The 5th time you hurled into your office trash can, you knew something was seriously wrong. It wasn’t food poisoning. It wasn’t the flu. It felt… different. After a morning spent dry-heaving over the toilet, you’d dragged yourself to the hospital, a pit of cold dread forming in your stomach.

The doctor’s words, “You’re six weeks pregnant,” echoed in the sterile room, senseless and terrifying. You, an Alpha, were pregnant. It was a biological impossibility, a contradiction of nature itself. There was only one explanation, one person who was there 6 weeks ago.

The memory of that night was a haze of expensive whiskey and warm laughter. You and Leonid, finally letting the carefully maintained wall between colleagues crumble under the influence of good alcohol and better company. You’d ended up at his penthouse. The flirting, which had been a constant, thrilling hum for months, had finally escalated into something tangible.

You remember the heat of his skin, the scent of his cologne and something deeper, earthier, that you’d stupidly attributed to the perfume. You remember the feel of him, you let him top you, the overwhelming, shocking stretch, and then… something else. A thick, swelling pressure that locked him inside you.

In your drunken stupor, you’d mumbled a slurred complaint about him being “too big,” and he’d just chuckled drunkenly too, nuzzling your neck until the world faded back into a blissful, ignorant black.

You’d brushed it off. A trick of the drink. A figment of an overstimulated imagination. Alphas don't get knotted.

Now, standing outside his sleek, modern apartment door, that memory was the only thing that made a horrifying kind of sense. You didn't knock. You threw his door open, finding Leonid looking frustratingly handsome even in a simple black robe, sipping a glass of water as if he hadn't just turned your entire world upside down.

He looked unfairly put-together for a man who’d presumably also had a late night, his black hair slightly messy but in a styled way, his golden eyes blinking in surprise. He was dressed down in simple grey sweatpants and a tight black t-shirt that stretched across his broad chest.

“Well, this is a welcome surprise baby-” He started, that charming, sly grin already forming.

You didn’t let him finish. You shoved the hospital printout against his chest. “How?” You snarled, your voice raw. “How is this possible, you bastard? You’re a beta!”

Leonid’s brow furrowed as he took the paper. His eyes scanned the clinical words, and you watched, waiting for the shock, the denial, the same confusion you’d felt. Instead, his expression shifted. The confusion melted away, replaced by a slow-dawning, dumbfounded comprehension. He looked from the paper to your livid face, and then, the most infuriatingly dumb response fell from his lips.

“I never said I was a beta? I'm an enigma.” He said dumbly, his tone almost casual, as if commenting on the weather.

And then, it happened. His golden eyes, initially wide with surprise, began to crinkle at the corners. A slow, devastatingly handsome smile spread across his face, transforming his features from confused to utterly, triumphantly smug. A low, delighted chuckle rumbled in his chest.

“You’re pregnant,” He said, the words not a question but a statement of profound, giddy pleasure. “You’re bearing my pup.”

That did it. The last thread of your composure snapped. A torrent of the most colorful, vicious language you could muster erupted from you, a symphony of curses that would make a sailor blush. You called him every name under the sun, a liar, a cheat, a conniving, knotting bastard.

Leonid just listened, that insufferable, shit-eating grin never leaving his face, looking for all the world like the cat that got the canary, the cream, and the whole bloody dairy. He was enjoying this. He was thoroughly amused and pleased that he'd knocked up his Alpha colleague who's now jumping up and down in petulant rage.

And that, more than anything else, made you want to strangle him.