CHAPTER 2

Lexi

My things sit in a duffel bag on the bed, clothes, a toothbrush, the little wolf charm Manny gave me two summers ago. It’s all I’ve got left, and it’s not enough to fill the hole he’s ripped through me. I stare at the bag, my chest hollow, my body aching from birth and betrayal.

He promised me forever but he never mentioned what kind of forever.

I can’t believe I’m a rogue again, discarded like trash after giving him our twins.

Was I really just an incubator to him?

The pain gnaws deeper, a jagged blade twisting with every memory of his smile, his touch, his lies.

Suddenly, a heave rises inside me and I race into the bathroom. Leaning over the toilet, I dry-retch repeatedly until it feels like my guts are going to fall out of me. Exhausted, I sit on the damp, cold floor to think things over again.

I could fight this.

Manny has made his crooked choice to abandon me, but my innocent children were ripped from their mother's arms before they could even taste my milk. They deserve someone who would be willing to fight for them, but the fight in me burnt out a long time ago.

Growing up as a rogue meant I had to learn to be the fight, but Manny had somehow loved me into complacency.

The door swings open as I shuffle into the bedroom again, and two pack guards step in—big, stone-faced brutes in black leather jackets. One has a Mohawk dyed pink and the other has brown dreadlocks.

Their stern faces tell me everything I need to know, they are here to evict me.

“Time to go, Lexi,” one of them grunts.

I scoff and sigh at him.

“Lexi? Am I no longer Luna to you?”

He ignores me and moves to grab my bag instead. The other guard motions me toward the hallway.

“No!” I hold the head board tightly for support as my legs feel shaky.

“I’m not leaving without seeing him. Manny owes me that much— tell him to face me, you cowards!”

They exchange a vacant look.

“Alpha’s orders. You’re out,” one of them says, shrugging.

“Out?” I lunge, shoving the nearest one, my nails digging into his arm. “He rejected me after I gave him everything! He doesn’t get to hide— bring him here, or I’ll scream this place down! I’ll accept his rejection to his damn face!”

As I stare into their blank eyes, I realize that being tough is not working with them, so I release all the tears waiting at the floodgate.

“Please. I just lost two of my children when my body is still torn apart from having them. I just need…anything.”

I sigh wearily and look up at them.

The pink mohawk guard snarls, but the other’s eyes flash, mindlinking and then he mutters, “Fine. Private chambers. Move,” a hint of patois in his accent.

They haul me through the packhouse, past stares and whispers, to Manny’s door. He’s there, leaning against his desk, eyes cold as ice.

He looks from me to the two henchmen and back, a sneer on his lips, lips I've kissed so many times. He nods for them to leave and when we're alone he says, “What now?”

A lump rises into my throat and there it lodges itself, blocking the protests I'd planned. But a fire burns inside me, a mix of pain and anger, as my body shakes all over.

“Do it, then,” he says, voice flat. “Accept it and go.”

I step closer, trembling, letting the hurt spill out of me. “You promised me, Manny. You said I'll be yours forever. My ‘diamond in the rough,’ remember? If your pack’s forcing this—if Sophia’s behind it—we can fight them. Together. Like we always have.”

My hand brushes his arm, and for a split second, his mask cracks—his jaw softens, his breath hitches. I feel him waver, the boy I loved peeking through. His gray eyes roll down to the spot where my hand touches his arm, and for a moment it looks like something is shifting inside him.

Maybe there's redemption for us. Maybe this is all a test, a huddle to some higher attainment in love.

Maybe—

He sighs, raises his head to look at me and the chill in his eyes is enough to freeze a lake.

“Manny?” I gasp.

Maybe the real mask is the tenderness he showed me for as long as I aligned with his plan to stab me in the back.

“Accept it, Lexi,” he says through gnashed teeth. “Accept it and leave.”

