The Alpha King's Surrogate

Chapter 15: The Problem Was Me

Davian's POV

Kyra broke the eye contact first.

I watched her turn, quick and sharp, disappearing back through her balcony doors before I could even process what had just passed between us across that stretch of moonlit courtyard.. The glass doors closed and balcony was empty.

It was for the best. I thought.

"Let's go inside," she murmured against my lips. "It's cold out here."

She took my hand and tugged me back through the balcony doors into the chamber without breaking the kiss.

The doors slid shut.

Natalia didn’t waste time. She set the untouched wine glass aside, rose up on her toes again, and kissed me harder, open-mouthed, deliberate, the kind of kiss that used to pull me under in seconds. Her hands slid up my chest, fingers already working the buttons of my shirt loose one by one. The nightgown slipped further off one shoulder, baring most of her left breast, soft, full, the dark n****e tight from the cool air and from what she clearly wanted.

“You’ve been so overworked,” she murmured against my mouth. “Barely touched me these past few days. I was starting to think you’d forgotten how this works.”

"I've had a lot on my mind." I said quietly.

"I know." Her hands slid over my chest. "Let me take your mind off it."

She kissed me again, harder this time, and I kissed her back, my hands settled on the curve of her waist under the thin fabric, the soft heaviness of her ass when I squeezed, the familiar weight of her breast when I cupped it fully. Everything was exactly as it had been for years.

It should have felt right, but wolf was completely silent. It did not fight me, didn't growl, it was just quiet, absent, in a way that unsettled me more than the growling ever had, like something had simply left the room and taken part of me with it.

Ignore it. This is Natalia. This is what's supposed to happen.

She finished the buttons, pushing my shirt off my shoulders, her mouth trailing along my jaw, down the side of my throat. She walked me backward until the backs of my knees hit the edge of the bed.

I let her push me down the bed and she climbed over me without hesitation, nightgown riding up around her hips, and settled her weight across my lap. The fabric had shifted enough that both breasts were mostly bare now, full and heavy, moving with every small shift of her body. She leaned down and kissed me again, slower, grinding down against the hard-on my body produced out of pure habit.

Every time I closed my eyes I saw green ones instead.

Kyra’s face on that balcony. The way she had looked at me across the courtyard like the eye contact itself was a mistake she already regretted. The same eyes that had met mine in the medical room when the bond first slammed into me like a physical blow.

Natalia’s hand slid down between us and cupped me through my trousers, stroking with the exact pressure she had perfected over years.

“There you are,” she whispered. “I knew you weren’t too tired for this.”

I tried to focus on her. On the familiar weight of her body, the soft heat between her legs where she rubbed against me through the fabric, the way her full breasts moved when she sat up and pulled the nightgown the rest of the way over her head. She was naked now,smooth skin, dark n*****s, the neat thatch of hair between her thighs already glistening. She reached for my belt, got it open, shoved the trousers down far enough, and wrapped her hand around me. One firm stroke and. Then she shifted her hips to take me inside.

I couldn't take it anymore, for the first time since we'd become mates, it felt wrong. I caught her wrists before she could sink down.

“Natalia.”

She blinked, still poised above me, breathing faster, the head of my c**k brushing wet heat. “What is it?”

“I can’t.” The words came out barely above a whisper.

She stared at me like she hadn’t heard right, then gave a small smile and tried to lean in again, rolling her hips so I slid against her entrance.

“You’re already hard." Stop thinking so much and just...”

I pushed her up and off me in one careful but firm motion. She landed on her knees on the mattress, naked, confused, lips still parted.

"Davian?" Natalia sat back on her heels, hair mussed. "What's wrong?"

I picked my trousers up and yanked it back into place. "I need some air."

"You need-" She stared at me, disbelief creeping into her voice. "Davian, we haven't been together in weeks, and now you're just going to walk out in the middle of..."

"I'm sorry." I was already pulling my shirt back over my shoulders, not bothering with the buttons, needing distance more than I needed to explain myself properly. "I just need to think."

I didn’t wait for whatever she was about to say. I walked out of the chamber. The door shut behind me and I didn’t look back.

The corridors were quieter at this hour. The cool stone under my bare feet was doing nothing to clear my head.

My wolf finally stirred again,not with any interest in the woman I had just left naked on the bed, but with the same low, relentless pull toward the East Wing. Toward the omega who had looked at me across a courtyard and then vanished like she regretted it.

The animal didn’t push hard, it didn’t need to. It simply refused to settle, pacing in slow circles while my mind replayed everything on a loop: the medical room, Alyssa’s quiet voice saying mate bond like it was simple fact, the way Kyra’s scent had rewritten the air that first day, the three seconds of eye contact tonight that had felt longer than they should have.

I ended up in my private office without remembering the last two turns that got me there.

The room was dark except for the single desk lamp. I poured a measure of whiskey from the decanter, set the glass down on the wood, and didn’t touch it. The amber liquid sat there catching the light while I stared at the far wall and tried to make the pieces fit into any shape that didn’t destroy the life I had already built.

After a long minute I reached for the intercom on the desk.

“Send me every document we have on Kyra Sinclair.”

"Your Majesty..." The night steward’s voice came careful, almost hesitant. “every document?”

“Everything." My voice was sharp. "Background file, surrogate contract, medical transfer papers, whatever, all of it.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.” he said quickly.

The line went dead.