The IVF Mistake That Fated Me to an Alpha

"That isn't my mate's name."
Isla Spencer pushed the report across Dr. Whitmore's desk and planted one finger beneath the line she had already read four times.
Paternal Genetic Source: Logan Vale.
Outside the office, phones rang and nurses moved between examination rooms, their shoes squeaking against the polished floor. Blackthorn Fertility Center carried on with its ordinary Monday morning while the future Isla had spent months fighting for collapsed into two unfamiliar words.
Dr. Whitmore glanced at the report, then at her. "Miss Spencer, pregnancy hormones can heighten emotional responses. Please sit down before you upset yourself further."
"My hormones didn't change the name on your report."
His mouth tightened.
"The embryo was supposed to be created with Coel Reese's sample," she continued. "I checked his name before every injection, every blood draw, every procedure. So please explain why another man is listed as the biological father of my baby."
Dr. Whitmore picked up the page with obvious reluctance. When he reached the line she had indicated, the color shifted beneath his skin.
He pressed the button on his desk. "Mara, come in here."
A nurse entered less than a minute later. Her polite smile vanished as soon as she saw the report in his hand.
"Confirm the paternal sample used for Patient 1847," Dr. Whitmore ordered.
Mara swallowed. "I'll contact the lab."
She hurried out.
Isla remained standing, although her knees no longer felt entirely reliable. Sitting would make this seem like a conversation, something to be discussed calmly until a suitable solution was found. There was no suitable solution to discovering that the child in her womb did not belong to the man she loved.
For twelve weeks, she had believed she was carrying Coel's baby.
She had endured the injections that left purple bruises across her stomach, the nausea, the cramps after the egg retrieval, and the unbearable wait to find out if the embryo had taken. Whenever she had wanted to stop, she had pictured Coel waking from his coma and placing his hand over the small curve of her belly.
Before the rogue attack, they had talked about children. Coel wanted a daughter with Isla's green eyes; she had teased him that any child of his would inherit his terrible singing voice. When his doctors warned that he might never wake, the sample he had stored years ago became the last piece of the future they had planned together.
The door opened again. Mara returned with Gordon Bell, the gray-haired Beta who managed the clinic.
Bell took the report from Dr. Whitmore, read it, and then looked at Isla with more interest than he had shown the mistake.
"Is she marked?" he asked.
The question landed like a slap.
Mara lowered her gaze. "No."
"Married?"
"Engaged," Isla answered. "And standing right here."
Bell ignored her. "Does she hold a pack position?"
"No," Mara said.
Whatever concern had entered Bell's face disappeared. He closed the door before placing the report on the desk.
"There appears to have been an administrative error."
"You used a stranger's genetic material to create the embryo inside me."
"The embryo was created with your egg, Miss Spencer. You remain the biological mother, and the pregnancy is progressing normally."
"As if that makes this acceptable?"
"You came here because you wanted a child. You are pregnant. The outcome is not entirely different from the one you requested."
For a moment, Isla could only stare at him. Then the grief inside her sharpened into something hot enough to burn through the shock.
"I asked to carry the child of the man I love."
Bell released a patient sigh, as though she were making the situation needlessly difficult. "The clinic will refund your treatment costs. We are also prepared to offer fifty thousand dollars as a gesture of goodwill."
"A gesture of goodwill?" Her voice cracked, and she hated him for hearing it. "You think fifty thousand dollars makes this go away?"
"The alternative is a lengthy dispute that may not end in your favor."
"I want my complete file, the identity of the man whose sample you used, and an independent bloodline test. After that, I'm calling a lawyer."
Bell's expression hardened. "I would reconsider that approach."
"Is that a threat?"
"It is practical advice. You signed extensive consent forms, and this clinic has excellent legal representation. If you make inflammatory accusations, we will defend ourselves."
"You just admitted there was an error."
"I said there appears to have been one." His gaze traveled over her inexpensive wool coat and the boots she had worn through two winters. "Without an Alpha willing to support your accusation, this becomes the word of a distressed, unmarked Omega against one of the most respected fertility centers in the territory."
