The Fake Daughter Sold Her Blood, So the Alpha Bought Her Back novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Mercer Street Clinic
A bodyguard kicks Willa to the floor in front of her family and a filming Sabrina; she stands on her own and finds a card telling her not to take her pill, which she already has.
The cashier at the downtown donor clinic counted six twenties into my hand.
"Rare-type rate," she said. "Don't tell anyone what you were paid, and don't tell anyone your blood type."
She had said it every Tuesday and Thursday for four months.
I pressed the cotton ball into my elbow and rolled my sleeve down.
Six years ago, the family that raised me threw me out for being their fake daughter.
Since then I had sold my blood to pay rent and to pay for my iron pills.
My bottle would run out on Saturday, so I took out my phone to call my doctor.
There was a text from my mother, or the woman who had been my mother for nineteen years, sitting above the keypad.
She sent one every few months, and it was always the same.
Keep taking your pills, sweetheart. They're all that keeps you safe.
I never answered, but I always took the pills.
The lobby doors swung open.
Two men in black suits came in first, and behind them came my old mother, Lorna, and her daughter Sabrina.
The real one, the family said. The one who turned up after me.
Sabrina had her phone up, filming the whole lobby.
"Mom, Rhys's appointment is at four," she said. "We're early."
Then she saw me.
Lorna's face softened right away.
"Willa," she said. "Oh, honey, you look so thin. Come here."
She held out her arms, and I took a step toward her before I could stop myself.
"Please hold her," Lorna said to the men. "She isn't well."
I didn't understand until a hand shoved the back of my knee.
One of the bodyguards had kicked it.
My legs folded, and my knees hit the tile so hard that my teeth clicked.
The twenties slid out of my hand and across the floor.
"You!" Sabrina screamed. "You followed us here! You came to beg Rhys for money!"
"I'm here to sell blood," I said. "I'm here every week."
"Look at her, everyone," Sabrina said to her phone. "The fake daughter, on the floor, again."
The waiting room had gone quiet.
A man with a bandaged arm looked away, and a girl in scrubs stared at my knees.
Nobody moved, and the red dot on Sabrina's screen kept blinking.
Lorna crouched beside me and spoke in a low voice.
"Conrad wants you far from this family, and so do I," she said. "Go home and take your pills."
Conrad Dunleavy was the man I had called Dad, who once carried me home from the pack gate on his shoulders.
He was also the one who had signed the paper that cast me out.
I was about to tell her what she could do with her pills when the elevator chimed.
A man stepped out of it.
He was tall and pale, in a grey coat, and he leaned on a black cane.
He took one breath through his nose and stopped walking.
His eyes went to me, and for a second they were gold.
"Rhys!" Sabrina's voice turned sweet. "Baby, this is the beggar I told you about. Don't look at her."
He didn't look at her.
"Take your hands off her," he said to the guard.
The guard let go so fast he stumbled.
Rhys Hargrove limped across the tile and held out his hand to me.
He was the Alpha of the Hargrove pack, and he was Sabrina's fiancé, and the whole lobby was watching.
I looked at the hand.
Then I looked at the red dot, and at Lorna's careful smile.
If I took his hand, Sabrina's video would say I'd thrown myself at her man.
So I stood up on my own.
My knee screamed, and I stayed upright anyway.
"Miss," Rhys said quietly. "Who gave the order?"
"Nobody gave an order," Lorna said. "She tripped."
"She tripped," Sabrina said.
I bent down, slowly, and picked up my six twenties one at a time.
Then I turned to Sabrina's phone.
"Post it," I said. "Put my name on it. Willa Ransome."
I walked out through the lobby doors with the whole room still watching me.
I had made it to the bus stop when the nurse from the third floor ran out after me.
She was out of breath, and she held a sealed envelope.
"Triple, today," she said. "Your knee's on him."
"On who?"
"Just take it. And honey, never give your blood type to anybody."
She went back inside.
At the bus stop I tore the envelope open.
There was a thick fold of bills, and a white card behind them.
On the card was a phone number and one line of handwriting.
Do not take your pill tonight. If you already have, call me. Rhys Hargrove.
I took the pill bottle out of my bag and shook it.
I had already swallowed tonight's dose in the clinic bathroom an hour ago.
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