The Ruthless Alpha’s Surrogate

CHAPTER TWO: THE LIFELINE

The community center smelled like floor wax and damp coats.

Sasha found me in the parking lot before I even reached the doors. She was wearing a yellow raincoat and an expression that meant she had already decided to argue with me about something.

"You look terrible," she said.

"Thank you."

"What happened with Crane Acquisitions? You sent me that photo and then went silent for three hours."

"Let's go inside." I pushed through the double doors.

The hall was packed. Rows of folding chairs held almost sixty women, ranging from girls who looked barely old enough to be unmarked to women in their late twenties who had simply never found a mate. I spotted Brianna Castillian near the front, sitting with perfect posture in a cream-colored coat. She was the Beta's daughter. She had never worked a day in her life and she wore that fact like a garment.

Sasha grabbed my elbow and steered us to two seats on the side aisle. "Tell me what happened."

I told her. I kept my voice low and I told her everything. The movers. The debt notice. Reginald in the armchair. What he had offered and what he meant by it.

Sasha's face went through four distinct expressions. By the end she was not speaking, which for Sasha meant something had shattered her past the point of immediate reaction.

"He stood in your living room," she said finally, very quietly.

"Yes."

"In front of your mother."

"She couldn't hear the details. She was too shaken."

"Mara." She grabbed both my hands. "You need to go to the Alpha's office. You need to report him."

"For what? Making a suggestion? He'll say I misunderstood. He has documents. He has legal standing. I have nothing." I squeezed her hands and let go. "I need money, Sasha. Real money. Enough to buy that debt and cover the house in my mother's name and get us out from under Reginald for good."

She looked at me the way people look at you when they already know what you are about to say and desperately want to stop you from saying it.

Luna Isabelle, who served as the Alpha's diplomatic liaison in MoonStone, stepped onto the low platform at the front of the room. She was a tall woman with silver streaks in her hair and a manner that suggested she had delivered difficult news many times and found efficient ways to do it.

"Thank you all for attending," she said. "I'll be brief. Alpha Damien Ashford of Silver Ridge has entered into a formal alliance proposal with MoonStone Pack. As part of this proposal, he has offered a private contract to one unmarked female volunteer."

The room shifted. Whispers started before she had finished the sentence.

"Alpha Damien's mate is unable to carry a pregnancy due to a serious illness. He requires an heir to secure the pack's succession and prevent a contested leadership vote. He is seeking a surrogate."

Louder whispers. A girl two rows ahead let out a nervous laugh that she cut off quickly.

"The terms are as follows." Luna Isabelle held up a printed sheet. "One year in Silver Ridge territory, under the protection and full legal authority of the Alpha. Conception will occur through natural means. Upon successful birth, all parental rights transfer to Alpha Damien. The surrogate returns home. In exchange, the volunteer receives five hundred thousand tokens, paid in staged installments, with the first installment released upon confirmation of pregnancy."

The room broke wide open. Five hundred thousand tokens was enough to retire on. It was enough to buy property, fund a business, put a family through a decade of schooling. It was the kind of number that made women do the math very fast and very quietly.

Sasha leaned into my ear. "This is insane. They want someone to hand over a baby they grew for nine months. To a man they don't know. In a territory they've never been to."

"I know."

"The Lycans in Silver Ridge are not like MoonStone wolves, Mara. They're colder. Harder. There are stories."

"I know."

"So you're not actually considering this."

I was quiet for a beat too long.

"Mara."

"My uncle is coming tomorrow morning," I said. "If I don't give him an answer he likes, he files the liquidation paperwork and my mother is on the street before noon. He has been deliberately draining the estate for two years so that he could arrive at exactly this moment and offer to save us in exchange for me." I stared at the platform. "This contract is the only thing that makes his leverage disappear."

"You would still be going to live with a strange Alpha for a year. You would still have to sleep with him. You would still have to give up your child."

"Yes."

"How is that better?"

I turned to look at her. "Because when it ends, I walk away with money and my dignity. With Reginald I walk away with nothing. He would own me forever. Every time he wanted, for whatever reason, with no end date and no payment and no legal protection. He would have me and he would know it." I looked back at the platform. "The Alpha's contract has a finish line."

Sasha was quiet. I could hear her breathing.

Luna Isabelle was still talking. She was outlining the medical requirements, the timeline, the housing arrangement. The room had shifted from shock to calculation. I watched Brianna lean toward the woman beside her and whisper something with a smile.

"Medical screening begins tomorrow morning," Luna Isabelle announced. "Alpha Damien arrives in three days. He will conduct interviews personally. Volunteers, please approach the table at the back to register your name."

Sasha's hand closed around my arm. "Please think about this."

"I have thought about it." I stood up. "I've been thinking about nothing else since I walked into my living room and found those men moving our furniture."

"Mara, sit down. You don't have to do this right now. We can find another—"

"There is no other." I stepped past her into the aisle.

Sasha grabbed my sleeve. "What if he's awful? What if he treats you like garbage and you're stuck there for a year with no way out?"

I stopped. I looked back at her.

"Then I'll survive it," I said. "I'm already surviving Reginald. At least Damien Ashford has a contract."

I walked to the back table before my hands could start shaking. The volunteer list had six names. I wrote mine at the bottom.

Mara Voss. Age 21. Unmarked.

I clicked the pen closed and handed it back to the woman at the table. She looked at my name, then at me, with a neutral expression that I chose not to read anything into.

I walked back toward the exit. Sasha was standing in the aisle with her yellow coat and wet eyes and she looked like someone trying to think of the right words and failing.

I hugged her before she could say anything.

"Help me figure out what to wear to a medical screening," I said into her shoulder.

She let out a sound that was half laugh, half cry. Her arms tightened around me.

"You're impossible," she whispered.

"I know."

Outside, the night air hit my face. I sat in my car and called my mother. She answered on the second ring, her voice small and careful in the way it got when she was trying not to show me she had been crying.

"Are you home?" I asked.

"Yes. Theo is here. He made soup."

"I'll be home soon. Don't open the door for anyone tonight."

A pause. "Mara. What are you not telling me?"

"Nothing you need to worry about tonight," I said. "I love you. Lock the door."

I hung up. I sat in the dark for another minute, my hands on the wheel and my engine off. Then I drove home through the quiet streets of MoonStone and went to bed without turning on the light, because I did not need to see the room to know exactly where everything was.