Semua Bab SURROGATE FOR THE ALPHA: Bab 11 - Bab 20

Chapter 11 Ashley's POV "If it pleases the council," he says again, savoring the room's silence, "I have spent the better part of the last week reviewing the circumstances surrounding this pregnancy. What I've found troubles me deeply." He lets his gaze drift slowly across the chamber before it lands back on me, and I force myself not to look away. "The clinic in question has a documented history of security failures. Two, in fact, in the last eighteen months, both quietly settled before they reached this council's attention.""This is the first time I'm hearing of any prior incident," Liam says, voice tight."I imagine it is." The man's mouth curves, not quite a smile. "Records have a way of disappearing when the right people want them to. Which raises an uncomfortable question. If this clinic's security has been compromised before, who's to say this current, ah, mix-up wasn't equally deliberate? Perhaps orchestrated by someone with every reason to force this council's hand."A mu

Chapter 13 Ashley POVI don't remember deciding to move, only that I am already crossing the grass at a pace that has nothing to do with what's good for me and everything to do with the fact that this woman met me at the door of a house I never asked to live in and made me feel, for one hour on the worst day of my life, like I might actually belong somewhere. One hand stays pressed low against my stomach out of instinct, the same way it has been every time fear outruns my body since this whole nightmare began. Smoke rolls across the lawn in thick, choking waves, lit orange from beneath, and the heat coming off the east wing is so intense I can feel it against my skin from thirty yards away."Ashley, wait." Sienna's hand closes hard around my arm from behind, and for once there's no venom in her voice at all, only a fear that matches mine. "You can't be this close to the smoke, not with the baby.""That's Marta." My voice comes out thin, disbelieving, even though I can see it's true,

Chapter 15 Sienna POVI hear the radio call the second it breaks through the static, "movement inside, not just one person," and something in my chest goes tight and cold in a way I don't have time to examine. I've been running the northern perimeter for the better part of an hour, flashlight sweeping the tree line, boots soaked through from the wet grass, and the groundskeeper's cottage sits less than half a mile from where I'm standing. I didn’t wait for backup. I didn’t wait for Liam's order to fall into place properly through the chain of command. I just ran.The trees thin out as I approach, moonlight cutting silver lines across the overgrown path, and that's when I see him, a shape moving fast and low along the tree line, keeping to the shadows the way someone does when they know exactly what they're trying to avoid being seen doing."Dorian." His name leaves my mouth before I've fully decided to speak it, low enough not to carry too far, sharp enough to stop him mid-stride.He

Ashley POVMarta's condition stabilizes just after dawn, her vitals settling into something the doctors are finally willing to call encouraging rather than merely holding on, and it's only once I hear that word from one of them directly that I let myself be convinced to leave her side. A guard Liam sent hours earlier is still waiting in the corridor when I finally step out, patient and quiet, under strict instruction not to let me travel anywhere without an escort, and he drives me back to the estate himself once I agree to go.I arrive just as they're bringing Dorian in from the grounds, and the sight of him, shaken, bruised along one side of his face, flanked by Julian and Sienna, tells me everything about the night I missed while I sat holding a stranger's hand in a hospital room and praying she'd survive it. Nobody explains the full story to me right away. Liam won't tell me what happened in those woods, not the details, only that Julian and Sienna found Dorian alive and that what

Chapter 19Ashley POVLiam didn’t come to bed until well past midnight, and even then I feel him lying awake beside me long after his breathing should have settled into sleep, one arm thrown loosely over his eyes, the other hand finding mine in the dark without either of us saying anything about it."You never told me what Julian wanted," I say quietly, remembering the message that pulled him away from me on the terrace hours earlier. "Whatever it was, it's clearly still sitting with you."He's quiet for a moment, and I can feel him deciding how much to give me, an old habit he's still unlearning even now. "The renovation permits for the east wing," he finally says. "The ones the county keeps on file. Dorian mentioned them without meaning to, and Julian pulled the actual documents tonight. The signature at the bottom isn't my father's."I push myself up on one elbow, sleep forgotten entirely. "Whose was it?""That's the problem." His jaw tightens in the dark. "I don't know. I ran the