“Please, Manny, I love you,” I blubber, hands extended, body shaking. “We can make this work, I'll do whatever you want. Is it Sophia? I'll do whatever she asks too. I don't care if we don't get married anymore, just please, let me stay. Let me raise our kids, they’ll need their mother, please….”

A lonesome tear breaks out of the corner of my eye, rolls down my cheek, a bitter testament to what happened.

I lean in, kiss him on the cheek, and blubber on, “Manny, please…”

I plant kiss after kiss on the corner of his lips. A deep sigh escapes from his chest as our lips touch, his lips crack open to kiss me too. He softens, and leans back slightly, his eyes swooning.

Then he turns his face away, as if he has just done the unthinkable by letting me kiss him.

All the hardness has gone from his expression, replaced with a—is it hurt? Regret?

His eyes drop. He bites his lower lip, and heaves a sigh again.

Our faces are inches apart, my hand resting on his arm, holding him. I take his hands in my palms, searching into his averted eyes. “Manny? Talk to me. Say you take me back, please. Take back your rejection and let’s figure this out together.”

A slight grimace breaks through his eyebrows, a questioning look, a probing glint in his eyes as he looks at me with that uncertain stare. Manny begins to say something but stops and looks away again, as if to collect his thoughts, to refine it.

As his hot breath clouds my senses, I think about what I am about to do. I have always disliked this part of being a rogue—the running.

This time, however, push has come to shove.

I search my mind for a path that does not have to be littered with so much broken trust.

My other hand slips into my waistband, fingers closing around the syringe I swiped from the hospital. My movements are lightening fast.

Before he can blink, I jam the syringe filled with the blue liquid into his neck and press the plunger. A confused grimace knots his eyebrows and his eyes pop at me.

I pull the syringe out and step away from him, my body tense, prepared to stab again and pump air or whatever is remaining in the syringe into him should he get ideas.

Manny mouths something but his eyes are already swimming, and his legs buckling as he staggers towards me.

“W-what did you—”

His eyes widen for a moment and he seems like he's fighting the sedative, a growl dying in his throat as he staggers, then crumples to the floor.

I lean over him, voice steady and whisper in his ear, “I accept your rejection, Alpha Manny Rex.”

“Uh—”

My heart is racing, but nothing romantic about it—there’s just fury.

Red hot anger at a man I trusted who turned around to betray me, and he has the guts to take my babies!

There's a part of me that used to love him, that would do anything for him. That Lexi didn't make it out of the hospital bed, she died shortly after he handed my children to his mother and left me there at my lowest.

The part of me left is a rogue who only knows how to take and avenge.

Straddling him, with the syringe still clutched in my grip— just in case I have to go to work with the needle to keep him down.

“Okay, Manny, stay down while I get my babies and get out of here,” I whisper coldly.

His throat makes a meaningless croaking sound, his eyes mere slits— he’s out cold. The punk guards are nowhere to be seen, the coast is clear as I come out with my duffel.

I limp down the hall, pain screaming through my body which needs to heal from childbirth, but my wolf surges and propels me on, guiding me to the nursery.

A blonde girl slumbers on a beanbag in a corner of the room— a hired nurse. If I'm quiet enough, she won't be a problem.

My babies are mine, and no one— not Manny, not Sophia— will keep them from me.

My heart melts like butter to heat as I near the crib that Manny and I had gone together to pick out for the children.

I smile as I see the soft, red face of my son. He looks peacefully asleep, but something is missing.

I frantically search the room with my eyes for his twin. From the corner of my eye, I notice that the nurse is clutching something firmly to herself and as I tiptoe towards her to inspect, I confirm that it is in fact my other baby.

I let out a quiet sigh of exhaustion as I look from crib to bean bag, trying to figure out how to take my other child without waking the nurse.

The need to cuddle them tugs at the mother in me, but there's no time. There'll be all the cuddling to do later but for now, I need to transport delicate babies out of this place. The air here is poisoned with disloyalty and oath breaking.