The Lycan Kingpin's Captive: A Baby For The Beast novel Chapter 14

“What did I say about Mia meeting Ariadne?” I ask with my hands braced on my desk, fury bubbling in my chest but I try to remain calm.

I just spotted Mia in the garden with my grandmother, and they looked like they were having a grand old fucking time.

“I’m sorry, Alpha, but Kyría Ariadne insisted and I can’t exactly…go against her word, either. I did say that you would not be happy about this, but she said it would be fine,” Josef, the incompetent bodyguard says.

I cross my arms and pinch the bridge of my nose between my thumb and forefinger. “Fucking Ari…” I trail off before opening my eyes. “How long has this been going on?”

Josef pales. “For about a week-”

“A fucking week!” I finally explode, growling. “Gods, Josef, why did you not report this to me?!”

He cringes and bows his head. “Kyría Ariadne assured me it was okay, Alpha,” he whimpers.

That goddamn woman! She knows not to meddle in my business and yet she decides to do this! If she finds out who or what Mia really is if she just has to touch her…FUCK!

I splay my hands on my desk and breathe out a long sigh to control my temper. I’ll have to speak with my grandmother and find out just what she wants with Mia, then I’ll take it from there.

“It’s fine, you may leave,” I say, dismissing Josef without even looking at him. If Ariadne had anything to do with this, which I know she does, then I can’t blame him.

He has a soft heart, it’s the reason his father sent him here to toughen him up a bit. But that soft heart will need to go if he wants to survive this pack, especially under an Alpha like me.

“Yes, Alpha,” he says before leaving my office.

I sit back in my office chair, tilt my head upward and sigh again. This is a colossal fuck up; if my grandmother knows I have a surrogate and she’s made friends with her, then it will be harder to let Mia go.

I’m already struggling to keep her out of my fucking mind, and now this. She’s gotten as close to me as possible, so I need to push back in order to make myself look like an even bigger fucking monster.

“Are you going to sulk there all day, or shout at me too?”

I chuckle while still looking up at the ceiling. “You really know how to worm your way in, YaYa,” I say with an unwanted smile on my face.

The door closes and I hear her shuffle inside, then I finally turn my head when she sits down opposite me. She’s wearing a small smile; a smile that lets me know she’s privy to something I am not.

It’s the same smile she wore when she touched me and saw what happened to me - full of sympathy and concern.

“Did you touch her?”

My grandmother, like Lilah, was blessed with a gift from the Goddess. Only her gift is one of either foresight or hindsight. Whenever she touches someone, she can see a few glimpses into their past or future.

Ariadne nods. “Briefly, and what I saw wasn’t…pleasant,” she shivers as if a chill has run up her spine, then she sighs. “That girl…she’s lived a life full of pain and abuse, Nikki. I don’t know what you have planned for her, but you shouldn’t go through with it.”

I brace my elbows on my desk and steeple my fingers together under my chin. “What I have planned for her is none of your concern, YaYa. She’s signed a contract with me in exchange for her freedom and from what I can tell, she’s quite happy with the compromise,” I say.

She lifts an eyebrow and scoffs. “Is that baby the so-called compromise?”

“Yes, it is,” I answer truthfully. “The Elders wanted an heir and I am delivering.”

At this, she shakes her head and chuckles sadly. “It seems you’ve forgotten about Masha and what her compromise was,” she says, impaling me with her words. I know what she’s trying to do and I am fucking annoyed that it’s working.

“That’s an unfair comparison,” I growl, shaking my head. “Masha’s death was no one’s fault but her own. She knew what she signed up for when my father arranged that marriage to the Alpha in the East-”

“Don’t you dare!” she exclaims, but I continue.

“The money, glitz, and glam were all she cared about until the time for an heir came; she slept around with the help and fell pregnant, thinking the Alpha wouldn’t notice but he did,” I say with no sympathy. “Her death and punishment was a fitting end to what she did and how she slandered our name - no one over there will do business with us now because of her!”

My sister, Masha, was arranged to marry an Alpha who had even more money than my father. She was always spoiled and got everything she wanted, so a marriage to a wealthy Alpha had her seeing stars.

She was also incredibly beautiful and used her beauty to get her way in life; until that Eastern Alpha caught her fucking the pool boy. He strung her up as a warning and killed both her and her unborn child. The unborn child was a bastard and belonged to the chef.

Ariadne shakes her head sadly before she gets to her feet. “I used to think you weren’t like him, but you’re every bit as heartless,” she says before walking out of my office with slumped shoulders.

Heartless? Yes, I have to be. There’s no room for empathy as an Alpha; my pack and men expect me to be this person everyone else sees.

Infallible, righteous, brave - the makings of a leader. I can’t afford to be sympathetic to a plight where I can so clearly see who is in the wrong. Masha didn’t think about the pack when she slept around; she was selfish and only thought about herself.

I don’t have the luxury to be selfish; the only selfish thing I did was give Mia that contract.

Thinking back to what Ariadne said about Mia and what she saw - it should make me feel pity, but it doesn’t. Does that make me heartless? I suppose it does, but abuse and violence can either make or break you.

I chose to not let it break me and have lived this long as a ‘fuck you’ to those who tried to stunt my growth. Running on anger and spite is what has kept me going, that is something I am not afraid to fucking admit.

My office door opens again and I let out a growl. “Does no one know how to fucking knock anymore?!”