Lahat ng Kabanata ng Sugar baby to my Father’s Alpha: Kabanata 111 - Kabanata 120

"You're not holding a sign," Solana said dryly.Marcus looked down at her from his considerable height. He stood at the bottom of the escalator in Reno's arrivals hall in a dark suit, with his hands clasped in front of him, looking as out of place among the slot machines and tourists as a wolf in a henhouse."Would you have wanted one, Miss Lim?" he asked gravely."No," she replied."Then I made the right decision," he said, reaching for her carry-on before she could stop him. "Your luggage has already been collected. The car is outside.""Of course it is," she muttered, and followed him.The car was a black SUV with tinted windo

Solana waited in the corridor until she saw Adrian Hale coming down the hall with a coffee mug in his hand.He slowed when he spotted her leaning against the wall beside the Alpha's office door, and his eyebrows climbed."Waiting for someone, Miss Lim?" he asked curiously."Yes," she said."Me?" he asked, sounding delighted."You'll do," Solana said dryly. She took a pause, making her tone more respectful. “Sorry, I meant, I’ll appreciate your presence, beta Adrian.”Adrian studied her face for a second, and then understanding dawned in his eyes along with a slow, wicked grin.

His mother's fingers dug into his wrist so hard that Caspian could feel his bones grinding together."Walk faster," she slurred, yanking him along the cracked sidewalk. "You wanted food, didn't you? You've been crying about it all morning. So walk.""Mama, you're hurting me," Caspian whimpered, stumbling to keep up with her.She did not loosen her grip. She lifted the bottle in her other hand to her lips and took a long swallow, and the sharp, chemical smell of it hit him in the face. It smelled like the stuff the motel manager used to strip paint off the doors.It had not always smelled like that. A few months ago, her bottles had come with real labels and shiny caps. Now they came from a man behind the liquor store with no labels at all, and every time she drank from one, her eyes went strange and glassy, and she forgot his name for a while."I'm not hungry anymore," Caspian lied, sniffling."Liar," she snapped, without looking down at him. "You've been whining since yesterday."T

For a long moment after Adrian left, Solana stared at the closed door.“Squeamish about blood,” she repeated to herself out loud. For a moment, she was confused. Then realization slammed into her.“Of course,” she grumbled, shaking her head. “Why wouldn't there be blood? Packs and traditional bullshit.”She had hated the way the traditional pack integration for Miller’s pack had made her feel. Everyone had told her how wonderful it’ll feel, but all she had felt was nausea as the connectivity slammed into her. She let out a slow breath, pushed the thought away, and turned to her side of the room.Her boxes arrived twenty minutes later, and she spent the next two hours unpacking with the quiet focus of someone who had moved too many times to get sentimental about it.Her clothes went into the walk-in closet, sorted by color. Her sketchbooks went on the shelf of the bookshelf divider, spines facing out. Her sewing machine went on the desk beneath the high frosted window, where the light

Solana stiffened as though he had slapped her.She locked her knees, straightened her spine and dragged every feeling inside her down into the dark, one by one, the way she had taught herself to do eight years ago, standing on an auction stage under hot white lights. She shoved the warmth down, and the fullness, and the trembling. She slammed a door on all of it.Her face went smooth and blank and polite.Across the stone, Alistair's eyes flickered. Then the soft look slowly drained from his face, and the cold Alpha mask slid back into place. He turned away toward the crowd.Solana let out a slow breath through her nose.He felt that, she thought grimly. He felt every single second of it.That was not how it had worked with Alpha Miller. Miller had never once looked at her as though he could see inside her head. If he had, she would have left the Bloodhounds within a week."Easy," Adrian murmured beside her. His hand was still wrapped around her elbow, steady and warm. "Breathe. It hi