My Alpha Used Me as His Mistress's Surrogate

The altar smelled like burning sage and something older—copper, iron, the faint sweetness of blood that hadn't been spilled yet.

Mine.

I stood at the center of Blackmoor Pack's sacred temple, my bare feet cold against the stone floor, a ceremonial blade resting in my open palm. Candles ringed the altar in a perfect circle, their flames unnaturally still despite the drafts that crept through the old stone walls. Everything felt deliberate. Arranged.

Ryker had called it a blessing.

"The Blood Rite," he'd explained three nights ago, his voice warm, his hand cupping my face like I was something precious. "It's how we ensure our child inherits the purest Alpha lineage. Your blood, my blood—woven together before conception. It's ancient, Ivy. Sacred."

I'd believed him.

I always believed him.

I curled my fingers around the blade's handle and lifted my wrist. The temple elder stood across the altar, his eyes closed, lips moving in a low chant I didn't recognize. Behind me, heavy velvet curtains separated the main chamber from the preparation room where Ryker had stepped away minutes ago—just for a moment, he'd said. He'd be right back.

Then I heard it.

A voice, low and careful, sliding through the gap in the curtains like smoke.

"You're certain she won't find out?"

Ryker's voice. Unmistakable.

I didn't move. Didn't breathe.

"She believes every word." A second man—older, measured. One of the elders, I thought. "She thinks she's preparing her body to carry your heir."

"And the transfer?"

"Proceeding exactly as planned. Each rite draws more of it out. Her bloodline is extraordinary—even she doesn't know what she carries. By the final ceremony, enough will have been extracted to fully stabilize Victoria's child. The Alpha resonance in that fetus has already doubled since we began."

A pause.

"And Ivy's child?"

Silence stretched between them like a held breath.

"The one in her womb is essentially a vessel. A conduit. There's almost no vital energy left in it. By the time she realizes something is wrong—"

"She won't." Ryker's voice was flat. Final. "She never does."

The blade slipped from my fingers.

It hit the stone floor with a sound like a gunshot, and the elder across the altar snapped his eyes open. I didn't look at him. I couldn't look at anything except the curtain, those heavy red folds of velvet, while the words rearranged themselves inside my skull into something I could not unhear.

Victoria.

Of course it was Victoria.

My half-sister. My father's favorite. The woman I'd found tangled in the sheets with my then-fiancé, Marcus, on the morning of what was supposed to be my wedding day. The memory surfaced fast and vicious—white dress, broken champagne glass, the way Marcus hadn't even looked ashamed. Just inconvenienced.

Ryker had been there. He'd seen everything. He'd stepped forward in front of the entire pack, taken my hand, and said quietly, "Marry me instead. Let me give you something real."

I thought he'd saved me.

Three years. Three years of