Serena, her wolf, stirred beneath Isla's skin, more wounded than angry. Her wolf had never been as strong as the others in their old pack, but even she recognized contempt.
Isla snatched the report off the desk. "Then I'll find the Alpha whose name is on this page."
Bell gave a humorless laugh. "Men like Logan Vale don't take calls from Omegas like you."
He opened the office door and signaled for security.
Two guards escorted her through the crowded lobby while patients pretended not to stare. When she tried to pull free, one of the men tightened his grip until his fingers left red marks around her wrist.
Ten minutes later, Isla stood on the sidewalk with her report crushed against her chest.
A cold wind swept between the glass buildings. She took out her phone, intending to search for a lawyer, but every nearby firm seemed to charge more for a consultation than she earned in a week.
Then Coel's mother called.
Natalie's smiling face appeared over Isla's lock screen, covering part of a photograph taken at Lake Emery. Coel stood behind Isla with his arms around her waist and his chin resting on her shoulder. They had both been laughing at something she could no longer remember.
The picture had been taken three weeks before the attack.
Isla answered on the fourth ring.
"Isla?" Natalie sounded breathless. "How did the appointment go? Is the baby healthy?"
Her throat closed.
"Yes," she managed. "The baby is healthy."
"Oh, thank the Goddess." Natalie's voice softened. "You've given Coel a reason to come back to us. He would be so proud of you."
Isla stared at Coel's face on the screen.
She knew she had not betrayed him. What the clinic had done was not her fault, but guilt had little interest in reason. Coel had trusted her with the future they planned together, and now another Alpha's child was growing beneath her heart.
"I'll call you later," she whispered.
She ended the call before Natalie could hear her cry.
After wiping her cheek with the heel of her hand, Isla turned toward the curb-and nearly collided with a man stepping away from a black SUV.
He stopped so abruptly that the Beta behind him almost walked into his back.
Even among Alphas, he would have been impossible to overlook. He was tall and broad-shouldered, dressed in a charcoal coat that fit as though it had been made directly on his body. His dark hair was swept back from a face too severe to be handsome in any gentle, harmless way.
His gaze locked on Isla.
Something shifted in the air.
The scent of cedar, smoke, and winter rain wrapped around her before she could retreat. Serena surged awake, no longer weak or wounded, and warmth unfurled low in Isla's abdomen in an instinctive answer to the Alpha's presence.
His eyes flashed molten gold.
Pup.
The word did not come from Serena. It seemed to vibrate through the charged space between them, carried by the growl of another wolf.
Ours.
Isla stepped backward.
The stranger crossed the distance between them and caught her arm, though his grip fell just above the bruises left by the guards.
"Who are you?"
"Someone having a terrible day." She tugged against his hold. "Let go."
Instead, he leaned closer and drew in a slow breath. His attention dropped to her stomach, still concealed beneath her sweater and coat.
"Impossible," he murmured.
"If you're looking for problems, take a number."
She pushed the crumpled report against his chest. His eyes dropped to the page, and the moment he saw the name printed there, his fingers tightened around her arm.
"Why is my name on your embryo report?"
A chill slid down Isla's spine.
She had seen Logan Vale in newspapers and business magazines,but only in silhouette. Alpha of the Silvercrest Pack. Owner of Vale Global. A man wealthy enough to buy half the city and powerful enough to make the other half nervous.
Gordon Bell's laughter echoed in her memory.
"Logan Vale?"
His gaze returned to her stomach. "You're carrying my blood."
"The clinic used the wrong sample. I found out less than an hour ago." The words tumbled out faster than she intended. "They offered me fifty thousand dollars, threatened me when I asked for my records, and had security throw me outside."
Logan noticed the marks around her wrist.
The gold in his eyes burned brighter.
"You're coming with me."
"I'm going to find a lawyer."
"You were thrown into the street carrying my pup. We're going back inside."
"You don't give me orders."
