LOGINShare
Chapter 6
publish date:
2026-08-16 06:59:23
Latest chapter
SURROGATE FOR THE ALPHA Chapter 59
Chapter 59 Ashley POVLiam's face when he lowers the phone tells me everything before he says a word, and I'm on my feet before he finishes crossing the room toward me."Julian," I say. "Liam, what happened?""Someone has him." His voice comes out flat, controlled in the particular way that means he's holding something back that wants very badly to become violence. "They want something deleted from his phone, and information confirmed. Six hours." He pauses, jaw tightening further. "And they know about the council postponement. They're using it, Ashley. Counting on it to keep me from calling in favors I'd normally call in without hesitation.""Then we call every tracker, every guard, we tear this city apart.""We can't." He grips my shoulders, forcing me to meet his eyes, and I see the same helpless fury there that's clawing through my own chest. "Ashley, if we move visibly, if they see search teams flooding the streets, they panic, and men who panic with a hostage make mistakes we c
SURROGATE FOR THE ALPHA Chapter 58
Chapter 58 Julian POVI should call Liam. I know this with total clarity, standing on that street with the message still glowing on my screen, every lesson these past weeks have taught me screaming that walking back into that building alone is exactly the kind of reckless decision that gets people killed.I went anyway.Not through the front door this time. I circle back the way I came, three blocks retraced at a near run, to the alley beneath the second-floor window I dropped from not long ago, some old, stubborn instinct insisting that whoever sent that message wants me to come through the obvious entrance, expects it, has probably already arranged for it.The alley is empty when I reach it, quiet in a way that feels deliberate rather than simply abandoned. I'm three steps in when the pain hits, sudden and total, a blow across the back of my skull that drops me to my knees before I even register another person's presence.I didn't lose consciousness, not entirely, though the world
SURROGATE FOR THE ALPHA Chapter 57
Chapter 57 Julian POVThe shape in the tree line doesn't move again, not that night, and by the time I finally convince myself to abandon the window and get some sleep, I've talked myself into believing it was nothing, a guard's shift change, an animal startled from cover. I don't fully believe it. I simply need to function tomorrow, and fear left unexamined too long stops being useful and starts being paralysis.The crest specialist meets me at a quiet café near the council district, an older woman named Fenwick who examines the photograph of the ring with a jeweler's loupe and a patience that makes the twenty minutes feel like an hour."The stone cut is northern," she says finally. "Pre-settlement era, before territorial redistribution changed how these families commissioned heraldry. I can narrow it to perhaps four or five families who favored this particular setting, but the crest itself has been deliberately obscured, worn smooth in places that don't match natural aging. Someone
SURROGATE FOR THE ALPHA Chapter 56
Chapter 56 Julian POVI don't tell anyone I'm going out tonight, not because I'm hiding something shameful, but because I've learned these past weeks that explaining myself before I've actually done anything only invites arguments I don't have the patience to win. Liam is consumed with the Vane meeting tomorrow. Sienna is still shaken from the favor she called in for Greta Holloway's address. Ashley needs rest more than she needs one more person hovering at her door with questions.So I go alone, the way I've been quietly returning to fragments of my captivity alone for weeks now, chasing threads too small and too personal to bring to anyone else yet.The ring sits foremost in my mind tonight, the one the note delivered alongside Reeves weeks ago, tarnished silver, black stone, the exact match to what Elena described burying in her sewing box thirty years earlier. I've been unable to stop turning it over since Sienna first laid it on the evidence table, some old instinct insisting it
SURROGATE FOR THE ALPHA Chapter 55
Chapter 55 Liam POVWe find Elena awake despite the hour, sitting up in bed with a cardigan pulled tight around her shoulders, and something in her face when we enter tells me she's been waiting for this conversation rather than dreading it, a small mercy after weeks of watching her flinch through every difficult question."Greta," she says, before Ashley even finishes crossing the room. "I don't know why it took me this long to remember her properly. I think some part of me buried her name along with everything else.""Tell us about her," I say, settling into the chair across from the bed while Ashley sits beside her mother, taking her hand."She was older than most of the staff, already near retirement when I started working there. Kind in a brisk sort of way, the kind of woman who shows love through practicality rather than warmth." Elena's eyes soften with the memory. "She'd worked for the Ashworth family since your grandfather's time, Liam. She knew that house better than anyone
SURROGATE FOR THE ALPHA Chapter 54
Chapter 54 Ashley POVThe physician arrives precisely within the hour, exactly as threatened, and something about his punctuality unsettles me more than a late arrival would have, the particular precision of a man who does nothing carelessly.He's polite enough, professionally distant in a way that feels appropriate rather than sinister, and Liam stands in the corner of the exam room the entire time, arms crossed, watching every movement of the man's hands like he's cataloguing threats rather than observing a routine checkup. The exam itself passes without incident, standard vitals, a scan that mirrors what our own physician has already documented, and by the time he packs up his equipment, I've mostly stopped bracing for something to go wrong."Everything appears consistent with what's already been recorded," he says, addressing his notes rather than either of us directly. "I'll submit my findings to the council within the day.""Consistent," Liam repeats. "Meaning you found nothing
You May Also Like
My Alpha Stepbrother's Dirty Secret
The Sugaredpen717.6K viewsThe Silver Wolf
Ly_123590.6K viewsAlpha Kai
J. Tarr518.5K viewsThe Alpha and the Mistake
Jilguera630.9K viewsThe Unmarked Luna
F.Flora187 viewsThe Beta’s Unbreakable Mate
Tuns Erite62 viewsThe Witch and her Alpha
Eliza Vasquez 73 viewsHis Mate His Mistake
ALEX J.106 views
