All Chapters of The Cruel Alpha's Unwanted Bride: Chapter 171 - Chapter 180

{~~Avery Sterling~~}Going to the hospital the next day felt different for Logan and me. There was a weight in the air, but it wasn't the kind of heaviness that pressed down with worry or fear; it was something more intimate, a subtle shift between us that had begun the moment I agreed to remove my ring. He’d asked me to take it off, not because he didn’t want the world to see it, but because he wanted the moment when he would propose again to be truly unforgettable. He told me he wanted to catch me off guard, to surprise me when I least expected it, and although that was his intention, a part of me still felt the lingering symbolism of slipping the ring off my finger. It was bittersweet. But it was also nice to think about — that moment, in the future, when he would propose again, with all the weight of the past behind us, and we could start fresh. It gave me something to hold onto, a promise of new beginnings, and I carried that hope with me as I walked through the hospital doors.H

{~~Avery Sterling~~}After speaking with Reina, I slipped out of her room, feeling the weight of the conversation still pressing on my chest. I couldn’t shake the sight of her hollow eyes, the quiet desperation behind her questions. But there was no time to dwell on that now. I had others to tend to, and one of them was waiting in the infant room.I headed to the elevator, going up to the floor where the infant room was situated.As I walked down the hall, I pulled out my phone and texted Logan, asking if he could meet me for lunch. We hadn’t had a moment together in what felt like days, and I needed a break—if only for a few minutes. Logan was always good at grounding me, pulling me out of my head when the chaos of work threatened to consume me. I shoved my phone back into my pocket and headed straight for the nursery, where Hope was being cared for.The door to the infant room slid open with a quiet hiss, and I immediately spotted the nurse. She was moving gently from crib to crib,

{~~Avery Sterling~~}I hadn’t had a nightmare in a long time, but I knew as soon as I stepped into the eerie, fog-draped forest that I was there for a reason. This wasn’t the first time I found myself wandering through this dark and twisted place. There was something hauntingly familiar about the trees, their gnarled branches reaching out like skeletal fingers, the heavy silence broken only by the faint sound of leaves rustling, almost as if whispering secrets. It felt like a memory I could never quite shake—a deep-rooted feeling that something terrible lurked in these woods, something I couldn’t escape.The last time I was here, my sister’s shadow had been stalking me relentlessly, tormenting me with every step I took. It was as if she had become part of the forest itself, her presence suffocating and dark, haunting the life out of me. But this time… this time, it was something different. Something worse. Something that made my skin crawl and the hairs on the back of my neck stand on

{~~Logan Grey~~}I awoke to the gentle pressure of tiny fingers poking at my arm and the soft giggles of an infant filling the air. I smiled before I even opened my eyes, savoring the sweet sound of Hope’s laughter-- or what could be considered laughter. It was like sunshine on a cloudy day, her joy infectious. I sat up slowly, my muscles still heavy with sleep, and blinked in the dim light of the room.There on the blanket, Avery was sitting with Hope, gently bouncing her on her knee. She glanced at me over her shoulder, her expression unreadable but with a hint of something that made my smile fade just a little. There was a worry in her eyes that I couldn’t ignore. I stretched my arms out, shaking off the last vestiges of sleep, but my mind was already focusing on her. Something was off, and I could feel it in the way she kept glancing at me as if debating whether or not to say something.The rain was pounding outside, hammering against the windows in a constant rhythm. It sounded h

{~~Logan Grey~~}I sat behind the long, sterile desk, the hum of the lab equipment barely registering in my mind as I stared into the microscope. My fingers drummed impatiently against the cold surface, and my feet tapped aggressively on the floor. The rhythmic sound filled the silence, but it wasn’t enough to drown out the chaotic thoughts racing through my head. None of this felt real. It was as if time had warped, twisting everything into some cruel, inescapable nightmare. Avery was upset. I was upset. Everyone in this damn building was running around like their lives depended on it. But nothing felt like it was moving fast enough.Hope’s blood test had come back earlier, and I had sent more samples back just to double-check, to make sure there hadn’t been some mistake. But the truth was staring me in the face, no matter how much I wished it wasn’t. Hope—Avery’s baby, our little miracle—was infected with LDS. Lycan Decay Syndrome. The words felt like poison in my mouth every time I