All Chapters of SURROGATE FOR THE ALPHA: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

Ashley POV "Just breathe, Ashley. This will only take a few minutes." Dr. Voss snaps on a fresh pair of gloves without looking at me, already reaching for the tray of instruments beside the exam table.I nod, staring at the fluorescent lights and trying not to think about the three months of overdue rent I could not have covered without this contract. Nia squeezes my hand from her spot beside the table, her nurse's badge catching the light every time she shifts her weight."You're doing something incredible," she whispers. "That baby is going to grow up wanted more than almost any child in this city. Some couple out there has been waiting years for this call."I need to believe her, because in about ninety seconds a stranger's future child is going to be implanted inside me, and there's no version of my life right now where I can afford to feel anything but grateful for the check that comes after. I've read every page of the contract twice. I know the clauses about confidentiality, me

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

Ashley's POV I'm on my feet before I've fully decided to move, yanking the door open and running toward the stairs barefoot, heart slamming against my ribs. Smoke curls up from the ground floor, sharp and acrid, and somewhere below Liam is shouting orders in a voice I've never heard him use, raw with something that sounds almost like fear."Ashley, stay back!" He ordered me. A guard caught me at the top of the stairs, arm barring my way before I could reach the first step, his other hand already reaching for the radio clipped to his shoulder."What's happening? Someone screamed, "I heard it from my room.""Perimeter breach. Someone got past the east gate." His eyes are wide, scanning the smoke below us like he's expecting something to come charging up the stairs any second. "Mr. Ashworth is handling it, you need to get to the safe room, now."I don't move fast enough. Down the hall, another guard is dragging a limp figure away from the smoke, and somewhere out of sight I can hear Mar

Liam POVThe name hits me like a fist to the sternum.Julian Ashworth. I have not let myself say it out loud in six years, not since I stood over an empty coffin and lied to an entire pack about what we were burying. My mother died still believing her youngest son was in the ground. I have spent six years building walls specifically so that no one could ever make me feel the way I felt the day we called off the search.And now some guard at the gate is telling me my brother is standing outside asking for me by name.I am moving before I've decided to move, out of the exam room, down the hall, past staff who scatter out of my way without needing to be told. Every rational part of my mind is screaming that this is a trap, that six years of silence does not end with a man simply walking up to the front gate and asking to come home. The rest of me, the part I trust far less, is already hoping.I reach the foyer and stop dead.He is thinner than I remember. Older, obviously, the way six yea

Chapter 9 Ashley POV The attack outside is over within the hour, though it takes far longer than that for the estate to feel safe again. Guards continue sweeping the grounds long after the alarms fall silent, flashlight beams sweeping across the dark lawn from every window I pass. Liam returns to the safe room with a fresh cut along his jaw and exhaustion carved into every line of his face, telling us the intruders slipped away before his men could corner them, vanishing into the dark like they'd never been there at all."Two of them," he says, dropping into the chair across from me, wincing slightly as the movement pulls at the cut along his jaw. "Professional. Trained. Not the kind of men Marcus Vane would ever bother hiring.""Which means it wasn't him this time either," Sienna says from the doorway, arms crossed, her voice flat rather than warm, the tone of someone assessing a political problem rather than expressing sympathy. "Which raises the question of who actually benefits