Pregnant by the Alpha Who Never Knew My Name

"Where have you seen this woman?" Lucian demanded, his grip like a steel vise on my wrist.

"Let go of me," I ordered.

"Answer the question, Avery."

"You do not get to buy my silence and then interrogate me." I shoved my free hand hard against his chest, forcing him back just enough to break his leverage.

My fingers darted down, snatching the singed photograph from beneath his leather shoe.

"This belongs to me now," I told him.

I turned and walked out the mahogany doors, leaving the Alpha standing in the wreckage of his shredded contract.

Six weeks after I walked out of Lucian Vale's hotel suite, the sharp scent of hospital-grade bleach hit my nose and turned my stomach inside out.

I ducked behind the nurses' station at the neutral clinic, gripping the edge of the laminate counter.

"Breathe through your mouth, Hart," Dr. Mara instructed, tossing a pair of latex gloves into the biohazard bin. "You look ashen."

"It is just the new floor cleaner," I lied, swallowing hard to force the nausea down.

Mara crossed her arms. "You threw up yesterday during the shift change. Sit on the exam table. I am drawing your blood."

"I have patient charts to file," I argued, grabbing a stack of plastic clipboards.

She snatched them right out of my hands. "Room four. Now."

I sat on the crinkling paper of the exam table while Mara tied a rubber tourniquet around my upper arm. My canvas tote bag rested on the chair next to me, the edge of a thick blue folder poking out of the top. Inside sat seventy-two printed bank receipts totaling eighteen thousand dollars.

"Hold still," Mara murmured, sliding the needle into my vein.

A sudden rap on the glass wall of the clinic room made me jump.

Nolan stood in the corridor. He wore a cheap gray suit, his jaw tight, glaring through the observation window.

"Are you kidding me?" I muttered, pressing a cotton ball to my inner arm as Mara withdrew the needle.

"Is that the ex?" Mara asked, labeling the red vial.

"Unfortunately."

Nolan pushed the door open a crack. "Avery, we need to talk. Right now."

"This is a sterile environment," Mara snapped, pointing a finger at him. "Wait outside."

"I just need two minutes," Nolan insisted, stepping fully into the room. He pointed a finger at me. "You sent a formal debt collection notice to the prosecutor's office. My boss saw it."

"Then your boss knows you have terrible credit," I replied, grabbing the blue folder from my bag.

"Delete the digital transfer records, Avery. Withdraw the claim. Chloe's father is threatening to pull his endorsement if I have a financial scandal before the election."

I stood up, closing the distance between us. I pulled the laminated demand letter from the folder and slammed it flat against the glass door, right in his face.

"Read the bottom line, Nolan," I told him, tapping the bold print. "You have five business days to wire the money, or I file a civil suit. I am not your human ATM anymore."

"You are being vindictive over a breakup!"

"I am collecting my property." I shoved his chest, forcing him backward into the hallway. "Get out of my clinic before I call security."

I slammed the door shut and locked the deadbolt.

Nolan glared at me through the glass, his fists clenched tight at his sides, before finally turning and marching down the corridor.

"Good riddance," Mara said, dropping the blood vial into the rapid-analyzer machine.

I slumped back onto the exam table, rubbing my temples. "He is going to stall until the deadline."

"Let him. You have the paper trail." Mara tapped the screen on the analyzer. The machine whirred, processing the sample. "Now, let us figure out why you are ready to hurl at the smell of basic sanitation."

"Stress," I suggested. "I moved into a new apartment, I am fighting a legal battle, and I work double shifts."

The printer spat out a small white slip.

Mara pulled the paper free. She did not say a word. She just stared at the ink.

"Is it an ulcer?" I asked, sitting up straighter.

"Avery," she started, her tone too gentle. "Your hCG levels are off the charts."

The room went silent.

"That is impossible," I whispered.

"The hormone count puts you at exactly six weeks."

Six weeks. The Black Moon Charity Ball. The shattered obsidian cufflink sitting in my jewelry box at home.

"No," I said, shaking my head. "It was one night."

Mara tossed the slip into the trash and rolled a portable ultrasound machine toward the table. "Lie back. Lift your scrubs. We need to verify this now."

My hands trembled as I pulled the hem of my shirt up. The cold gel hit my lower abdomen, sending a jolt through me.

Mara pressed the ultrasound transducer against my skin. The black-and-white monitor flickered to life, showing a grainy sea of static.

She adjusted the dial, freezing the image. "There," she pointed to a tiny dark circle on the screen. "A gestational sac."

I stared at the monitor, my chest tight. A baby. Lucian Vale's baby.

Mara reached for the audio button. "Let us check for a pulse."

A rhythmic, steady thumping filled the small room. It was fast, but normal for an early human pregnancy.

I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to process the reality of the sound.

Then, Mara shifted the wand half an inch to the left.

A second sound cut through the speaker, a rapid, aggressive drumming that beat twice as fast as the first, echoing off the clinic walls like a frantic war drum.