His jaw flexed. "You can argue with me after a doctor confirms that the pup is safe."
Before she could protest, he placed one firm hand at her back and turned her toward the entrance. Two men fell into step behind them, and the same guards who had dragged her out moved aside without being asked.
The receptionist went pale.
Bell appeared in the lobby moments later. "Alpha Vale. We weren't expecting-"
"No," Logan said. "You weren't."
Within fifteen minutes, Isla was back in an examination room. A nervous doctor confirmed that her pregnancy was stable, while a preliminary bloodline test verified what Logan's wolf had already recognized.
The child carried Vale blood.
When Bell tried to call the incident an unfortunate misunderstanding, Logan rose from his chair with such controlled menace that every lower-ranking wolf in the room lowered their gaze.
"You used my genetic material without permission," he said. "You impregnated an Omega with it, threatened her when she demanded answers, and then threw her onto the street carrying my heir."
"We didn't realize Miss Spencer was under your protection."
Logan's expression turned glacial.
"She shouldn't have needed my protection for you to treat her like a person."
The words struck somewhere deep inside Isla.
Logan demanded a written apology, a full refund, independent medical care, and five million dollars in compensation, with no confidentiality agreement unless a lawyer of Isla's choosing approved it.
Bell agreed so quickly that it was almost embarrassing.
When they were finally alone, Isla rubbed her aching wrist. "Thank you."
Logan turned toward her.
"You didn't have to help me," she continued. "Not after what they did with your sample."
"They harmed what belongs to me."
The warmth his defense had stirred inside her cooled at once.
"The baby may carry your blood, but I don't belong to you."
His gaze lingered on her face. "I know."
That answer surprised her enough to make the next words harder.
"You deserved to know what happened, and I'm grateful for what you did. But this pregnancy was forced on both of us." Isla curled her fingers around the edge of the examination table. "I love Coel. I agreed to carry his child, not yours."
Logan went still.
"I'm not keeping the baby."
His Alpha scent flooded the room. Serena bristled, yet beneath her fear came a fierce, confusing urge to shield the life inside them.
Logan stepped closer, his wolf blazing through his eyes.
"I'm not losing my pup."
"You don't get to decide that."
"Then tell me what it will take, Omega." Logan closed the last inch between them, powerful, furious, and utterly immovable. "Because you're going to carry my child."

"No amount of money gives you the right to decide what happens inside my body."
Logan's expression remained unreadable. "I didn't mention money."
"You had the clinic offer me five million dollars."
"That money is compensation for what they did to you. It has nothing to do with the pup."
The distinction should have reassured Isla. Instead, the calm certainty in his voice made her feel as though he had already separated her life into neat columns: what the clinic owed her, what he wanted from her, and what would happen to the child once her part was finished.
"What exactly are you proposing?" she asked.
Logan glanced at the examination room door, where his Beta and two attorneys waited in the hall. "You'll move into a secure residence and receive private medical care for the rest of the pregnancy. Every expense will be covered. After the pup is born, the child will come home with me, and you'll be free to return to your life."
"My life."
"Yes."
"The life where I pretend I didn't spend months carrying and giving birth to my own baby?"
A faint crease appeared between his eyebrows. "You said you didn't intend to keep the pregnancy."
"Not wanting what was done to me isn't the same as feeling nothing for the baby."
Logan fell silent.
Isla pushed herself off the examination table, needing to stand on her own feet while they had this conversation.
"You talk about pregnancy as if it's an apartment you can rent until your tenant is ready to move out. I would have to carry this child, hear its heartbeat, and feel it moving inside me. Then you expect me to hand it over and disappear because you paid the medical bills?"
"You would be compensated."
"Of course I would." A tired laugh escaped her. "Men like you always think they're talking about money, even when they don't say the number."
His Alpha scent deepened, smoke and cedar pressing against the sterile smell of disinfectant. Serena stirred defensively, but Logan did not raise his voice.
"What do you want from me, Isla?"
She wished she knew.
Before she could answer, her phone began vibrating inside her coat pocket.
