Chapter 3

Ashley's POV 

I couldn’t sleep.

I spend the night pacing my apartment, phone in hand, trying to find a version of this that doesn't end with me losing everything I've spent years building. Nia calls at midnight, crying, telling me she's already been suspended pending investigation, that if I don't cooperate with Ashworth she could lose her license entirely and everything she worked for besides.

I think about calling my mother, but decide against it. She's still recovering, still fragile, and the last thing she needs is to hear that her daughter has been swept up into pack politics she never wanted any part of. I think about calling a lawyer instead, scrolling through numbers I can't afford to dial, before finally setting the phone down on the counter and staring at it like it might offer up an answer on its own.

By morning I have my answer, even though every part of me is screaming against it.

His car is waiting outside my building before I've even finished packing, a driver in a black suit holding the door like this is a normal Tuesday and not the day I hand my life over to a stranger. The estate itself is obscene, iron gates stretching two stories high, a house that looks like it swallowed a smaller house for breakfast, more staff in the entryway alone than I've probably met in the last year combined.

A woman in a tailored gray dress meets me at the door before I've even reached the steps, introducing herself as Marta, the estate's household manager, and rattles off a list of names and rooms so quickly I can't hope to retain any of it. She leads me through the entrance hall, past a curved staircase wide enough to fit my entire apartment, until we reach the foyer proper, where Liam is waiting.

He stands with his arms crossed, watching me climb the last few steps like he's still deciding whether to believe I actually came.

"You made the right choice," he says.

"I didn't have a choice." I lift my chin, refusing to let him see how much my hands are shaking. "There's a difference, and I'd appreciate you not pretending otherwise."

Something almost like respect moves through his eyes before he buries it, though his jaw tightens as Marta clears her throat behind us, tablet in hand.

"Alpha Ashworth," Marta says carefully, "before you show her upstairs, there's something you should see. It's already spreading."

Liam takes the tablet, and I watch his expression harden with every second he stares at the screen. He turns it toward me eventually, and my stomach drops at a pack gossip site, headline blaring across the top: Ashworth Alpha's Secret Human Surrogate, Sources Confirm Pregnancy Already Underway. Beneath it, a grainy photo of me leaving the clinic yesterday, my face clearly visible.

"I haven't even been here a full day," I whisper. "How does anyone outside the clinic already know my name?"

"They don't just know your name," Liam says grimly, scrolling further. "They know which clinic, which doctor, and the building downtown where you used to work. Someone didn't guess this. Someone handed it to them."

"This way. I'll show you to your room."

The house is a maze of hallways and closed doors, portraits of stern-faced Ashworths lining the walls like they're judging me for existing in their space. Liam walks a full pace ahead of me the entire way, and I find myself watching the set of his shoulders, the controlled power in every step, hating how aware of him my body is despite everything.

"You'll take your meals with the staff unless I request otherwise," he says without turning around. "You are not to leave the grounds without an escort. And you will see the pack physician twice weekly, no exceptions, no negotiations."

"Anything else, warden?"

He stops so suddenly I nearly walk into his back. When he turns, we're standing close enough that I have to tip my head to hold his gaze, close enough that I can feel the heat coming off him like a physical thing.

"One more thing," he says, voice dropping low. "Stay away from the west wing after dark. It isn't safe for you."

"Why not?"

"Because that's where I go when the moon makes it difficult for me to stay civilized." His eyes drop, just briefly, to my mouth, and my pulse stutters in a way that has nothing to do with fear. "And right now, Ashley, you are testing my restraint in ways I did not anticipate when I woke up this morning."

I should have stepped back but I didn’t.

"Is that a threat?"

"It's a warning." His hand comes up, tucking a loose strand of hair behind my ear with a gentleness that doesn't match anything else about him, and the touch sends a shock straight down my spine. "Warnings exist because I don't trust myself around you. That should frighten you more than anything I've said since we met this week."

For one suspended second neither of us moves, his hand still on my jaw, my breath caught somewhere in my throat, and I understand with sudden, terrifying clarity that whatever this is between us, it didn’t start yesterday in that exam room. It started the moment he walked in and said the word mine like it belonged to him already, like the claim had been waiting to be spoken.

I want to ask him what he means. I want to push past the careful distance he keeps rebuilding between his words and whatever he actually feels, but the moment shatters when a voice cuts through the hallway behind us.

"Well," a woman drawls, arms folded, eyes raking over me with open contempt from head to toe. "So this is the human."

Liam's spine straightens instantly, some of the warmth draining from his expression like a door closing. "Sienna," he says, and there's a caution in his voice I haven't heard from him before, careful in a way that tells me whoever this woman is, she matters. "I wasn't expecting you today."

I glance between them, the tension in the hallway suddenly thick enough to choke on, and understand without being told that whatever calm I'd found in the last few minutes is already over.

The woman steps closer, heels clicking sharp against the marble, and her eyes never once leave me, studying me the way you might size up something you intend to remove. Whatever she's about to say, I have the distinct feeling I'm not going to like it.

"Liam," she says, without breaking her stare, "does she know? About the arrangement your father made before he died? What happens to a human carrying the heir if the pack council refuses to recognize the pregnancy?"

The color drains from Liam's face so fast it frightens me more than anything Sienna has said so far.

"That's enough," he says, but his voice has lost its certainty, and for the first time since I met him, Liam Ashworth looks like a man caught completely off guard.