Pregnant For The Alpha

Chapter 5

Sienna

I barely sleep.

I lie in bed staring at the ceiling thinking about three things on repeat like a broken record. The positive feeling sitting quietly in my body that has been there since the procedure. Nadia's voice going careful and strange on the phone last night. And Alaric Voss, billionaire, most powerful man in Silver Ridge, founding benefactor of the Silverbrook Children's Home.

The orphanage where I grew up.

It is not a coincidence. I do not believe in coincidences anymore. Not after Derek. Not after everything.

I get up before sunrise, shower, get dressed and sit at my kitchen table watching the clock until it is time to leave. My appointment is at nine. By nine fifteen I will know if I am pregnant.

I have never wanted anything so badly in my entire life.

The clinic is quiet when I arrive. The woman at the front desk smiles and tells me Nadia is expecting me and points me down the familiar corridor. I knock on Nadia's office door and push it open and the first thing I notice is that she is not smiling.

Nadia always smiles when she sees me. Always. It is the most reliable thing in my world.

She is standing behind her desk with both hands pressed flat on the surface and her eyes are red at the edges and she looks like someone who has not slept in days.

"Sit down," she says.

I sit. "Nadia what's wrong."

"Just sit for a second." She comes around the desk and sits in the chair beside me instead of behind it. She takes both my hands in hers and holds them tight. "How are you feeling. Honestly."

"Nervous." I search her face. "You are scaring me."

"I know. I'm sorry." She squeezes my hands. "Let's do the test first okay. Let's find out and then we will talk."

She hands me the testing cup. I go to the bathroom and come back and sit there watching her run the results with my heart sitting somewhere in my throat. The machine beeps. She looks at the screen.

Something moves across her face. Something complicated and heavy and full of an emotion I cannot name.

"Nadia." My voice comes out barely above a whisper. "Tell me."

She turns to look at me and her eyes are shining. "You're pregnant Sienna."

The whole room tilts.

"Really." It comes out as barely a breath.

"Really." She nods. "You're going to have a baby."

I press both hands over my mouth and the tears come so fast I cannot stop them. Two years. Two years of trying and breaking and getting back up and trying again and it worked. It actually worked. I am going to be a mother. I am going to have someone who is completely and entirely mine.

"Oh my god." I am laughing and crying at the same time. "Nadia. Oh my god."

"I know." Her voice is thick. She pulls me into a hug and holds me and I feel her shaking slightly against me. "I know."

We stay like that for a long moment.

Then she pulls back. She holds my face in her hands and looks at me and the joy in her eyes is still there but underneath it something else is sitting. Something dark and heavy and terrified.

"Sienna." Her voice has changed. "I need to tell you something and I need you to hear all of it before you say anything. Can you do that."

My smile fades. "What did you do."

"Promise me you will hear all of it."

"Nadia you are terrifying me right now."

"Promise me."

"Okay." My heart is hammering. "Okay I promise."

She lets go of my face and stands up and walks to the window and stands with her back to me for a moment like she needs one more second. Then she turns around.

"The storage unit was reorganized the morning of your procedure," she says. "A new staff member did it without telling anyone. The labels were in a different order and I was distracted because of the missing sample situation and I was trying to move quickly because I didn't want you to wait and I." She stops. Starts again. "I grabbed the wrong vial Sienna."

I stare at her. "What do you mean the wrong vial."

"The sample I used for your procedure." She presses her lips together. "It did not belong to the donor you selected."

The room goes very quiet.

"Then whose was it." My voice does not sound like mine.

Nadia looks at me with the eyes of someone about to light a fire they cannot put out.

"Alaric Voss," she whispers.

Everything stops.

The air. The sound. My heartbeat. Everything just stops completely.

"No." The word comes out automatically. "No Nadia that is not possible."

"I am so sorry." Her voice breaks. "I checked the label the moment I returned it to storage and I saw his name and I have been carrying this for ten days and I did not know how to tell you and I am so sorry Sienna I'm sorry"

"The baby I am carrying." I press my hand flat against my stomach. "This baby."

"Is his. Yes."

I open my mouth. Nothing comes out.

Alaric Voss. The man I walked into on the street three days ago with those burning amber eyes that looked at me like he already knew me. The man who founded the orphanage where I spent my entire childhood. The most powerful man in Silver Ridge.

That man is the father of my child.

"Sienna say something," Nadia begs. "Please."

"I don't." I shake my head. "I can't. I don't know what to." I press both hands over my face. "Nadia what do we do."

"We figure it out. Together. Like we always do"

The door opens.

Not a knock. Not a slow careful push. It opens the way doors open when the person on the other side is used to walking into any room they want without asking permission.

And he fills the frame completely.

The man from the street. Coat. Broad shoulders. Amber eyes that sweep the room and find me on that chair in less than one second and lock on like I am the only thing in the room worth looking at.

My hand is still pressed against my stomach.

His eyes drop to it.

And something happens to his face that I do not have words for. Something enormous and ancient and completely uncontrolled moves through his expression like a wave and his amber eyes shift, just for a moment, to a blazing burning gold that cannot be natural. That cannot be human.

The air in the room changes. I feel it on my skin.

He looks at me and his voice comes out low and absolute and certain in a way that makes my blood run cold and my pulse spike all at the same time.

"That is my pup."

And then his eyes find mine and he says four more words that land like the ground dropping out from under my feet completely.

"And you are mine.”