THE ALPHA'S SECRET BABY

CHAPTER TWO:Five Years Later.

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“Dr. Vale, you’re needed in pediatrics. Code blue, room 304.”

I didn’t look up from the discharge form I was forging. Dr. Aria Vale’s signature had to be perfect. Aria Vale didn’t exist five years ago. She was born the night I crossed into Montana with $200, a fake ID, and two heartbeats inside me.

“On my way,” I called, capping the pen. _A. Vale, M.D._ The letters still felt stolen.

Five years. Two medical degrees. Two boys who ask every night why they don’t have a daddy.

I’d gotten good at lying.

“Daddy was a soldier,” I told them. “He died protecting people.”

It wasn’t entirely a lie. Kieran Blackwood _was_ protecting people. His pack. His crown. His reputation.

From _us_.

“Kai! Kade! Shoes. Now!” I yelled up the stairs of our two-bedroom apartment.

Two identical thuds hit the ceiling, then the thunder of small feet. They appeared on the railing, both grinning, both missing their front teeth, both with black hair and ice-blue eyes that made my chest c***k open every morning.

The _same_ ice-blue eyes.

“Mommy, can we shift tonight?” Kai, older by two minutes, bounced on his toes. At five, he was already protective. Already _Alpha_.

“No.” The word was automatic. Instant. “You know the rules. Never shift. Never let your eyes change at school. Never tell anyone your last name.”

“But Mom—” Kade started. He was the gentle one. The one who cried when I cried. The one who would get eaten alive in our world.

“No, Kade.” I softened. “It’s not safe yet.”

_It would never be safe._

Last week, Kai’s eyes flashed silver at the playground when a kid shoved Kade. Last month, Kade growled at a dog and it whimpered and collapsed.

They were five. Wolf pups don’t shift until thirteen. Alpha heirs — _Lycan_ heirs — are different.

We were running out of time.

I got them ready, kissed their foreheads, watched the bus pull away like I did every morning. Every morning I wondered if it was the last normal one.

My phone buzzed. Unknown number. Area code 307.

Wyoming.

_Pack territory._

My blood went cold.

“Dr. Vale,” I answered. My voice didn’t shake. Five years of ER rotations taught me that.

“Aria.”

The world stopped.

I hadn’t heard that voice in five years. But I heard it in my nightmares. In my sons’ laughs. In the growl that came out of Kai when he had a bad dream.

Cold. Royal. _Alpha_.

Kieran.

“How—” I couldn’t breathe. “How did you get this number?”

“You have something that belongs to me,” he said. No hello. No explanation. Just that voice, deeper now, weighted with a crown. “And you’ve kept it from me for five years.”

I gripped the counter. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t lie to me, _omega_.” The word was a slap. Same as it was five years ago. “Two pups. Male. Five years old. Black hair. My eyes. My power signature hit the Lycan Grid three days ago when one of them shifted.”

Kai. The playground. Someone saw.

“I can explain—”

“You can run,” he cut me off. “That’s what you’re good at. But you won’t get far. I’m already in the city.”

The phone slipped from my hand.

He was _here_. In Chicago. In my human world. In the place I’d made safe.

“Why?” I whispered, picking it up. “Why now? You told me to handle it. You said I wasn’t worthy.”

“I said a lot of things when I was twenty-two and stupid.” His voice was closer. Like he was speaking right into my ear. “I’ve spent five years building a kingdom, Aria. Crushing enemies. Becoming the King my father wanted.”

A pause.

“And every Blood Moon, I remember that I rejected my fated mate because I was scared of the Council.”

The floor tilted.

_Fated mate._

No. Alphas didn’t get omegas. The Moon didn’t make mistakes like that.

“You’re lying,” I said.

“I’m outside your apartment, Aria. I can smell them. My sons. My blood. My _heirs_.” His voice dropped to a growl that made my knees buckle even through the phone. “And I can smell your fear. And your lie.”

My front door didn’t open.

It _exploded_ inward.

Wood splintered. The deadbolt shot across the room. And he stood in the wreckage.

Bigger. That was my first thought. Bigger than I remembered. Shoulders wider, chest broader, scar through his left eyebrow that wasn’t there before. Black hair. Ice-blue eyes. And a silver crown.

The Lycan King. In my living room. With my kids’ crayon drawings on the fridge.

He wasn’t wearing a suit. Just black shirt, black cargo pants, like he flew here ready for war. He looked like he _was_ war.

And he was looking at me like he was starving again.

His nostrils flared. He was scenting the air — the apartment, _me_, the lingering traces of Kai and Kade.

“Hi, little omega,” King Kieran Blackwood said. His voice was ruin and thunder. “I’m here to claim what’s mine.”

I grabbed the scalpel from my medical bag on the counter. It wasn’t much, but it was all I had. “You don’t have anything here.”

His eyes dropped to the blade. Then back to me. And he _smiled_. Not kind. Not royal. _Wolf_.

“You holding a weapon on me, Aria?” He stepped inside. The door hung off its hinges. “Five years of med school and you still think steel stops an Alpha?”

“It stops you long enough for me to get my sons and run.”

“You’re not running.” Another step. “Not this time.”

“You rejected me.” My voice cracked. I hated that it cracked. “You told me I wasn’t worthy to bear your pups. You told me to _handle it_.”

“I was wrong.” He said it simple. Like it was easy. Like it hadn’t cost me five years of hell. “And I’ve got 30 days to prove it to the Council before they declare me unfit and execute me. And if I die, our sons die next.”

_Our sons._

He said it like he had a right.

“They’re not yours,” I hissed. “You gave them up under a willow tree.”

He moved fast. Alpha fast. One second he was three feet away. The next his hand was around my wrist, not hard enough to bruise, but hard enough that I couldn’t move. The scalpel clattered to the floor.

He brought my wrist to his nose and inhaled. His eyes closed. A shudder went through his whole body.

“You’re my fated mate,” he whispered against my skin. “You’ve _always_ been my fated mate. And I’ve been in hell for 1,827 days because I was too much of a coward to say it.”

He opened his eyes. Ice-blue, blown black at the edges.

“And now you’re going to tell me where my sons are. Because Roman Volkov saw the Grid alert too. And he wants them dead so he can take my throne.”

From upstairs, a small voice called out: “Mommy? Was that the door?”

Kieran’s head snapped up. His whole body went still.

“Kai,” I breathed.

The King of North America looked at me, and for the first time since the willow tree, I saw _Kieran_. Not the Alpha. Not the King. The 22-year-old boy who held me after.

“My son,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

Then the sound of little feet on the stairs.

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