The Alpha King’s Forbidden Mate

— Sera —

I think I left my body for a second.

That's the only way I can describe it. One moment I was standing in the doorway of my own apartment, and the next I was somewhere else — hovering somewhere near the ceiling, watching a girl I used to know stand very still while everyone looked through her.

Just the house cleaner.

Just the house cleaner.

The words kept bouncing around inside my skull like they couldn't find anywhere to land.

I couldn't feel my hands. Couldn't feel my feet. I was pretty sure I was still breathing, but I couldn't have told you for certain. I kept waiting for something inside me to react — to scream, to cry, to do something — but there was nothing. Just a strange, floating quiet. Like the part of me that processed pain had finally hit its limit and clocked out.

Just the house cleaner.

Cole's friend said something. I didn't hear it. Talia shifted in Cole's lap and I didn't see it. The whole room kept moving around me and I just stood there, untethered, waiting to come back down.

It took a few seconds. Maybe longer.

And then — slowly, the way feeling comes back to a limb that's fallen asleep — I found myself again.

My feet. My hands. The strap of my bag still over my shoulder. The door still open behind me.

I didn't say a word.

I turned around and walked out.

The door clicked shut behind me and I stood in the hallway, back against the wall, staring at a water stain on the ceiling that I'd never noticed before.

My hands were shaking now. That was new.

I pulled out my phone. Found the contact he'd saved less than twenty minutes ago.

[ can you wait a little longer ]

The reply came in under ten seconds.

[ still here. ]

I closed my eyes.

Breathed.

Okay.

* * *

His car was still at the curb. Engine off, window cracked, like he'd settled in for the long haul without making a big deal of it.

He saw me come out and didn't say anything right away. Just watched me walk down the steps. Took in whatever was on my face.

"How bad?" he asked.

I laughed. It came out all wrong — too short, too hollow.

"He introduced me as the house cleaner."

Zane looked at me for a long moment. Something shifted in his jaw.

"Get in," he said.

I got in.

* * *

I went back up twenty minutes later.

Not for Cole. Not because of anything he'd said or done.

I went back because the apartment was mine. My name on the lease. My books on the shelves. My mom's photo on the nightstand. I was not going to let Cole Reed take that from me without at least getting my own things out first.

I packed fast. Quietly. Clothes, my med kit, the photo.

My hands were steady again. That scared me a little.

Cole appeared in the doorway before I'd zipped up the bag.

"Sera." He leaned against the frame. Tired. Like I was the one being dramatic. "Come on. It was a joke. You know how the guys get."

I kept packing.

"Talia just needed somewhere to crash tonight. It's not what you think."

I folded a sweater. Set it in the bag.

"Will you say something? You're just standing there like —"

"You called me a toy."

My voice came out flat. Quiet. Not angry. Just done.

"In the group chat," I said. "To all your boys. She's nothing but a toy. Easier than a doll."

Something moved across Cole's face. Not guilt. More like the expression of a guy who just realized the mess he left is bigger than he thought.

"That's just how we talk —"

"There were photos, Cole."

Silence.

"Of me," I said. "That your friends were passing around. And you didn't say stop. You didn't say one damn word."

His mouth opened.

Closed.

For the first time in two years, Cole Reed — the golden Alpha, the smooth talker, the guy who always had an answer — had absolutely nothing.

I zipped up the bag and stood.

"Don't call me," I said. "Don't text me. Don't show up."

I walked past him.

He didn't stop me.

Part of me waited for it anyway — a hand on my arm, my name, something.

Nothing.

Just Talia's soft voice from the living room asking Cole if he was okay.

I let the door shut behind me.

* * *

Zane was still on the porch. Sitting on the top step, elbows on his knees. He looked up when I came out and took in the bag on my shoulder without a word.

"Where are you going?" he asked.

"No idea."

He nodded once. Pushed to his feet. "I know a place. Nothing fancy. But nobody'll bother you there."

"Why are you helping me?"

He was quiet a moment. Jaw tight. Like he was deciding how honest to be.

"Because Cole Reed's been pulling this crap for years and nobody ever says anything." He paused. "And because you shouldn't be alone right now."

He knew. About the pregnancy. Thin walls, a nurse talking too loud — whatever it was, he knew. And he was still standing here.

I waited for the pity. The step back.

It didn't come.

"Okay," I said.

* * *

The guest suite was on the edge of Harper Pack campus. Clean. Quiet. Nothing on the walls. It smelled like pine and something older underneath — the kind of stillness that made the noise in my head settle.

Zane set my bag down by the door. Stayed near the exit, like he wanted me to know he wasn't going to crowd me.

"Lock works from the inside. No one gets in without your say-so. I'll have someone bring food in the morning."

"You don't have to do all this."

"I know."

He moved toward the door. Stopped at the frame. Didn't look back.

"For what it's worth," he said, "you deserved better than him."

He left before I could answer.

I sat on the edge of the bed for a long time.

No buzzing phone. No group chat. No Cole.

I put my hand flat against my stomach.

Eight weeks. Barely anything. And yet.

"I don't know what I'm doing," I said out loud. To the room. To myself. To the tiny impossible thing that had decided to exist without asking me. "I really, really don't know what I'm doing."

But for the first time since I'd seen those messages on my screen, I could breathe.

That was enough for now.

* * *

— Caelum —

The report was three pages long and said very little.

I set it on my desk and looked out the window at the Silverclaw campus below. As honorary director, the administration kept me informed of anything that might turn into a political headache.

Tonight's report had my son's name in it. That wasn't unusual.

What was unusual was the other name.

Lane.

I picked the report back up.

Sera Lane. Omega. Second-year healer. No wolf.

No wolf.

I read that line twice.

I'd heard that before. About a woman from the same bloodline, years ago — an Omega born without her wolf, something the pack considered a defect. Something they were wrong about.

She had been the furthest thing from worthless.

And I had been too young and too focused on the right political match to tell her so.

I closed the folder.

Stood at the window for a while.

I told myself I was only doing due diligence. That I checked the file of anyone who ended up on Harper territory without prior arrangement.

I pulled up her academy photo anyway.

She was looking slightly to the left of the camera. Like she hadn't expected the flash. Dark hair. Quiet face. Young. Tired even in the photo.

Top of her class in applied healing. Scholarship student. No disciplinary record.

No emergency contacts listed.

No one.

"Make sure the Lane girl has everything she needs," I told my head of security. "Food. Medical supplies if she needs them. Quietly — don't make a fuss."

"Yes, sir."

I stayed at the window longer than I needed to.

I didn't know her yet.

I didn't know that her laugh — when she finally trusted someone enough to let it out — would sound exactly like her mother's.

And then, without meaning to, I closed my eyes.

Her face and her mother's face — the one that had lived in my dreams for twenty years — slowly overlapped. Same dark hair. Same quiet mouth. Same way of existing in a room like she was apologizing for being there.

I opened my eyes.

I could not let this happen again.