great deal of time reading when Risa was traveling for her own job.

Ben stood up from his desk and stretched before moving over to a table with a microscope and placing some of Jenna's blood on a few different slides. He spent his time carefully looking at each one. Sure enough, the markers were there. Jenna's baby was a werewolf.

Ben rubbed his eyes. He didn't want her daughter to grow up like he had, completely blindsided when she turned sixteen and suddenly shifted into a wolf. What if she wasn't alone like he'd been? That would be very bad. But he had no idea if Jenna had any idea of what she was carrying. Where was the pup's father? Why would he mark her and leave her?

Ben sighed as he put the blood sample in the fridge and left his clinic. There wasn't much he could do about it for now. He'd monitor her care and make sure Jenna gave birth to a healthy pup. In the meantime, he'd discuss the situation with Risa and then perhaps his Alpha and decide what to do.

Jenna's pup would be a rogue, and while his own pack was non-judgmental, some other packs hated rogues. But there was plenty of time to figure that out later.

Ben flipped off the lights in his office and locked up. He headed down the hall to the elevator and took it up to his floor, eager to spend some time alone with Risa.