CHAPTER 2 The Innocent Child

Lexi's eyes flew open and she was greeted by darkness, her heart racing for some inexplicable reason that she couldn't quite put her finger on.

As her awareness returned and the familiar shapes of the furniture in the bedroom that she shared with Allen, one of her fated mates as well as the Beta of the Dark Moon Pack, came into focus, she exhaled a long, slow breath as she sank back into her pillows.

The faint sound of a baby crying drifted through the corridors and seeped into her room as her stomach flipped a little.

That poor, innocent child…

Ada, who was Queen Ann's stepsister, had caused no end of problems for both Lexi and her best friend Ann throughout their life, from childhood all the way up to adulthood. Her death though, still played heavily on her mind.

Despite Ada's actions over the past few years, Lexi couldn't help but feel that in a way, she had managed to redeem herself a little with the choices that she made in the events that led up to her death.

It was sad that her child was now without a mother, but realistically, if Ada hadn't broken the cycle then that child would also have been raised amongst death and hatred, ultimately facing the same fate as its mother had and being sucked into the darkness whether it wanted it or not.

Her selfless act had undoubtedly saved her child's life, and in changing the trajectory of its fate completely, had also probably saved countless more lives.

Now all that remained to be done was to ensure that the baby was delivered safely into its father's arms at The Crystal Pack.

"Hey, what's wrong? Why are you awake?" Allen's husky, sleep-filled voice brought her out of her thoughts and she glanced down at him, smiling softly.

His arm reached across under the covers and draped across Lexi's stomach, pulling at her insistently as his fingers grazed against her skin in soothing, gentle scratching motions.

"You know, just torturing myself with everything that happened during the assault on the coven's headquarters." She grimaced into the darkness as Allen sighed heavily beside her.

He pushed himself up into a sitting position and stroked her face gently.

"You know we couldn't have done anything differently. The fact that Eromaug escaped…"

"If I'd have just been quicker Allen, we could have followed him and that bitch Narcissa and brought an end to all this bullshit."

Try as she might, Lexi couldn't help but shake off the sadness that she felt at both her best friends' colossal misfortune of having such a terrible stepmother in Narcissa, and her own misfortune in having an Uncle who shared the same Daemon Lord status as her father, Lord Brarthroroz, yet was far more depraved and twisted than her father ever had been.

"Or, we could have died in the process," Allen countered seriously, "Stopping to help Ada was absolutely the right choice. Because of you, that baby has a chance at life…"

"And because of me, maybe Aoife and my mother have lost the chance for theirs." She hissed furiously.

Her heart lurched at the thought of Aoife, the tiny, little, natural witch, mated to Alpha Felix, who had both been visiting the Elder's Enclave as dignitaries. Despite only knowing Aoife for a short time, both she and Ann had almost instantly bonded with her and were devastated when her death had been staged at the instructions of Eromaug.

Now that she knew Eromaug had her imprisoned somewhere with her mother, the thought tormented Lexi every waking moment that she had.

"Lexi…" Allen said helplessly as he pursed his lips, desperate to soothe her aching heart and tormented souls, but unsure how he was supposed to do so.

The last thing Allen wanted her to do was to beat herself up over the outcome. Of course, things could have gone differently but it couldn't be helped, Lexi wasn't to blame for what had happened.

Eromaug was to blame for all of this and the last-minute revelation that he held not only Aoife, but also her mother somewhere in the depths of his realm, had been a calculated decision on his part.

Clearly, it had produced the desired effect, his callous taunting succeeding in throwing both Lexi and her father into a downward spiral of tempestuous emotions since they had returned, which had them questioning every action they had taken over the past few years.

"There's nothing that you can say that will make any of this any better Allen." Lexi snapped as she pulled away from him and threw the duvet back, slipping out of the bed and padding across the floor to the window.

She wrapped her arms around herself and stared gloomily out into the night, wondering if her mother had ever seen the night sky in all the years that she had been held captive by her bastard Uncle.

Allen's arms suddenly wrapped themselves around her, and the touch of his skin against hers calmed her aching heart. She leaned back into his embrace and sighed deeply.

"I'm sorry, you didn't deserve that. It's just…"

"I know love, I know," Allen murmured as he buried his face in the crook of her neck, allowing his lips to graze softly across her skin.

"Ugh. I'm going to have to play nice with that self-righteous prick as well." Lexi moaned with a grimace.

"With who?"

"Brad. Ann's shithead of an ex-fiance. Surely you know the history…"

"Ah. Yeah. There was a lot of looking into Ann's background, back when I thought Adam was insane for accepting her offer to marry him." Allen answered a little sheepishly as Lexi snorted.

"Well, you were a colossal dick back then to be fair." Lexi shrugged lightly, "You're a little less dickish now though beta-boy. Brad always looked down on me for being a hybrid though, and I can't imagine his attitude has changed much."

"I'd like to see him try with both me and Greyson at your side," Allen snarled, "He'll soon regret speaking against you in front of both of your mates."

"To be fair Allen, he's always regretted taking me on. It never ended well for him. He just gets under my skin and gives me a major case of the ick," Lexi shuddered, "Now I'm supposed to hand over a baby into his care and trust that he's going to raise it properly, and not turn it into a mindless bigot? I'm sorry, but I have zero faith in that prick."

"Attitudes take time to change Lexi, and they're always driven by progress within the capital. Ann is making great strides with the progress made already, and you are now the heroine of the hybrids." Allen chuckled.

"Fuck off," Lexi murmured softly, but she couldn't help the smile that spread on her face.

It warmed her heart to think that somewhere out there, amidst all the chaos of people's daily lives, there was a little hybrid girl out there, hearing stories about her adventures so far and how she and her best friend were changing life for the better for people like her, and wondering if, one day, she too might be able to make a difference to others like Lexi had.

"And… don't forget, as much as it pains me to say it, the whole cheating on his fated mate thing, technically he wasn't completely to blame. Ada and her mother used dark magick to bend him to their will. If anything, try to at least have a little heart for his wolf. From what I hear, he hasn't been the same since. Perhaps you'll be pleasantly surprised when you do meet him again."

"I do feel sorry for his wolf being saddled with that self-obsessed prick as his meat suit," Lexi grunted in response as she felt Allen physically cringe at her analogy of the complex relationship between the wolf part and the human part.

"Let's go back to bed for a little while longer, hmm? We leave in a few hours and I want to be a little selfish with you all to myself before I have to share you with Greyson again." Allen murmured as he allowed his fingers to trail gently across her skin.

Lexi's lips curved into a smile as she allowed herself to savor the delicious sensations of his hands wandering across her skin and under the fabric of her nightclothes.

"Keep going like this and I'm not going to want to be doing any sleeping in bed," Lexi murmured as she felt the need for him inside of her rising.

"Who said anything about sleeping?" Allen growled huskily as he gathered her in his arms and carried her back towards the bed, "I have the perfect solution to making you forget about things for a few more hours."