my fated alpha mate

Chapter 6: Racing Against Time

Mia's POV

The afternoon air had gone thick and heavy by the time my father stepped onto the balcony and found my stepmom and Lyra already waiting there, their voices carrying through the open doors before he'd even crossed the threshold. I stood frozen a few feet away, my arms wrapped tight around myself, my back pressed against the cold glass panel as though it might somehow shield me from what was coming.

"What's all the shouting about?" he asked, his brows drawing together as his gaze moved between the two of them.

"Dad, Mia is being disobedient," Lyra said, arms folded, that smug little curve on her lips — the one she always wore right before she made my life harder.

My stepmom stepped forward, her expression cold and entirely without mercy. "I fed her, clothed her, and took her into our family and accepted her as your daughter when her own mother abounded her," she said, her voice climbing with every word, as though reciting a grievance she'd been rehearsing for years. "And the ungrateful brat still wants to run away!"

"That's not even the worst part," Lyra cut in, and I watched something almost gleeful cross her face. "She dodged her marriage to Alpha Harold. And she's pregnant — with some bastard's child, no less."

The color drained from my father's face so completely that, for one dizzying second, I thought he might actually collapse right there on the balcony. His eyes went wide, and when his voice finally broke free, it cracked through the air like thunder.

"*What?*"

"That child cannot be born." His words came faster now, sharper. "Do you understand me? If the Blackwood family ever finds out, they'll think my daughter is nothing but a shameless woman. We are not bringing this kind of disgrace upon the Hawthorne name. Get her to the hospital. Now. We're ending this pregnancy today."

He threw the balcony door open so hard it nearly tore from its hinges and crossed the room toward me in a few furious strides, his eyes blazing with a fury I had never once seen directed at anything but me. He barked at Selena and Lyra to grab me, and before I could even understand what was happening, their hands were already clamped around my arms, dragging me back into the house.

"No! What are you doing? Let go of me!" I screamed, twisting against their grip with everything I had left, my heart slamming so hard against my ribs I thought it might give out entirely.

"Somebody, please! Help! Help me!"

But no one came.

No one in that house would ever dare interfere with the head of the Hawthorne family — not the servants, not anyone. I had learned that lesson a long time ago, and I was learning it again now, in the worst possible way.

My father seized my shoulder and shoved me down onto the marble floor with a force that sent pain shooting through my elbow and hip. I gasped, the breath knocked clean out of me.

"Shut your mouth," he snarled, standing over me the way you'd stand over something you'd already decided didn't matter.

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Ethan's POV

I had barely settled into my chair when the office door slammed open and Xavier came rushing toward me, breathing hard, his composure — usually flawless — completely unraveled.

"Sir," he managed. "I’ve found more information about Mia. She's Gregory Hawthorne's daughter, and she's at the Hawthorne residence right now."

Something inside me snapped into focus with a violence I hadn't expected.

I was on my feet before I'd finished processing the sentence, my chair skidding backward hard enough to crack against the wall. My palm came down on the desk, and papers scattered across the floor in every direction. None of it mattered — not the reports, not the meetings I was supposed to be in, not anything that had occupied my attention five seconds earlier.

I crossed the room in three strides, grabbed my coat off the couch, and was already shrugging it on as I moved.

"Lead the way."

Within minutes we were tearing through the streets toward the Hawthorne residence, the city blurring past the windows while my wolf paced restlessly under my skin, agitated in a way I hadn't felt in years.

The instant I stepped out of the car, I caught it.

Her scent.

It hung in the air like an invisible thread pulling taut, leading straight to her — unmistakable, undeniable, the same scent that had haunted me since the night of the banquet.

"She's here," I murmured, more to myself than to Xavier.

"She's here."

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Mia's POV

Dad refused to loosen his grip on me for even a second. He hauled me toward the front door, fully intent on delivering me to the hospital himself, his fingers digging into my arm hard enough to leave marks I knew would still be there tomorrow.

I understood, with a clarity that cut through the panic, that if I didn't act now, I would lose everything.

My baby.

My freedom.

My future.

Summoning whatever strength I had left in me, I shoved him with every ounce of force I could gather. He stumbled backward, caught off guard, and in that single unguarded moment, I twisted my wrists free of his loosened grip and ran.

"Grab her!" he roared behind me. "Don't let her escape!"

I was so close. I could already see the front door, my freedom was only a few desperate steps away.

But before I could reach it, my stepmom and Lyra caught me from the side, their hands closing around my arms and hauling me toward the back door instead. Outside, a car sat waiting, engine already running, as though this had all been planned before I'd even finished screaming. They shoved me into the back seat before I could get another sound out, and within seconds we were speeding toward the hospital, the house shrinking behind us in the rearview mirror.

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Ethan's POV

By the time I forced the front door open, she was already gone.

The house had gone eerily silent, the kind of silence that follows violence rather than precedes it. My eyes fell immediately on the shards of broken glass scattered across the parlor floor, catching the light in jagged little points.

Something had happened here. Something bad.

"Where is she?" I demanded, my voice low and dangerous even to my own ears.

Xavier hurried back after questioning one of the servants, his face gone pale in a way that told me the answer before he said a word.

"One of the servants said Gregory Hawthorne took Miss Mia to the hospital." He hesitated, and I watched him brace himself before continuing.

"They're going to the hospital to force her end the pregnancy."

A dangerous silence settled over the room. My jaw tightened until it ached, and beneath my skin my wolf let out a furious, guttural growl, straining against every instinct I had to keep him leashed.

"Let's go after her."

"Now."

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Mia's POV

My dad threw me onto the hospital room as though I weighed nothing at all, then turned toward the nurses hovering nervously nearby, their eyes darting between him and me like they already knew better than to intervene.

"Do it," he ordered, his voice flat and cold.

I wrapped both arms around my stomach, tears streaming freely down my face now, no longer something I had the strength to hold back.

"I'm sorry, my baby," I whispered, the words barely audible even to myself.

"You came at the wrong time. I'm sorry...

I'm not strong enough to protect you."

My dad looked down at me with nothing but disgust. "Your own mother abandoned you the day you were born, and I was the one who raised you. I gave you food, shelter, a roof over your head.

And this is how you repay me? All these years... wasted on you."

Lyra folded her arms, that same smirk curling across her lips. "You don't even know whose low-class child you're carrying. It will be born into a cheap life anyway."

My stepmom looked at me with open contempt. "How humiliating."

I lifted my head slowly and, for the first time in longer than I could remember, looked each of them directly in the eye without flinching.

"This baby..." My voice came out quiet, but it didn't shake. "...is Alpha Ethan Blackwood's."