Submitting to the Shadow (Kindred Tales #27) - Evangeline Anderson Page 0,56

make me responsible for the fetuses she’s carrying,” Roark tried to defend himself.

Or did it? If Samantha hadn’t been cheating on him with some human down on Earth, then how had she turned up pregnant? Roark still didn’t believe that the twins she was apparently carrying could be his. The odds were just so completely against it. But long odds didn’t necessarily make an event impossible, just extremely improbable. What if—

“I think you’d better ask Liv—the doctor who performed Sammi’s pregnancy test before you go saying you’re not the one responsible,” Samantha’s friend snapped, cutting into his reverie. “I asked her to run a DNA scan before we left and I’m pretty sure it ought to be ready by now.”

“A DNA scan?” Roark raised his eyebrows.

“Exactly,” she spat. “Because I didn’t buy that shit about you giving Sammi ‘fake seed’ or whatever it was you stuck in my friend.” She leaned forward and poked a finger in his chest, hard enough to hurt. “You’d better go find out right now and then take responsibility for your actions, you asshole!”

Then she turned and stalked away, her hands clenched into fists at her sides.

“Where are you going?” Roark demanded, wondering if she was going to the Med Center herself to get the results of the DNA test.

Meg turned to face him.

“To find Sammi! So I can tell her never to have anything to do with you again!”

Then she turned on her heel again and stalked down the long silver corridor, leaving Roark feeling shaken and uncertain.

He’d been so sure the twin babies Samantha was carrying couldn’t possibly be his…

But what if he was wrong?

Forty-One

“They’re definitely yours, all right,” Liv said matter-of-factly. “Here, look.” She passed Roark the medical tablet she’d been studying to show him the results of the DNA test. “No other male on the entire ship or anywhere else matches the DNA signature of the twins Samantha is carrying,” she told him. “But when I pull up your files—look…” She touched the screen. “Perfect match.”

“I…” Roark shook his head. “But I don’t understand how this could have happened. We’re not even bonded.”

“Are you sure?” Liv raised an eyebrow at him. “I know bonding can be difficult sometimes with Shadow Twins or Hybrids but she is pregnant and those babies most definitely are yours.”

“But twin girls,” Roark protested. “The odds are—”

“Astronomical. I know,” Liv said, frowning. “But just because something is improbable doesn’t make it impossible.”

Her words so clearly echoed his own earlier thoughts that it gave Roark a sudden chill. Slowly, the implications of what the human doctor was telling him began to sink in. Somehow, against all odds, his sperm had worked. It had worked and now Samantha was pregnant—with his children!

But if she was pregnant, why weren’t they bonded?

Maybe because you were too much of a coward to try and bond her the right way, a little voice whispered in his head. You let the inseminator do the work for you—the work you were too afraid to do yourself!

Something else became clear to him too—he had treated Samantha—the mother of his children—horribly. He had accused her of sleeping with another male behind his back and lying to him. Then he had fired her and sent her away, pregnant and alone. Gods, what must she think of him?

Roark knew what he thought of himself. When Samantha’s friend had called him an “asshole” she had been right. In fact, she had been too kind.

“I am an asshole,” he muttered, staring down at the incontrovertible proof on the medical tablet. “A complete asshole.”

“I’m guessing you didn’t take the news well when Samantha came to see you?” Liv asked tactfully.

“Didn’t take it well? I called her a liar and accused her of cheating!” Roark closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Gods, I have to find her and apologize to her. What an idiot I’ve been!”

Suddenly the door to the private room in the Med Center where he was consulting with the human doctor banged open and Samantha’s friend, Meg, charged in.

“Oh, Liv—thank goodness—there you are!” she exclaimed. “I’ve searched and searched but I can’t find Sammi anywhere aboard the Mother Ship. Did she come back here to see you?”

“No, I’m afraid not.” Liv frowned.

“Oh.” Meg’s face fell. “I thought she might have come back to ask about the DNA test.” Her eyes flicked over Roark. “Like he did,” she added, looking at him like he was something she’d scraped off the bottom of her shoe at the park