Surrogate For Alpha Dom

I groan when I wake up, but I don’t open my eyes. Not yet. I feel like I just closed them ten minutes ago anyway – my poor eyeballs need more rest.

Instead, I take a moment to feel my body from the inside out, to check in with myself and see what hurts, what feels good. I’m surprised to find that I can feel remnants of my mother’s gift running through me – what feels like little sparkling tendrils of sunlight, working through my limbs, perhaps healing me. I smile to think of it, smile to think of my mother giving me something that lasts after so many years of her absence.

She is a mother goddess, after all the mother to us all, not just me. But still, as my actual mother, it feels nice to finally have…a piece of her.

I hear my little baby give a little cry and my eyes fly open, searching for him. I sit up in bed, a hand going to my head, and look blearily around..My eyes are drawn instantly – unsurprisingly – to the huge werewolf standing across the room, bouncing a little bundle of blankets in his arm. I smile at my mate’s turned back and quickly climb out of bed, moving towards him.

Sinclair hears me coming and quietly turns, our little boy still fussing a little in his arms.

“Has he been like this long?” I ask, yawning, reaching for my child. Sinclair transfers him into my arms and I feel a quick rushing thrill at the feel of my baby returned to me.

“No,” Sinclair replies with a smile. “He’s been sleeping well – he just started crying now. Do you think he’s hungry?”

I shrug and look up at him. “Probably. I know I am.”

Together we carry Rafe back to the bed and I climb in, rearranging my top so that Rafe can try to eat. Sinclair quietly watches as I work and I let out a little sigh of relief when Rafe quickly latches and begins to suck. I watch him for a moment, instinctually doing a little check on our bond and receiving a little push of happiness and satisfaction back from him.

Suddenly, I begin to wonder something.

bond with him?” I ask Sinclair,

nods easily, his eyes

further,

and their children fades a

a little bit at this news and Sinclair clicks his tongue and reaches out a hand to cup

want to lose my bond with my child,” I say, my

be tied, just in different ways. Besides, when he grows up and meets his own mate, do you really want to be

at my little baby. “No mates for you, Rafe,” I

when he’s a big hulking teenage

me, closing his eyes. “Whatever you say, trouble.” I smile at him, watching him drift off to sleep as the sunlight starts to brighten at the edges of the curtains. I suspect that he

–

finishes, and my baby pressed warm against my chest – I begin to drift off into a little half–daze as well. About an hour later, though, a little

I whisper, cheerful, stopping in the middle of the room and waving him

in the bed. “How are you, Ella?” he asks, curious. He comes

big yawn. “He’s

not abnormal,” Hank says with a little shrug. “Perhaps just lucky. The ambulance is outside waiting – are you ready to go to the

in a few minutes, after I wake Sinclair. He nods and goes out to let the guards and paramedics know the plan. Then, I move over to the wolf sleeping in the King’s