Semua Bab Pregnant With the Northern Alpha’s Six Heirs: Bab 1 - Bab 10

My younger brother, Theo Hart, had shielded a coworker from a slab of iron when the boiler exploded at the printing factory. Fine coal dust had lodged deep in his lungs. The charity hospital bled him twice before declaring there was nothing left to do but wait for him to die.The clerk pushed the bill across the table. "Pay two hundred pounds within three days. Otherwise, his medication stops tonight at ten."I had long since spent every penny I had. Theo was my only family, and I could not watch him die. The last time I had begged, the only answer I received was this: charity beds were reserved for people of greater value.I folded the bill and walked out of the sanatorium.A black carriage waited outside, with a silver feather inlaid in the door and thorns wound around the quill.A lawyer in a gray wool coat called out to me. "Miss Hart, there is a nursing contract that may solve your problem."He handed me a document: thirty days of live-in nursing care for a man who suffered from p

I fled west for four months.The wolf pups did not leave me too weak to walk. Instead, they gave me strength no human should have possessed.The price was that they were constantly draining my blood and body heat.I ate twice as much food each day, yet my gums still bled. When the moon was full, the six children pulled at my bones from different directions all at once, and I could only bite down on a cloth strip to keep from screaming.Agnes Mercer found me outside an abandoned monastery.She had once been a Church midwife, dismissed thirty years ago for refusing to hand a half-blood infant over to the Silver Cross."I have delivered human babies and half-blood ones." Agnes felt my abdomen, and her expression darkened. "Six at once, though. That is a first even for me."She forged an identity for me using a register of the dead.I wanted to stay hidden until I gave birth.The night before the blizzard hit, three Silver Cross tracking stakes appeared outside the monastery.Agnes pulled

The next day, a Silver Cross inspector summoned everyone to the town square.He stood on the church steps. Behind him hung an enlarged newspaper photograph.In it, six children hauled ropes at the mine entrance."Those feral children damaged the coal seam with their howling," he said. "If they are not taken into custody, the next disaster could kill the entire town."Garrick sat in the front row, his chest wrapped in white bandages.He had not even gone down the shaft during the collapse, yet he had cast himself as a victim.I carried Finn, still burning with fever, up the church steps and set the preserved injection fluid on the table."Test this first."The inspector did not touch the vial."Mrs. Hart, your pharmacy has been classified as contaminated by beast blood.""This drug was injected into my child by your physician.""That was a necessary assessment."I rolled up Finn's sleeve.The silver wound had spread from the needle site all the way to the bend of his elbow, the flesh bl

The next day, Crane brought me to an observation room.Six one-way mirrors lined the wall.Behind each one was a child.Rowan sat on a slab of ore that would not stop vibrating.Physicians had him identify underground cavities, but they kept raising the frequency. Blood seeped from his ears, yet he clenched his jaw and refused to scream.Cora was surrounded by five people.They took turns telling truths and lies, forcing her to tell which was which. The scents clashed in the sealed room until she vomited nothing but bile.Finn was driven into a maze of silver wire.Each wrong turn brought the wire down on him. His old wound split open completely, blood dripping along the floor.Maeve was locked in a glass case without a single inch of shadow.Lights blazed at her from six directions. She hugged her knees and kept repeating, "Turn them off, please turn them off."Jasper wore an iron muzzle.Every sound he made caused the muzzle to tighten.Nell lay on a blood-draw table.Her blood was b

Lucian's hand was around Crane's throat. One squeeze and the man would be dead. But when his gaze fell on the needle embedded in Nell's chest, he froze.He let go and threw Crane aside."Black Rider medics. Six surgical frames." His voice was barely above a whisper. "Follow the formula she wrote and neutralize the silver. No one removes a silver ring without authorization."A medic picked up the prescription I had left on the ground, the proportions I had scrawled in blood and aconite smoke.The silver rings could not simply be cut. Forced removal would send a surge of silver poison straight into a child's heart.Before entering the chamber, Lucian had read what I had left behind. He walked to Nell's side. The moon core needle had broken through her skin, but the monitoring crystal showed no light."She needs high-order blood," the Black Rider medic said. "Now."Lucian cut open his palm and fed his blood into the catheter. The silver needle was still connected to the other end. The mom