Escaping With The Alpha's Unwanted Heir

Vivian POV

The sterile, bleach-heavy air of the Pack-affiliated medical center on the Upper East Side did nothing to calm my racing heart. I sat on the edge of the examination table, my hands tightly gripping the crinkling paper beneath me.

Dr. Smith, the senior Pack Doctor, stood before me with an unmarked folder. Her usually warm eyes were clouded with a deep, terrifying gravity.

"You are pregnant, Luna," she said softly.

For a fraction of a second, a desperate spark of hope ignited in my chest. A pup. An heir. Maybe this was the miracle I needed to bridge the freezing chasm between me and my husband, Alpha Julian Sterling. Maybe a child of his own blood would finally awaken his dormant mate instincts and make him look at me as more than just a political obligation.

But Dr. Smith didn't smile. She stepped closer, her voice dropping to a hushed, urgent whisper. "Vivian, you must listen to me. This is an extremely dangerous pregnancy. You are a wolfless Omega. You don't have the accelerated healing or the physical resilience of a shifted wolf." She paused, her words heavy with dread. "The pup's Alpha blood will be a fire your body may not be able to contain. Any severe emotional distress or physical trauma could be catastrophic for both of you."

The spark of hope instantly turned to ash, replaced by a suffocating terror. My body was a fragile vessel carrying a raging inferno. If the Pack Elders—the very people who despised my "tainted" bloodline—found out about this vulnerability, they would strip this child from me, or worse, terminate it to protect the Alpha's legacy.

"No one can know," I breathed out, my voice trembling but resolute. I looked up, meeting Dr. Smith's eyes. "Not the Elders. And especially not Julian. Keep this completely off the Pack records. I will pay for everything in cash, from my personal accounts."

Dr. Smith hesitated, torn between her duty to the Alpha and her oath as a healer. But seeing the fierce, desperate plea of a mother in my eyes, she slowly nodded.

Hours later, I stood alone in the cavernous, echoing space of the VIP private terminal at the Sterling Pack's airfield.

Because I was wolfless, I was deaf to the Pack's *Mind-Link*. I had to rely on human flight trackers just to discover that my own husband was returning from Europe a day early. I had come here to surprise him, clinging to the foolish fantasy that I could still save our dying mate-bond.

But the terminal was empty. The sleek black private jet sat on the tarmac, its engines already cooling.

Then, it hit me. The scent.

It lingered in the air, a heavy, invisible ghost. The intoxicating aroma of winter storm and ancient pine—Julian. My soul instinctively reached out for it, but violently recoiled a second later.

Woven intimately into his scent was another. The cloying, artificial stench of hothouse orchids.

Serena Chase.

My stomach violently heaved. She