Natalie Reese.
Isla's stomach tightened as she answered. "Hello?"
"Isla, he's awake." Natalie was crying so hard that the words blurred together. "Coel woke up ten minutes ago. The doctors are examining him now, but he's speaking. He's really back."
The room faded around her.
For months, she had imagined this call arriving at breakfast, in the shower, or in the middle of another night spent beside his bed. She had stopped letting herself believe it would come.
"I'm on my way."
When she ended the call, Logan was watching her.
"Coel?" he asked.
"My mate. And my fiancé." Isla could hardly think past the pounding of her heart. "He woke up. I need to see him."
Logan's jaw hardened. "He was your fiancé when you agreed to carry his child. That doesn't give him a claim over mine."
"Not everything is about claims and bloodlines." Isla slipped her phone into her pocket and gathered her medical papers. "Some people stay because they love each other."
Something flickered across his face, gone too quickly to name.
He took a card from his wallet. There was no office number or company logo, only his name and a handwritten phone number.
"Call me before you make a decision."
"I don't need your permission."
"I didn't offer permission." His gaze settled briefly on her stomach. "I'm asking you not to decide while you're angry."
Isla tucked the card into her coat without making a promise.
*
Coel's room was in the older hospital building across the courtyard. She knew the route well enough to walk it without thinking, past the vending machine that never gave enough change and the family lounge where she had slept on a vinyl couch during Coel's first week in intensive care.
A nurse at the station recognized her. "He's made incredible progress, Ms. Spencer. You must be so relieved."
Relief was only one piece of the knot beneath Isla's ribs.
She paused outside his room and smoothed her hair with unsteady fingers. She would tell him everything plainly. The clinic had used the wrong sample, the child was not his, and she had not yet decided what to do. It would hurt him, but perhaps he would take her hand and remind her that they had survived worse.
The door stood partly open.
"What are you going to tell her?" a woman asked inside.
Isla stopped with one hand raised toward the door. She knew that voice, Hilda Spencer.
Her stepsister. And the nightmare of her childhood.
She always softened her voice into the breathy sweetness she reserved for men.
"That waking up changed things," Coel answered.
His voice was rough after months of silence, but unmistakably his. Isla pressed a hand to the wall as her knees weakened.
"That's almost kind," Hilda murmured.
"Isla likes kind lies."
A soft laugh followed, then the quiet sound of a kiss.
Isla pushed open the door.
Hilda sat on the edge of the bed with one hand beneath Coel's hospital gown, her lipstick smudged across his mouth. She drew back, startled, but her surprise quickly settled into a familiar, satisfied smile.
Coel looked annoyed rather than ashamed.
"Isla," he said. "You're here already."
For months, she had washed his hair when the nurses were too busy, read him the morning news, and told him about every ordinary part of her day because someone had once said familiar voices might lead a patient home. Now he was awake, and the first expression he gave her was annoyance at being interrupted.
"How long?" she asked.
Hilda glanced at Coel. "Does it matter?"
"Yes." Isla kept her attention on Coel. "How long?"
He looked away first. "A few months before the attack."
The answer hollowed out something inside her, leaving a strange, steady quiet behind.
The folder from Blackthorn Fertility Center pressed against Isla's ribs beneath her arm. She had come here prepared to confess something that had never been her fault, while Coel had spent months hiding a betrayal that had been entirely his choice.
"You let me sit beside your bed every day."
"My mother wanted you there."
"You knew I was here."
"I was in a coma, Isla. What exactly did you expect me to do about it?"
"Maybe not wake up and put your hands on my stepsister."
Hilda slowly rose from the bed, smoothing her blouse. Her eyes dropped to the folder in Isla's arms, pausing on the fertility center's logo.
"What were you doing at Blackthorn?" she asked.
Isla shifted the folder behind her hip. "That's none of your business."
Coel followed Hilda's gaze but showed little interest. "You always do this."
"Do what?"
