CHAPTER 3

Lexi

As I strap my twin babies to my body, one against my bosom his little head tucked under my chin, and the other on my back, his soft weight pressed against my spine, a sickening thought occurs to me.

Sneaking into the nursery was easier than it should be— just a creaky door and a sleeping nurse. 

Something is off but not even my sniffing wolf coan find what it is. I pick my duffel, give the room one last sweep and head for the door. 

Something rouses behind me and freezes. The nurse is awake, and her eyes are growing in her face with shock, her hand slipping towards a button on the wall. 

She presses it and a shrill tears the evening in pieces. 

“Damn you, girl!” I curse escaping through the open door and down the hall. 

Behind me, the nurse's naked feet patters in pursuit. The alarm continues, an alternating booming woop-woop and high pitched ween-ween. 

My heart lurches. They know.

I stumble into the hallway, legs burning from the birth, when Sophia steps into my path. 

“Sophia…”  

“Your audacity sickens me!” she spits, lips pulled back from white teeth. 

“They're my babies!” 

Her lips curl into a sneer, eyes glinting with venom. “You think you can take Rex blood, you filthy rogue? You’re nothing— a stray who spread her legs for scraps. Give me those whelps, now.”

“No! Never!” I snarl, clutching my son tighter as the other squirms against my back. “I’m not letting you touch them.”

She lunges, clawing for the baby on my chest, and I snap. Rage—hot, blinding—floods me, and I slam my fist into her jaw. She crumples like a puppet with cut strings. The nurse who had been lurking behind me, watching our exchange, covers her mouth, gasping.  

I jump over the whimpering Sophia, the warmth of my babies against my body fuels me now more than desperate anger. Only about a yard to the main door and I'll be going out the back, and then the rest is even easier— the forest and the hills, familiar terrain. 

Half a yard to the door and it flings open. Manny staggers into the hallway, eyes wild, chest heaving and a nasty scowl on his face. 

The sedative wore off too fast. I should have doubled the dose. 

“Lexi!” he roars, voice raw. 

“Get out of my way!” 

“Give me the boys, Lexi. I won't ask again!” 

Yes, Manny. I know you won't. I step back, cover the baby on my chest with the duffle bag. The only way out is through. But not through Manny or the guards waiting outside. 

Without much thought, I dive through the nearest window, glass shattering around me. I hit the ground running, the cold night biting at my skin. 

My son wails against my back, a sharp, piercing cry, and the other one whimpers, his tiny body shivering against my chest. They need the warmth of my love and care but here I'm running through the cold night. 

It rips me apart— their discomfort, the wind cutting through the thin shirts on their body—but I can’t stop. I love them too much to let them go, to let him take them. My legs scream, my stitches pull, but I push harder, tears blurring the forest ahead.

The air behind me breathes with the heavy footfalls of pursuers. Among them is Manny, and I can hear his panting as he jumps over fallen trees. 

“Lexi, come back!” Manny’s shout echoes behind me, closer now, his boots pounding with the guards’ steps. 

My twins’ cries grow louder, desperate, and it’s a knife in my gut. I’m hurting them to save them, and it’s killing me, but I can’t let Manny and his mother win.

Suddenly, the treeline thins, the blue-black night sky appears along with the slice of a pale moon. The terrain rises, instinct and an acute sense of smell tells me I'm at the end of this road as I skid to a stop at a cliff’s edge. 

Below, the river churns, dark and unforgiving, a big black snake meandering around spear-sharp rocks jutting out of the fast currents. One miscalculation, and I will be impaled on one of those spiky stones, my body splattered for the sparrows to feast on in the morning. 

Behind me, Manny and his men close in, their growls vibrating through the air. Their heavy huff and puffs rumble, the yelps of their wolves send the bats squeaking and scattering into the night.

The price of freedom is steep. In less than a minute, men from the pack, led by Manny, mad with rage for outwitting him will burst through the pine trees. 

The sobs of the baby on my back shake his little frame, the gasps of the one on my chest pierce my heart, and I clutch them tighter, my own breath ragged. 

I was a rogue wolf, wild, fearless. If I'm going to make it off this cliff, I have to become one again, for the sake of my babies.

A lone, rogue wolf with her twin babies.

I’ve got seconds to choose— jump and risk their lives in the icy water, or stay and lose them to Manny forever. My love for them burns, a wildfire in my chest, and I can’t let them go. 

Not now. Not ever.