Chosen To Be The Alpha's Surrogate

**I Penelope I**

I feel like I've been sucker-punched, the air rushing out of my lungs as Malachi's words sink in like poison darts. He strolls towards the door, each step measured and deliberate, like a predator savoring the terror of his prey.

"I'll let you play mommy for now," he says, his voice dripping with condescension. "Let you dig your roots in the whelp, shape his malleable little mind how you see fit." He pauses at the door, glancing back at me over his shoulder. "But there will come a day, and it will be soon, when he no longer needs you. When he realizes his true potential is with *me*."

I feel the blood drain from my face, fear and fury at war in my chest.

*He can't mean it...he can't truly be so cruel as to let me bond with my baby only to rip him away...*

Malachi leans against the doorframe, examining me with an air of boredom, as if he hasn't just shattered my world for the second time. "Of course, I'm not an unreasonable man. So here's my...condition, as it were."

He pins me with a look, his voice dropping to a low, sinful purr that makes me shiver. "Raise the boy. Love him, teach him, do whatever it is *human* mothers do. But when he comes of age, when he's ready to claim his birthright, *you* will be the one to deliver him to me."

A strangled sound escapes my throat, and I'm shaking my head before I can even form words. "No," I rasp out. "You can't ask me to—"

"Oh, but I can," he cuts me off, baring his teeth in a grin that's as sharp as any blade. "Because if you don't, I'll burn your world down around you. Everyone you've ever loved, every place you've ever called home, I'll rip it away piece by piece until you beg me to take the boy, just to make it stop."

Nausea churns in my gut and I taste bile at the back of my throat. Tears steak my face but he's merciless, hammering the final nail in my coffin.

"One way or another, he *will* be mine," he vows, and the certainty in his voice makes me want to scream. "The only thing up to you is how much you're willing to sacrifice to delay the inevitable."

"You're insane," I whisper, my voice shaking with a mix of fear and fury. "Completely fucking insane if you think for one second that I'll agree to this."

His lips curve in a smile that's as gorgeous as it is terrifying, his eyes glinting in the firelight. "Oh, I don't think, little rabbit. I *know*." He begins his movements towards me once more, coming to crouch down before me. "You saw what I'm capable of. Do you really think you'd be able to outrun me?"

Tears fill my eyes, a crippling fear clawing at my insides.

"So, pick. You can stay here, not have to worry about a thing for the next few months, and hand him over when you deliver him," he says. "*Or* you can bond with him over the next few years and feel the pain tenfold." *Either way, I'll have a life without my son...*

The thought hits me like a punch to the gut and I flinch, wrapping my arms tighter around my middle. My gaze follows him as he rises and moves to his chair, leaning back, all lethal grace and coiled power. His gaze sharpens, his head cocking to the side like he's scented blood.

"Of course, if you hand him over upon delivering him, I'll set you up real nice. And I'm not just talking about a *payday*." His voice is low, hypnotic, each word chosen to slice through my defenses like a blade. "I'm offering you a *way out*. No more double shifts just to keep the lights on. No more skipping meals. I'll set you up in any city you choose, with enough cash to never work another day in your life if that's what you want."

*I won't let him win that easily.*

I lift my chin, meeting his gaze head-on. "You just don't get it, do you?" My words tremble but I push on, desperate to make him understand. "He's not a *bargaining chip*. He's my *child*, a piece of my heart walking around in the world. And you want me to just...hand him over like he's nothing..."

My voice breaks, tears stinging my eyes. All the while, he merely watches me, his face an unreadable mask. For a moment, neither of us speaks, the only sound the crackling of the fire.

Then, slowly, he rises from his chair again, crossing the space between us in two long strides. I shrink back instinctively but he ignores it, his hands planted on the armrests beside me.

"You have no idea what you're dealing with," he says quietly, and for the first time, I hear a thread of something like pity in his voice. "The world I come from, the world that *our son* belongs to...it's not kind to single mothers and babes in the woods."

A cold chill snakes down my spine at his words but I try to shove it down, unwilling to see him just how deeply he's rattling me.

"So, what, this is you being *kind*?" I bite out, incredulous. "Blackmailing me, threatening to steal my child, that's some warped version of chivalry?"

His eyes flash, a low growl rumbling in his chest. "Watch your tone," he warns, leaning closer until I can feel the heat of him, smell the intoxicating spice of his skin. "I'm trying to do right by you here. Give you an out before this spirals beyond either of our control. Take the deal, Penelope. Go live your life and let me handle the rest."

"And if I don't?" I whisper the challenge before I can stop myself. "If I tell you to fuck off and raise this baby on my own?"

For a moment, he goes utterly still, his face hardening into lines of ruthless determination. "Then I'll *make* you."

My heart stutters, fear flooding my veins like ice water. "You...you can't force me to give up my child," I manage.

Slowly, deliberately, he lifts a hand to cup my cheek. I flinch at the contacts but he simply strokes a thumb over my cheekbone, his touch searing my skin like a brand.

"Oh, sweetheart," he murmurs, almost gently. "There are so many ways to break someone. So many pressure points to squeeze until they shatter." His fingers trail down to encircle my throat, pressing just hard enough to make me gasp. "Your job, your home, every pitiful scrap of security you've fought for...I can rip *everything* away from you without breaking a sweat."

