CHAPTER 1

Lexi

“Push Lexi, push!” his voice whispers near me, raw with panic but firm. Manny Rex, my mate and husband-to-be, brushes the hair off the wetness of my forehead. His eyes tell me everything I need to know—he’s not prepared to lose me, Lexi.

“I can't, I can't,” I pant, blowing hot breath through pursed lips, pain ripping through me like wildfire in relentless waves.

His hands grip mine tighter. He touches my cheek with the back of his hand, wiping the hot tears off. “Look at me,” he says hoarsely. With difficulty, I tilt my head upwards to meet his piercing eyes. For a moment, I forgot about my pain and thought of how beautiful our children would look if they got his eyes.

“Don't worry about anything else, Lexi. You can hold my hand as tightly as you want, I'm here with you. And you can do it.”

Across the top of the mountain of my swollen belly covered in green sheets, the anxious doctor's eyes peer at me. He nods in encouragement and so do the two nurses with him.

“Lexi,” Manny’s voice jabs at my almost blocked ears again.

“Manny?”

“Lexi, you just need to push, that's all. Can you do that for me?” he asks, smiling nervously.

“Hold me, Manny, hold me, please.”

“I'm never going to let go—”

“Mmh,” I groan softly.

“My diamond in the rough,” he whispers with an encouraging grin and that smile melts away most of my fear. Almost a year ago Manny said those words to me on a park bench, sharing a cone of chocolate ice cream, my favorite.

‘I don't believe I'm capable of letting you go,’ he had said whilst holding my stare.

‘I'm too rough for you,’ I'd told him but he replied: ‘my diamond in the rough.’

Two summers ago under a full moon, I was a rogue wolf running from a past I’d rather forget, and he was the alpha who found me by the riverbank, wounded and defiant. He didn’t care that I was packless; he saw me, truly saw me, and our love grew from whispered promises and stolen glances into something sweet and unshakable. He’s my match in every way, fierce yet tender, a leader who chose me when no one else would.

“There, Lexi,” his voice comes to me again through the lava-hot pain racking through my torso. “There, you're doing it.”

I arch my back and push. More sweat beads pop on my forehead and many other places as another contraction hits.

“You're doing it, Lexi,” Manny's jubilant voice cries beside me, his face turned towards the end of the table where the doctor is hunched over between my open legs. “Yes, yes!”

I let out another shriek, my back arching so hard that it feels like a boulder is passing through me on its way down a hill. Wild agony stretches my core one final time and I feel a second of relief as something pops out between my thighs. A brief moment of joy comes between me and the excruciating pain—I have just become a mother. Oh my days!

Manny let go of my hand slowly, his face still turned away. He rips the nose mask off his face, his jaw drops and he gasps.

“Lexi—”

“Manny?”

I try to sit up, worry evident in my furrowed brows.

He looks at me. “It's gorgeous,” he belches, “It's the most beautiful thing, look, it's the most—”

The doctor holds the pinkest little infant I've ever seen under the bright surgical lights. Manny's hands curl around mine again. A wave of relief and happiness washes over me, over and over again until it becomes a giddy storm.

“Let me hold it,” I call, struggling to raise limp hands that weigh tons each. Manny takes the baby now wrapped in a white cloth from the midwife, a broad grin on his face. But as he sidles to me with our new infant, a bolt of pain punches its way through my diaphragm and I grit my teeth.

“Argh!” I scream.

“Lexi! Are you okay?”

I shake my head vigorously, unable to describe the new pain that's just now crawling through my back to my belly. The midwife and the other nurse disappear between my legs, then their faces appear again.

“It appears you're not done.”

I nod. Yes. I'm not done. Pain numbs the memory, and even a pregnant woman could forget everything the scans showed her. Yes. I'm having twins, aren't I?

‘Double the joy,’ Manny told me last night just before my water broke.

So I let myself open, as wide as I can, pushing with every muscle I can muster. It is faster this time, but no less painful. With one gust of strength, my second child slips into this world.

Manny's smiling face blocks the bright light.

“Hey, you did it,” he says with a dry tone. The midwife had taken possession of the first baby. “I told you that you could, did I not?”

I nod. “Let me hold them.”

I raise my weak and trembling hands up to him, demanding to feel the tenderness of my babies’ skin against mine.

His lips tighten, he sighs. “No.”

“Manny?”

“You need rest. You're tired,” he replies in a flat, soulless murmur and he won't look at me.

I raise my head slightly to see the doctor and nurses filing out of the room, each of the nurses holding the gifts of life I just let into the world against their chest.

Where are they taking my babies?

“At least let me see their faces,” I reach out to hold Manny’ arm, exhaustion wracking every bone in me but he moves away from my hold, heading for the open door.

My heart pangs.

“Manny, what is this?” I ask, premonition pricking at my soul. Something is wrong. “Manny?”

Sophia Rex, his mother, walks in clutching my twin babies. She looks at the babies then to me and a sneer pulls the sides of her lips and she scoffs.

“Sophia?” I call but she gives me the evil eye and walks out.

Manny stands there with his broad back to me. “Manny, what's going on?”

“You should forget about the children.”

I exhale shakily, pain pulsating from my centre throughout my body as my lungs are completely drained of air.

There is a steady ringing in my left ear as I struggle to find oxygen.

“What?” I ask, finally building pace with my breathing.

His words struck me in the gut. Am I being punked? Manny has always been a playful lover. Perhaps this is a joke and I should wait for the punchline.

He turns slowly to look at me and it is like gazing at a pack of ice.

Sophia’s face appears at the door. “Manny, we have to leave,” she says acidly.

“Just a moment, mom,” he replies, then he turns his body but still won't look at me, his eyes glowing with a hint of red. “This is it, Lexi. The end of the road for us. A rogue would never! Be my Luna.”

What? What is he saying? A date has already been set for our wedding.

“What the hell is going on? What are you saying?” I spit, my lips trembling, my heart aching, refusing to see the obvious ruse I had been plunged into.

He scoffs, turns to me and pins me to the bed with eyes that glow like embers.

‘Please, Manny, don't say it. Don't say it please,’ I beg in my head, my wolf whimpers, both of us knowing what is going to happen next.

Does he have no dignity? No pity? I just gave birth to his children and he wants to do this to me? Did he never love me?

“I Alpha Manny Rex,” he hisses,

“Reject you, Lexi Jordan, as my fated mate.”

His words are like a knife driven into my heart. My wolf whines inside me, scraping at my ribs, as if trying to break out of my chest but I keep my back straight.

His balled fists clench and unclench, the air in the room shifts and as he steps closer to the door, a part of me frays as he leaves. Not even the moaning pain from my chest could stop him. Like the twisting of a corkscrew, Manny has unwound his heart from mine.

This is not true. This is not happening to me.

But it is.

Why? Because I’m a rogue? I thought he was different from the rest of them.

“Why Manny, why?” I mutter in tears, too weak to raise my voice to match my pain, too numb to move. I feel used and empty inside, completely null and void, a human abyss of nothing but grief and anguish.

I never saw his betrayal coming.

He pauses at the door one more moment, his hand rummaging in the pocket of his jeans.

He mumbles, “I only needed the children, and that's all.”

He tosses something on the bed and it lands near my hand. It is a flash drive. “There. It contains your payment. Thank you for your services.”

With my mouth agape and my heart torn, I watch the flash drive closely as Manny leaves my life and slams the door shut.