Pregnant by the Alpha Who Never Knew My Name

"That is a werewolf rhythm," Mara said, her hand freezing on the ultrasound transducer.

"Turn the volume off," I ordered.

She clicked a gray button on the console. The frantic, double-time drumming cut out, leaving only the low hum of the clinic's ventilation fan.

"Avery, a dual heartbeat means wolf DNA," Mara said. She grabbed a rough paper towel and wiped the cold gel off my stomach. "It does not guarantee the child will shift, but it guarantees the father is a wolf."

I pulled the hem of my scrubs down. My fingers trembled against the cotton fabric. "I do not care about genetics. Delete the scan."

Mara turned her stool toward the computer terminal. Her hands flew across the keyboard. A red error box flashed across the screen, casting a severe glow over her face.

"I cannot," she whispered, her voice tight.

"What do you mean you cannot?" I slid off the exam table. My bare feet hit the cold linoleum. "You are the attending physician. Clear the cache."

"The system flagged the dual rhythm automatically." She pointed a shaking finger at the red text. "It triggered the Hybrid Pregnancy Declaration Mandate."

"That law only applies to pack-affiliated clinics."

"They updated the network last month," Mara argued, swiveling the monitor toward me. "The Werewolf Fertility Commission hardwired this protocol into every neutral hospital database in the state. You have twenty-four hours to register the father's identity."

I stared at the countdown timer already ticking in the corner of the screen. 23:59:45.

"And if I refuse?" I asked.

"The Commission assumes legal jurisdiction over the fetus." Mara looked up at me, her eyes wide. "They will send extraction units to take you into custody for mandatory monitoring until the birth."

My pulse hammered against my ribs. The Commission did not monitor humans; they locked them in sterile facilities to ensure the safety of valuable wolf bloodlines. I would become nothing more than a heavily guarded incubator.

"They need a DNA match to prove paternity," I argued, stepping closer to the desk. "They have a heartbeat, not a name."

"They will run a cross-reference on your recent locations," Mara said. "They track human-wolf interactions. You were at the Black Moon Ball six weeks ago."

"There were fifty Alphas at that ball."

"And the Commission will test every one of them if they have to," Mara fired back. "They do not let hybrid pregnancies slip through the cracks."

"Seal the file," I demanded, grabbing my canvas tote bag from the chair. "Put it under a level-four privacy block. I will pack my apartment and leave the city tonight."

Mara clicked her mouse repeatedly, trying to force the privacy lock through the administrative settings. "I am hitting the override code."

The screen flickered. The red warning box vanished.

A green notification banner dropped down from the top right corner.

*File accessed remotely.*

Mara stopped typing. She stared at the monitor, her jaw dropping open.

"Did you just print it?" I asked.

"No." Her voice shook. "Someone just pulled your chart from an external server. The report was exported three seconds ago."

"Who?"

"I do not know." She clicked the banner. "The IP address is heavily masked. It bounced through three different proxy servers before hitting our mainframe."

Someone had my bloodwork. Someone had the ultrasound scan.

"Print a physical copy now," I told her. "Then wipe my local file. I am leaving."

Mara hit the print command. The machine hummed, spitting out a glossy sheet of paper. She handed it to me without a word.

I shoved the scan into my bag and walked out the door.

The hallway felt too narrow. I pushed past two orderlies pushing a laundry cart and ignored a nurse calling my name. I needed my car keys. I needed to get out of this building.

I slammed my hand against the swinging doors of the staff locker room.

The fluorescent lights buzzed loudly overhead. The room was empty, smelling strongly of rubbing alcohol and damp cotton towels.

I marched down the narrow aisle of gray metal doors. Row C.

I stopped walking.

The metal door to locker 42 stood wide open.

"Hey," I called out, glancing back toward the entrance. "Is security in here?"

Silence answered me.

I stepped closer, my hands curling into tight fists. My spare scrub jacket still hung on the plastic hook. My sneakers sat at the bottom.

But sitting centered on the middle metal shelf was a folded piece of glossy paper.

I reached out and grabbed it. It was a duplicate printout of my ultrasound scan.

Resting right on top of the dark, grainy image of the gestational sac was a smooth, black stone.

An obsidian cufflink.

The silver backing was cleanly snapped off.

My lungs seized. I had left this exact cufflink inside a velvet jewelry box on my apartment dresser. Someone had broken into my home, taken the stone, and brought it here.

"The report was not pulled by my team."

The deep, gravelly voice came from the shadows behind the adjacent row of lockers.

I spun around, clutching the paper and the stone tightly to my chest.

Lucian Vale stepped into the overhead light. He wore a tailored black suit, his dark eyes locked onto mine with terrifying focus.

"But now," Lucian said, stepping into the narrow aisle, "someone knows it was me that night."