Tears spill down my cheeks but he ignores them, his gaze boring into mine with an intensity that steals my breath.

"You think you've had it hard?" His laugh is low, wild, and *hungry*. "You don't know the meaning of the word. But if you fight me on this...if you dare stand in the way of what's *mine*..." He leans in, his lips brushing the shell of my ear as he breathes, "I'll teach you suffering like you've never *dreamed* of."

A sob hitches in my throat, my whole body trembling like a leaf in a hurricane. Everything in me screams to fight, to claw and kick and scream my defiance until my last breath...

But I can't. Because it's not just me I have to think about anymore.

*My baby...my sweet little baby boy...*

My arms tighten around my stomach, a fierce aching need to protect this fragile spark of life overwhelming all else. In this moment, I know I'd do anything, *sacrifice* anything, to keep him safe. Even if it shatters me in the process. Slowly, painfully, I force myself to meet Malachi's gaze, feeling like the biggest traitor in the world as I whisper, "I...I'll do it. I'll stay. Until he's born."

A slow, savage smile spreads across that beautiful, brutal face. "Good girl," he praises, like I'm a dog who's listened to its master. "I promise, you're making the right choice."

*But it doesn't feel like a choice... It feels like a noose around my neck.*

Suddenly, a bitter, broken laugh spills out of me and Malachi stills, watching me warily. Meeting his gaze, fresh tears streaking my face, I choke out, "You know, I pity you. I really do. That you can stand there and talk about ripping away a mother's child like it's nothing..." I shake my head, my lips trembling, "One day, when you're old and alone, haunted by every evil thing you've ever done...I hope you remember this moment. I hope it *eats* you alive."

His face goes carefully, dangerously blank but I don't stop, the words pouring out of me in a flood I'm helpless to stop.

"Tell me. What would you do if someone stole *your* child?" I demand, my voice cracking. "If they took your baby and your choice and your whole fucking *world*, how would you feel?"

For a moment, something like shock flickers in those icy eyes. Then, it's gone, locked away behind a mask of cold indifference.

He straightens abruptly, his hands falling away from me. "I don't deal in hypotheticals," he says flatly. "And I've never been one for regrets. You'd do well to learn from my example."

And with that, he turns on his heels and strides out of the room, slamming the door behind him with a tooth-rattling bang.

Sitting here, it feels as though every ounce of strength has left me in a rush. I hug my stomach, finally letting myself shatter, great heaving sobs tearing from my throat as I curl around my baby. *I'm so sorry, baby boy. I'm trying my best to be strong for you.*

*But I'm scared. I'm so fucking scared.*

The days blur together in a haze of anguish and forced docility. I'm a prisoner in a gilded cage, allowed every luxury but the one I truly want my freedom.

Malachi is a constant shadow, watching my every move with those cold, assessing eyes. He makes sure I want for nothing material, but any attempt at a true conversation is met with icy disdain or cruel amusement. I'm nothing more than an incubator to him, a means to an end.

As my belly grows, so too does the white-hot coal of hatred in my chest. It keeps me warm during the long nights, a secret fire to nurture my defiance. Malachi may have won this battle...but the war is far from over. And then, one night, everything shifts.

As I lay in the bed of the room I was offered, I dream of a forest, dense and dark, the scent of rich earth and night-blooming jasmine thick in my nose. But it's not my usual nose...it's a *snout*, long and tapered, twitching as it scents the breeze.

I'm running, bounding over fallen logs and burbling creeks with a grace and power I've never known. The night is alive around me, the rustle of prey, the hoot of an owl, the silver song of the moon overhead. I feel wild, untamable...free in a way I can't begin to describe.

Yet there's a bittersweet ache in my chest, a longing for something lost. My pack, the primal part of my brain, insists. The dream shifts, and suddenly I'm not alone. Other wolves emerge from the shadows, their fur gleaming in shades of gray, brown, and white. They circle me, yipping and nuzzling, welcoming me home.

Tears prick my sleeping eyes, an overwhelming cascade of love and belonging and *rightness* threatening to sweep me away. This is what I'm missing, the empty space in my soul that howls with loneliness. My pack, my *family*...

I wake with a gasp, my skin flushed and tingling, my heart a wardrum in my ears. For a moment, the room feels too small, the walls too close, the bed too soft. I'm seized by the irrational urge to claw at the door, to throw back my head and howl my fury to the uncaring sky.

*What the hell is wrong with me?*

Shaking, I hug my stomach, trying to ground myself in the moment.

*It was just a dream...right?*

"*But it felt so real*," a voice that sounds unlike my own whispers in my head. "*More real than anything in this life*."

As quickly as it came, I shove it away, burying it deep. I can't afford to question my sanity, not when my baby's life hangs in the balance.

*I'm not a wolf. I'm not a wolf. I'm not a wolf.*

It becomes a litany, a life-raft in the tumultuous sea my life has become. I cling to it through the long slog of pregnancy. Even as my child grows strong and restless in my womb, even as my nightmares become more visceral-the snap of powerful jaws, the hot copper tang of blood on my tongue.

I tell myself this is all Malachi's doing. Whatever sick, twisted games he's trying to play, I won't allow him to take more from me than he already has.