"Turn everything into a tragedy centered around you." He rubbed a hand over his face. "I survived a rogue attack. I woke up after months in a coma, and within minutes of getting here, you're demanding explanations."
"I spent those months waiting for you."
"No one asked you to make yourself a martyr."
The words landed more cleanly than a slap.
Isla removed the engagement ring from her finger. "Were you ever going to marry me?"
Coel released a weary breath. "You're a good person, but you were never right for me. Your wolf is weak, you're uncomfortable with everything an Alpha needs, and you still behave as if waiting until marriage makes you better than everyone else."
Hilda's smile deepened.
"She understands me," Coel continued. "With her, I don't have to apologize for being what I am."
Isla looked at the ring she had worn through every night beside his bed. Then she placed it on the rolling tray beside his untouched water.
"I stayed because I loved you."
"That was your decision."
Serena recoiled inside her, and the unfinished mate bond tightened beneath Isla's breastbone. It was a fragile thing because they had never completed the marking, but breaking it would still hurt. For two years, Isla had protected that bond as if patience alone could turn it into the life she wanted.
Now she finally understood that she had been protecting it alone.
"I, Isla Spencer, reject you, Coel Reese, as my mate and chosen Alpha."
Pain tightened beneath Isla's breastbone as the unfinished bond tore loose. Coel flinched against his pillows, shock flashing across his face before anger replaced it
"You don't reject me."
"I just did."
"You'll come back when you've finished being dramatic."
Isla picked up her bag, keeping the fertility folder tucked securely beneath her arm.
"No," she said. "I won't."
She walked out before either of them could see her cry.
*
Half an hour later, Isla sat in a women's clinic, staring at a termination form.
The physician across from her was an older Beta with silver threaded through her brown hair and a coffee stain on one cuff. She read Isla's chart twice before setting it down.
"Are you certain this is what you want?" she asked. "Or do you need today to stop hurting?"
Isla looked at the blank signature line. "Does it matter?"
"It does if you wake up tomorrow wishing someone had given you time."
"I want it over."
The doctor's expression remained kind. "Your bloodwork shows significant anemia, and you're underweight. From the history in your file, that isn't recent."
"My family didn't always have much food."
It was easier than explaining that the Spencers had never lacked food; they had simply found other uses for it before remembering Isla.
"Termination is possible," the doctor said, "but your risk of bleeding is higher, and your body is already recovering from hormone treatment and egg retrieval. I'd like to treat the anemia and repeat your bloodwork before we schedule anything."
"So I can't do it today."
"I wouldn't recommend it today." The doctor folded her hands. "Does the father know?"
"He knows about the baby."
"Then, if it's safe, speak to him. You don't need his permission, but you shouldn't make this decision today simply because you've been hurt."
Isla left the office with the unsigned form in her bag.
She sat alone in the corridor, beneath a window streaked with afternoon rain. Coel's ring was gone from her finger. Logan's card remained in her pocket, and the space between those two facts seemed to contain the wreckage of her entire life.
Then something fluttered low in her belly.
Isla froze.
The sensation came again, too soft to be a kick, more like the brush of a tiny tail beneath water. A human pregnancy might not have moved this early, but wolf pups developed quickly-and Serena had gone completely still.
Our pup, her wolf whispered.
Isla rested her palm over her abdomen. "Was that you?"
Warmth pulsed beneath her hand.
Her eyes stung.
The baby had not lied to her, used her, or asked to become part of this disaster. It was simply there-small, alive, and blameless.
"You didn't do anything wrong," she murmured.
Neither did we, Serena answered.
Isla had come here because ending the pregnancy had seemed like the quickest way to cut all the chaos. Perhaps it was not the only way.
She took Logan's card from her pocket and dialed the handwritten number.
He answered before the second ring.
"Isla."
"You said you would do anything to keep this child."
"Within reason."
"I've decided not to end the pregnancy."
Silence filled the line, followed by the quiet release of his breath.
"Where are you?" he asked.
"That isn't important." Isla kept her hand over the place where she had felt the pup move. "I won't hide your child from you, but I won't carry it for nine months and then be paid to disappear."
