The Plus-Size Luna Bound to Six Alphas Everyone Fears

The surgeon wouldn't look me in the eye. That was how I knew my mother's surgery was about to disappear. Dr. Bennett stood at the foot of her hospital bed with a folder pressed against his chest, while the machines around her continued their steady beeping as if nothing had changed. My mother looked smaller beneath the white sheets than she had that morning, her face pale, her lips dry, one hand resting weakly against her stomach. I had spent the entire day telling myself that once the surgery was over, we could finally breathe again. Now the doctor wouldn't even look at me. "What happened?" I asked. "You said the surgery was confirmed." "It was." "Then what changed?" He glanced at the folder. "The funding was withdrawn." For a second, I thought I had misunderstood him. "Withdrawn?" "The trust covering the procedure pulled its authorization this morning. We've contacted them, but..." He exhaled slowly. "The hospital cannot proceed without payment." I stared at him, waiting for him to explain that there had been a mistake, that the money was delayed, or that someone would fix this before it became another problem I couldn't solve. Instead, he gave me the amount. Four hundred and eighty thousand dollars. The figure didn't sound real. It sounded like something from a movie, some ridiculous sum people discussed while standing in expensive houses and drinking champagne, not something a woman like me was expected to find before dinner. "I can pay something now," I said quickly. "I have savings. Not much, but I can make a deposit. I can borrow the rest." Dr. Bennett's expression softened. "Ms. Vale..." "I'll find it." "Your mother's condition is serious." "I know." "The surgery needs to happen as soon as possible." "I know." My voice cracked, and I hated that he could hear it. "Then give me time." He held my gaze for a moment before answering. "I wish I could." He left a few minutes later, and I remained beside my mother's bed, pretending I wasn't terrified. She opened her eyes and turned her head toward me. "Seraphina?" "I'm here." Her fingers moved weakly against the blanket until they found mine. "You look worried." I almost laughed. My mother had spent her entire life noticing the things I wanted her to miss, even when she was too sick to sit up without help. "I'm fine." "Don't lie to me." "I'm not lying." Her eyes narrowed, and I squeezed her hand before she could question me again. "I'm going to fix it." She studied my face for a long moment, then whispered, "How?" I had no answer. I couldn't tell her that the hospital had withdrawn the funding, that the surgery we had been counting on was suddenly out of reach, or that I had no idea where to find nearly half a million dollars. I left the room before she could see the tears gathering in my eyes. For the next three hours, I called everyone I knew. Friends, former coworkers, people I hadn't spoken to in years, a bank manager who had once told me I had excellent credit, and two relatives who suddenly had perfectly reasonable explanations for why they couldn't help. I asked for loans, begged for time, and promised to repay money I hadn't even managed to borrow. Nobody had four hundred and eighty thousand dollars. Nobody even came close. By six that evening, my phone battery was nearly dead, and my hope was worse. I sat alone in the hospital corridor, staring at my screen and trying to think of someone else I could call, when a man in a charcoal suit stopped in front of me. "Ms. Vale?" I looked up. He appeared to be in his forties, neatly dressed, with silver at his temples and the calm expression of someone who had never needed to beg anyone for anything. "Yes?" "My name is Adrian Mercer." I waited, but he offered no explanation, so I asked, "Should I know who you are?" "I represent House Vesper." The name meant nothing to me. "Should I know what that is?" His mouth curved faintly. "Probably not." He sat beside me without asking, settling into the uncomfortable hospital chair as though it were perfectly suited to him. I immediately disliked how comfortable he looked in a place where I was struggling not to fall apart. "My understanding is that your mother requires surgery." My shoulders stiffened. "How do you know that?" "House Vesper has certain interests in this hospital." "That's not an answer." "No," he agreed, his gaze settling on me. "It isn't." I stood, already regretting that I had allowed the conversation to continue. "If you're selling something, I'm not interested." "I'm not selling anything." "Then what do you want?" He opened the leather folder resting on his knee. "To offer you a solution." I almost walked away. I was exhausted, frightened, and in no mood to entertain a stranger who spoke in riddles, but then he said the number. "Four hundred and eighty thousand dollars." My feet stopped moving. Adrian looked up at me, his expression as composed as before. "House Vesper will cover your mother's surgery in full." I slowly turned back toward him, unable to decide whether I had finally lost my mind or whether this was the first piece of good news I had received all