All Chapters of THE ALPHA'S SECRET HEIR-HER REVENGE BEGINS : Chapter 1 - Chapter 8

POV: SableTwo pink lines, and three hours before the Moon Goddess ruins it again.I had looked at it four times, the test was on the windowsill of the pack bathroom and I had stopped thinking that it might change.Outside, Ironwood was loud with the mating ceremony, drums were being heard as every wolf who was under thirty had waited all year to know who the Moon Goddess would hand them, and I was the only person in the house hiding in a bathroom with my hand over my mouth.I wrapped the test in toilet paper, then in a sock, then pushed it deep into my jacket pocket. My fingers kept returning to it as I walked downstairs, as my mind raced at a faster pace.Tonight, I told myself. Somewhere quiet. I'll tell him tonight.For a month, Caelum and I had existed in the dark. His hand found mine in a dark hallway, a window left open. His voice in my ear, saying my name like it was something he was allowed to keep. We had never said what we were. Tonight I would say it for both of us, I almo

Five Years LaterSableThe man I had spent five years hiding from had asked for me by name seven times, and I had never once said hello."Your terms are insulting," said Bram, leaning across the glass table of my conference room. He was six and a half feet of Cinder fall pack muscle, and he was trying to threaten me into negotiating at a better price. "My wolves have been buying human medical supplies for forty years.""At forty percent markup," I said, turning a page. "Because nobody ever told you that you could negotiate."His countenance changed in an instant.Isolde Vale never raised her voice. That was the first rule, and it was the one that made grown Alphas sweat. Wolves respected power but trusted paperwork, and I had become very good at handling both. Vale & Associates occupied the fourteenth floor of a Harlow Bay tower, close enough to the human world to buy from it and close enough to the territories to sell back.Nobody in that room knew I had once been the girl who ate at

SableMy daughter had just handed Caelum a crayon page that said "Daddy," and I had four seconds to decide what kind of liar I was going to be."She draws a lot of men," I said.I folded the page in half, then in half again, and slid it into my coat pocket. My hand was shaking. I kept it in my pocket so he couldn't see."Knights, woodcutters. There's a storybook at home with a green-eyed prince. She's been obsessed since spring."Caelum looked at me. He had his father's stillness, but something lived underneath it that Magnus never had, something that listened. He was listening now, and I hated how much of me wanted to be heard."The house in the picture," he said slowly. "The road with the trees.""Every castle has a road with trees.""Mama," said Pip, "that's not what you said when you took the *other* ones."I closed my eyes for exactly one second."What other ones?" Caelum asked, very quietly."Bedtime, sweetheart." I lifted Pip's feet back onto the bed and tucked the blanket arou

SableI made it to the third-floor stairwell before my legs gave out.The door hissed shut behind me, and I slid down the cinder block wall until I was sitting on the cold landing, the letter opener digging into my wrist. Somewhere below, an engine idled, then faded. Whoever held that camera had decided I wasn't worth chasing tonight.That was almost worse.I stayed there for a minute, counting my breaths, listening for footsteps on the stairs below. None came. Only the hum of the fluorescent tubes and the distant, patient beep of a monitor somewhere on the floor above.I did not read the paper there. *Somewhere with a lock,* Hollis had said, and I had spent five years learning to obey exactly that kind of warning. I climbed to the pediatric floor and opened the door of Room 12. Pip slept with one arm flung over her rabbit and her mouth open, a curl of dark hair stuck to her cheek. I stood there until I was sure her chest was rising and falling on its own, then straightened her blanke