Accidental Surrogate for Alpha

#Chapter 357 – Long Days

Ella

Cora wasn’t kidding when she said that there was a lot to do for the wounded men. Honestly, I underestimated her – or she’s a much faster and better worker for me, because I fall into bed at the end of each day totally wiped, asleep before Sinclair can even say goodnight to me.

The boys are busy too and I feel a little sorry for Cora and Roger, honestly. They should be living in a newly-mated newly-pregnant love bubble right now, and instead she’s spending all day healing while he’s trapped in a boardroom with his brother and his father, trying to figure out how to defeat my estranged uncle.

“How can you feel sorry for them,” Sinclair says to me when I take a break to feed Rafe. He comes to spend these little stolen moments with me, knowing that they’re some of the only moments I’ll be able to sit and concentrate on something else for a few minutes. “It’s not like you and I got to enjoy any kind of love bubble.”

“Yes we did,” I say, frowning at him. ” Dominic, we had so much sex in those first few months when we discovered I was pregnant -”

“Sure,” he says, a little sarcastic as he draws his brows together. “Between me accusing you of stealing my sperm, and then the constant attacks, and then having to flee the country – yeah, totally had a peaceful little love bubble somewhere in there.”

I laugh as I consider it, shaking my head and looking down at my sweet hungry baby. “I don’t know,” I say, giving a little shrug. “It was all wonderful to me. But maybe I just forget all the horrible parts as some side effect of pregnancy – like how mothers have to forget the pain of birth, or else they’d never do it again.”

Sinclair moves closer to me, putting an arm around me to let me and Rafe lean close against his broad, muscled chest. “Or,” he murmurs, “it could be that the pleasure was just so good that it completely overshadowed the pain

“Oh yes,” I murmur back, smirking a little. “Clearly, Dominic, the sex is so good that I barely remember my nearly -fatal injuries

He laughs now, shaking his head, and we both shrug it off, knowing that it doesn’t matter. That we wouldn’t trade any of what we went through for something different. Because it’s worth it all of it is worth it.

And I keep that idea in my heart as I spend hour after hour trailing behind Cora, tending to the poor men who were willing to sacrifice their health in the effort to save my little boy. The hours feel endless – changing bandages, administering medicine, checking in with the men to see how they’re recovering –

the idea that Cora deemed three men too far beyond her ability to care for and sent them away. Because, honestly, some of these men seem to be doing pretty poorly

late one afternoon, wiping the sweat from my brow. “Can we –

men- they’re on the mend, if not slowly. And Roger and Sinclair brought in enough medicine to keep us going. I know it looks bad but,” she sighs, looking around the room at all the men

this long?” I

nods, biting her lip, understanding me. “I don’t know. I’m used to our mates’ fast

too,

little. “Probably the goddess blood in you,”

taking longer than I’d expect it to as well…”

bit of the goddess blood,” I murmur,

turning to her

cocking her head a bit. “Well,

I ask again,

moment, place – and blushes a little, and I suddenly know

to go into the

down at myself, a little ridiculously, as if I could see the gift floating

snapping my head up to

gave it to me, and then I used it to to do whatever I did. I don’t know. communicate

shrugs, staring at me, and then we both laugh because we both feel a little stupid trying to

could have given us like,

“But Ella…what do you