day. "What do you want?" "A marriage." I stared at him, waiting for a smile or some indication that he was joking. He didn't smile. "Excuse me?" "You will marry Cassian Vesper." I actually laughed, not because it was funny, but because I was too exhausted to react normally. "You came to a hospital and offered to pay for my mother's surgery if I marry a stranger?" "Yes." "Are you insane?" "No." "Then your employer is." "Possibly." I rubbed my forehead, trying to make sense of what he was saying. "Who is Cassian Vesper?" "The eldest of six Vesper brothers." "And why does he need a wife badly enough for your family to pay nearly half a million dollars?" Adrian's expression changed, only slightly, but I noticed. "He doesn't." That answer bothered me more than it should have. If Cassian didn't need a wife, why was I being offered money to marry him? Why had Adrian approached me specifically, and why did he speak as though my mother's surgery and this strange proposal had been waiting for the right moment to collide? "Then why me?" He pushed the folder toward me. "Read the contract." I didn't want to. I read it anyway. The first page looked ordinary enough, filled with legal language, names, conditions, and spaces for signatures. Then I saw mine. SERAPHINA VALE. My stomach tightened. "How did you get my information?" Adrian didn't answer, and that silence made me increasingly uneasy. I flipped the page, then another, searching for something that might explain why a powerful family had prepared a marriage contract involving me. Something felt wrong, but it wasn't the marriage itself. It was the date. I stopped breathing. The contract had been prepared twenty-five years ago. My fingers went cold. "That's impossible." Adrian remained silent. "This says the agreement was prepared twenty-five years ago." My voice cracked as I looked up at him. "I was four." "I know." I stared at him sharply. "You know?" He didn't answer. I turned another page, my hands beginning to shake as I examined the details about the bride, including her age at the time of the agreement, family information, and physical identification. Near the bottom of the page, a legal notation caught my eye. I read it once, then again, hoping the words would rearrange themselves into something that made sense. They didn't. Status: DECEASED. The corridor seemed to tilt around me. I looked at the name above the notation, then traced it with my fingertip as though touching the paper might somehow prove I was reading it incorrectly. Seraphina Vale. My name. My hands shook harder. "Why does this say I'm dead?" For the first time since he had approached me, Adrian looked uncomfortable. "I think you should ask House Vesper." "Ask them what?" "Why they believed you died twenty-five years ago." I pushed the contract away. "No." "Your mother's surgery..." "No." I stood so quickly that the chair scraped against the floor. "You don't get to walk into my mother's hospital, tell me she's dying, offer me money, and then hand me a marriage contract written when I was four years old." "I understand." "No, you don't." Adrian remained seated, watching me with an expression I couldn't read. "Ms. Vale, there is something you don't understand either." I stared at him. "What?" "The contract was never meant to be offered to you today." A chill crept over my skin. "Then why are you here?" He looked directly at me, and for the first time, his composure seemed less like indifference and more like someone carefully choosing how much truth he could afford to reveal. "Because someone recently discovered that you are still alive." I couldn't speak. A nurse hurried past us, and somewhere down the corridor, a phone rang. The hospital continued around me with its ordinary sounds and ordinary people, but nothing felt normal anymore. I looked back at the contract, at my name, and at the word DECEASED, trying to understand how a document written twenty-five years ago could describe me as a dead woman when I was standing there, alive and terrified, fighting to save my mother's life. Then the doors at the end of the corridor opened. A man walked through them, tall and broad-shouldered, dressed in black. He moved with the quiet confidence of someone who never needed to ask people to make room for him because they instinctively stepped aside. His dark hair was slightly disordered, his jaw hard, and his expression unreadable as he surveyed the corridor. Then his eyes found me. He stopped. Something changed in his face, not surprise but recognition. His gaze moved slowly over me, as though he were comparing the woman standing in front of him with a memory he had carried for years, searching for proof that what he was seeing could possibly be real. I couldn't move. Adrian rose from his chair. "Cassian." The man didn't look at him. His eyes remained fixed on mine as he walked toward me, taking one step and then another, each movement making it harder to breathe. When he finally stopped in front of me, he looked at me like he had just seen a ghost, like he had spent twenty-five years believing I was dead and had never once imagined he would stand close enough to see me breathe.