The Alpha's Surrogate [The Alpha's #1]

Chapter 6

ANASTASIA MULBERRY

Even though she had just awoken from an hour and a half nap after having done nothing but sit in front of her laptop all day, Anastasia woke up groggy from sleep.

Slightly disoriented, she blinked back the sleep and propped herself up against the headboard and glanced around the room, trying to figure out where she was.

After a few moments of rubbing the sleep from her eyes, she took in her familiar surroundings and sighed before slumping back against the headboard behind her. Instinctively, her hands trailed up to press down gently on her stomach, almost as if making sure that the baby was still in there. She internally snorted at the notion. As if the unborn baby would just go crawling out of her vagina while she was asleep.

It was laughable, and the baby – or rather, pup – seemed to agree as it began kicking, causing her to wince slightly.

"You're hungry, huh?" She cooed down at her belly, laughing softly as the baby kicked again. "Yeah, me too. Come on, let's go see if your daddies have some food for us."

When she felt another kick, Anastasia chuckled through the wince and slid off the bed, aimlessly looking for her shoes on the ground as by this point, having just started her third trimester, she could barely see her own feet over her stomach.

During her pregnancy, Anastasia had visited the pack house, now more frequently than before as Raphael and Justas wished for the baby to be around wolves and its own kind as much as possible, but this was the first time that she had fallen asleep here. However, she faintly remembered falling asleep outside on a patch of grass in front of the pack house where they had all enjoyed a picnic with some other wolves, and could only assume that one of her friends had transferred her here for better comfort and for that, she was grateful.

Taking the two flights of stairs down slowly, she kept her hand firmly planted on the handrail for added support. As soon as she reached the ground floor, she could hear distinctive chatter coming from the end of the hallway which opened up to a living room, and she followed the sound with a small smile on her face, looking forward to the great cooking of the pack chef whom she had grown very fond of these past couple of weeks.

Her mouth watered just at the thought.

"And sleeping beauty awakes!" Raphael announced before he she even entered the kitchen, having sensed her to be awake the moment she opened her eyes.

"Oh, stop teasing her!" Linda, the pack chef lightly chastised the wolf with a slap of a spoon to the back of his hand rested on top of his mates, and Anastasia couldn't help but guffaw at the sight. "Give her a chance to sit down and get some food in her before you get started with all your nonsense."

"Thank you, Linda." She grinned up at the woman before rounding the counter and pressing a soft kiss to her cheek, gladly accepting the steak dinner which had been especially reserved for her.

Anastasia absolutely adored steak. Heavy on the meat and light on the vegetables, just the way she liked it.

"How did you sleep?" Justas asked from over his cup of coffee, lightly massaging Raphael's hand as the wolf was still pouting about the light tap.

"Well." She smiled at him before raising both her knife and fork, getting ready to tuck in. "Were you the one that put me in bed?"

Justas merely nodded, a man of few words.

"Thank you." She smiled gratefully at him before turning to Raphael and pulling a less than pleasant face at him, one which both burst out laughing out while Justas' lip merely twitched in response.