"Name your terms."
"Just one term."
Isla took a long breath, and when she looked up, she had made up her mind.
"Marry me."

When Alpha Logan Vale heard Isla's bold request, his first reaction wasn't anger. It was disappointment.
He stood beside the windows of his private office, looking down at the afternoon traffic threading through the rain. A few hours ago, Isla Spencer had accused him of trying to rent her body. Now she wanted the Vale name.
"Five million dollars wasn't enough," he said, "so you decided to ask for something more valuable?"
Silence stretched across the line.
When Isla answered, her voice was cold. "I'm asking for a contract, not your affection."
That was not the embarrassed retreat he had expected.
"I believed I was having a child with the mate I intended to marry," she continued. "I won't hide your baby from you, but I won't spend the pregnancy living in a house you provide, give birth, and wait for someone to tell me my part is over."
Logan remembered her standing in the examination room. She had been exhausted, furious, and unafraid to tell the most powerful Alpha in the territory that he had no idea what he was talking about.
"What kind of marriage are you proposing?" he asked.
"One year. We live together long enough to get through the pregnancy and the first months after the baby is born. After that, if we both want a divorce, I'll sign the papers."
"And what do you expect to receive?"
"Shared custody. Control over my own medical decisions. A separate bedroom, no physical obligations, and no mating mark. I have no intention of trapping either of us in a marriage that pretends to be something it isn't."
Logan's wolf pushed against him at the last condition, displeased by the idea of the mother of their pup sleeping beyond their reach.
He ignored it. "My company and pack assets remain separate."
"I don't want your company."
"You would say that before signing."
"I'll say it in writing."
He moved away from the window. The sharp edge of his disappointment had begun to dull, replaced by interest despite himself.
The first Vale pup to survive beyond implantation in years was growing inside her. Logan had watched every previous attempt end before it truly began, and the healers had long since stopped promising that the next one would be different.
Now his child existed. His wolf had recognized the pup through the air and city traffic, and it had not stopped demanding that Logan bring them both somewhere safe.
He could refuse Isla's condition and risk losing the child, or he could surrender one year to a marriage neither of them intended to make real.
"One year," he said at last. "You have a deal."
Her breath caught quietly enough that another man might have missed it.
"Where are you?" Logan asked.
"Still at the hospital."
"A car will be outside in fifteen minutes."
"I can take a cab."
""You're pregnant, anemic, and you've been through enough today. You're not taking a cab."
He ended the call before she could argue.
His attorney was already waiting outside the office. Logan opened the door and said, "Prepare a one-year prenuptial agreement and contact a licensed registrar."
The man blinked. "For whom?"
"For me."
*
The Vale car arrived in thirteen minutes.
By the time Isla reached the private entrance of Vale Tower, she had read Logan's name on the card in her hand so many times that the letters no longer looked real.
A security officer opened the door before she touched it, and another escorted her to an elevator without buttons. He placed his palm against a dark glass panel, which glowed once before carrying them upward.
The city vanished beneath her.
Logan's residence occupied the upper floors of the tower, although residence seemed too ordinary a word for a place with its own elevator, silent staff, and windows tall enough to turn the skyline into wall art. There were no gilded ceilings or crystal statues, only pale stone, dark wood, and the quiet efficiency of a home where everything had been chosen without checking the price.
A tray waited on the dining table with soup, bread, sliced fruit, and iron supplements.
"The doctor sent dietary instructions," Logan said from the doorway.
He had removed his coat and rolled his shirtsleeves to his elbows. The change should have made him appear less imposing. It did not.
"Finish your meal first. We can discuss the contract after that."
Isla considered refusing on principle, but her stomach chose that moment to growl loudly enough for both of them to hear.
Logan glanced at the untouched soup. "Sit."
"You could try saying please."
"Would it change the outcome?"
Probably not. Isla pulled out the chair and sat down.
When Isla finally entered the study, three people were waiting: two attorneys and a gray-haired woman carrying an official case. A marriage contract lay on the desk.
