The Alpha's Fake Girlfriend

What the Surgeon Found

The surgeon met Seraphina just outside the operating wing, mask still hanging loose around his neck, eyes tired in a way that could have meant anything. Seraphina's heart slammed so hard she could feel it in her throat, every worst-case outcome she'd ever diagnosed in another family's child suddenly crowding into her own mind at once.

"Is he—"

"He's stable." The surgeon held up a hand before she could spiral further. "The surgery went well. Better than we expected, actually. Whatever caused the sudden drop in function tonight, it wasn't structural. It resolved on its own almost as fast as it appeared."

Seraphina blinked, relief and confusion crashing into each other so hard she had to brace a hand against the wall. "Resolved on its own. That doesn't happen. Cardiac deterioration like that doesn't just reverse, not in a six-year-old, not without intervention."

"No," the surgeon agreed, "it doesn't. Which is why I pulled you out here instead of sending a nurse. I want to run some additional bloodwork on him once he's out of recovery. There were markers in his panel I haven't seen before. Nothing dangerous, as far as we can tell. But nothing textbook, either."

Alaric went very still beside her, and Seraphina felt the shift in him before she understood why.

"What kind of markers?" she asked slowly.

"Trace elements consistent with certain hereditary conditions we don't typically test for in general pediatric care." The surgeon glanced between them, clearly unaware of the weight his words were about to carry. "Given your own recent panel showed something unusual as well, Miss Lark, I'd like to run a comparative screen. See if there's a shared genetic marker between you and your brother."

The floor tilted under Seraphina's feet for the second time that night.

"You know about my panel," she said carefully.

"Doctor Voss's healer forwarded a request for parallel testing an hour ago," the surgeon said. "I assumed you'd authorized it."

Seraphina turned to Alaric, something cold uncoiling in her chest, replacing the relief of a moment ago with something sharper. "You had them test Elian. Without asking me."

"I asked Yara to run a comparative screen the moment I heard about the emergency call." Alaric's voice was low, careful, like a man aware he'd crossed a line even as he explained why he'd crossed it. "If whatever's in your blood is hereditary, Seraphina, it could explain what happened to him tonight. I wasn't trying to go around you. I was trying to get ahead of whatever this is before it hurt him worse."

"You should have told me first. He's a child, Alaric. My child, in every way that matters. I make decisions about his care. Not you. Not your healer. Not some pack protocol you decided applied to him the second you learned his heart was failing."

He didn't flinch from the anger in her voice, didn't try to soften it with excuses, though something in his expression looked like he wanted to. "You're right. I should have. I'm telling you now, and I'll ask before I touch anything involving him again. You have my word on that, for whatever it's worth to you tonight."

"It's worth something," she admitted, quieter, the fight draining out of her almost as fast as it had risen. "Just not enough yet."

The surgeon cleared his throat, clearly regretting having said anything at all, shifting his weight like he wanted very much to be back inside the operating wing instead of standing between whatever this was. "I'll have preliminary results within the hour. I just need your consent to proceed with the full panel on your brother."

Seraphina's jaw tightened, torn between fury at Alaric and the terrifying possibility that whatever answers waited in that lab might save her brother's life a second time tonight. "Run it," she said finally. "But I want every result. Not a summary. Not Alaric's healer's interpretation. Mine."

"Understood." The surgeon nodded and disappeared back through the doors, leaving the two of them alone in the corridor with the wreckage of the last hour settling around them.

"You don't get to make decisions about my family without asking me first," Seraphina said, quieter now, but no less sharp. "Contract or not. Fake mate or not. He's my brother, Alaric. Not a variable in whatever mystery you're trying to solve."

"I know that." Alaric's voice cracked, just slightly, the first real c***k she'd heard from him since the clinic. "I'm not treating him like a variable, Seraphina. I panicked the second I heard the word emergency, and the only thing I could think to do was throw every resource I had at keeping him alive. That's not a mystery to me. That's you, terrified, and me not knowing any other way to help."

Something in his voice took the edge off her anger, just enough that she could breathe again. "Don't do it again. Not without telling me."

"I won't."

They stood in silence for a moment, the hospital humming quietly around them, before Seraphina's phone buzzed once more. She almost didn't look, bracing herself for another blocked number, another cryptic warning about Elyse. Instead, it was a name she recognized — her landlord, of all people, a message about a break-in at her apartment reported by a neighbor twenty minutes ago.

"What now," she whispered, reading it twice like it might change.

Alaric leaned over to read the screen, and his expression darkened instantly. "A break-in. Tonight. The same night as the anonymous message, the same night Cassian was already in this building." His jaw set hard. "That's not a coincidence either."

"You think someone's searching my apartment."

"I think someone's looking for whatever proof exists that you're not who everyone assumes you are." Alaric was already moving, phone against his ear, barking orders to send guards to her building immediately. "And if they find it before we do, Seraphina, we lose whatever advantage we still have left."

Seraphina followed him down the corridor, adrenaline replacing the exhaustion that had been building in her bones for hours. "Then we need to get there first."

"We will. But Elian—"

"Is stable. You said so yourself." She caught his arm, stopping him mid-stride, the two of them close enough now that rule one felt like a joke neither of them had the energy to enforce. "I can't do anything more for him tonight except wait for results. But I can stop whoever's tearing through my apartment from finding whatever they're looking for."

Alaric studied her for a long moment, something unreadable passing behind his eyes. "You're not going alone."

"I wasn't planning to."

He nodded once, sharp and decisive, already turning toward the exit with her at his side.

The drive to her apartment felt endless, city lights blurring past the window while Seraphina's mind ran through everything she owned — old photographs, her parents' belongings boxed since the funeral, the single manila envelope in her closet marked with her adoption paperwork, paperwork she'd never once had reason to open past the first page. If someone was searching for proof of what she was, that envelope was the most obvious place to start looking.

Two of Alaric's guards were already stationed outside her building when they arrived, one of them jogging over the second the car door opened. "Whoever broke in is gone, Alpha. Neighbor heard the door forced and called it in, but by the time we got here the place was already empty."

"Empty how?" Seraphina was out of the car before it fully stopped, taking the stairs two at a time with Alaric close behind her.

Her apartment door hung open on its frame, the lock splintered clean through. Inside, drawers had been pulled out and left hanging, couch cushions slashed open, every book on her shelf swept onto the floor in a single furious motion. Whoever had been here hadn't been careful. They'd been looking for something specific, and they hadn't cared how much noise they made finding it.

Seraphina's stomach dropped as she crossed to her bedroom closet, already knowing what she'd find before she got there.

The shelf where she kept the manila envelope sat empty, a thin layer of dust disturbed in the unmistakable shape of something recently taken.

"It's gone," she said, voice hollow, barely audible. "My adoption file. The only thing in this apartment that might have told us anything about where I came from. Someone took it."

Alaric came up behind her, surveying the ransacked closet with a stillness that felt far more dangerous than shouting would have. "Then whoever's behind this already knows exactly what you are, Seraphina. They've known for longer than either of us has."

"And now they've taken the only proof I ever had." She turned to face him, fear and fury tangled together. "Which means we're not looking for answers anymore, Alaric. We're racing someone who already has them, already three steps ahead of us tonight."