Lahat ng Kabanata ng HIS SURROGATE, HER ALPHA KING : Kabanata 1 - Kabanata 10

He was early.Fifty-three minutes, not sixty. I know because I was still in the bathroom splashing cold water on my face when the knock came, three clean raps on my front door, not loud, not hesitant. The kind of knock that assumed the door would open.I dried my hands, looked at myself in the mirror for one second, and decided I didn't have time to feel unprepared.I opened the door.The photo hadn't done him any favors in either direction. He was tall in the way that actually registers, the kind of tall where you recalibrate the space around a person. Dark coat, no tie, a jaw that looked like it had been designed to make people feel vaguely outmatched. His eyes were gray. Not blue-gray or warm gray. Just gray, the color of sky before something serious happens in it.He looked at me the way people look at things they are trying to understand."Ms. Crane," he said."You're early," I said.Something shifted in his expression. Not quite a smile. More like the idea of one. "May I come in

The gate was the first thing that made it real.Not the drive out of the city, not the way the buildings thinned and the road curved up into tree-lined silence. The gate. Black iron, tall enough that tilting my head back still didn't show the top, and it swung open before my car reached it, which meant someone had been watching the road.I drove through and told myself this was fine.The estate came into view around a bend, and I gripped the steering wheel a little tighter without meaning to. It wasn't a house. It was the kind of building that had opinions about itself. Stone and glass, three stories, wide enough that I couldn't take it all in from one angle. The grounds around it were clean and open, which I understood immediately was not just landscaping. Open ground meant nothing could get close without being seen.I parked where a man standing near the entrance gestured me to stop. He was built like a door and had the face of someone who had professionally not smiled in years."Ms

"How did you get this number?"It was the only thing I could think to say. My voice came out flat and steady, which was a small miracle, because every nerve in my body had just fired at once.A soft sound on the other end. Not quite a laugh. "Ms. Crane, I have access to considerably more than your phone number. That's rather the point of this call."Aldric Morse spoke the way some doctors did, the ones who delivered bad news with a pleasant expression, like the words themselves were not their responsibility."What do you want?" I asked.To introduce myself. To assure you that whatever Cael has told you about me, my interest in you is not hostile. A pause, smooth and practiced. You're a nurse. Educated, practical, clearly intelligent. I'd like to think we can speak plainly."Then speak plainly."You've been pulled into something that has nothing to do with you. A political campaign, a succession war, decades of pack history you had no part in building. You made a personal decision at a

I took the test at six in the morning, alone in the bathroom, sitting on the edge of the tub with the tile cold through my socks.Three minutes. That was all it took.I had done this once before, two years ago when my cycle was late and I was still with Nate and terrified in a completely different way. That test had been negative and I had felt relief first and then, quietly, something I never admitted to anyone, a small grief I buried under the relief and never went back to examine.This time I sat with the test face down in my hands and counted my own breaths and thought about my mother, who used to say that the things worth having always cost you something first.I turned it over.Two lines. Dark, immediate, no squinting required.I sat there for a long moment. The bathroom was quiet. The house around me was quiet. Outside the window the sky was the flat pale color of very early morning, and somewhere below on the grounds one of Lena's people was walking the perimeter in slow stead

"How did you get this number?" I asked."The same way they got yours," Dr. Cross said. "I have access to patient contact files. I am so sorry. I know that's not enough but I need you to know I am."Cael had already glanced at me once. His eyes were on the road but his attention had shifted entirely to my side of the car, the way a person leans toward a sound without moving their body."Where do you want to meet?" I asked.Somewhere public. Please. Her voice dropped lower. I think I'm being watched. I've felt it for three days. Since I realized what they were planning to do with the information and tried to pull back.""You tried to pull back," I repeated.A pause. I made a mistake. A very serious one. And I need to tell you what I know before I lose the nerve or before they realize I've gone off script.I looked at Cael. He had his eyes on the road and his jaw set in that way that meant he was thinking fast.I put the phone slightly away from my mouth. "She wants to meet. Alone.""No,