Isla approached it but did not sit. "I want to read every page."
"I expected you to."
For the next forty minutes, she read while Logan remained across from her. The agreement had been carefully drafted. What did surprise her was the first draft of the custody section.
"Primary custody to Logan Vale," she read aloud.
His attorney shifted in his chair. "That language was prepared before Mr. Vale explained your conditions."
Isla took the pen and drew a line through it.
"Shared legal and physical custody," she said. "Neither parent takes the child out of the territory without the other's written agreement."
Logan watched her amend the clause. "You intend to stay involved."
"I intend to be the baby's mother. I've been clear about that."
His gaze rested on her for a moment before he turned to the attorney. "Make the change."
She added protection for her medical decisions and the right to continue working. When she reached the financial section, Logan asked, "Nothing for yourself?"
"I need somewhere to live, prenatal care, and the freedom to keep my job. I'm not marrying your bank account."
A trace of something almost like amusement touched his mouth. "No. You're only marrying me."
"I'm trying not to dwell on that part."
After the attorneys revised the document, Isla read it once more and signed. Logan added his name beneath hers without hesitation.
The gray-haired woman opened her case and removed several official forms.
The ceremony took less than five minutes.
There were no flowers, no family, and no dress waiting upstairs. Isla stood in the same clothes she had worn when security removed her from Blackthorn that morning, while two attorneys witnessed her marry a man she had not known existed until a few hours ago.
The registrar submitted the marriage electronically, stamped a certified copy, and handed it to Isla.
"Congratulations, Mrs. Vale."
Isla looked over her shoulder before realizing the woman meant her.
Logan noticed. He seemed to notice everything.
"I need to go to the Spencer house," she said, slipping the document into her folder. "My laptop, identification papers, and some of my mother's things are still there."
Before Logan could answer, his phone rang. He listened for less than a minute, his expression hardening.
"A patrol was attacked near Silvercrest's northern boundary," he said after ending the call. "I have to go."
"I can manage a trip to my father's house. I'm going to collect clothes."
"You're not going alone. You're carrying my pup."
He arranged for his driver and two guards to accompany her, ignoring her objection that arriving with a security detail would attract attention.
"Take what matters," he told her. "The driver will bring you back here."
It was the first time anyone had spoken as if her return were already expected.
Isla didn't know what to do with the feeling.
*
The Spencer house looked respectable from the street, with trimmed hedges and fresh white paint hiding everything unpleasant behind its front door.
Isla asked the guards to wait in the car. She wanted to collect her belongings quietly, but Hilda's voice reached her before she could put her key in the lock.
"She rejected him right after he woke up," Hilda announced from the living room. "Coel could barely sit up, and she made the whole day about herself."
"That ungrateful girl has humiliated this family for the last time," Cassian said.
"We can still repair the damage," Melinda replied. "Hilda has smoothed things over with Coel."
"Of course I have," Hilda said sweetly.
A chair scraped across the floor.
"Then Isla will accept Reid's offer," Cassian decided. "He's wanted an unmarked Omega for years."
Melinda lowered her voice. "You've heard what happened to his last companion."
"Not my concern. Isla has eaten my food and lived under my roof long enough. It's time she became useful."
"What if she refuses?" Hilda asked.
"She won't have a choice."
Isla opened the door.
Three faces turned toward her as she entered the living room.
"You should have asked me," she said, "before arranging my next engagement."
Cassian rose. "You will go back to Coel and apologize. If he won't take you, you'll marry Reid."
"No."
His face darkened. "You are an unmarked Omega living under my roof. You'll marry whoever I choose."
"You're too late."
Hilda laughed. "What did you do, find another Alpha between the hospital and here?"
Isla removed the certified document from her folder and placed it on the coffee table. With two fingers, she pushed it toward her father until the silver Vale seal caught the light.
Cassian stared down at it.
"What is this?"
Isla met his eyes.
"You can't marry me off," she said. "I'm already married."