Escape from My Mate's Test-Tube Lie

I wake up, my bandaged forehead throbbing dully. My hand drifts to my slightly swollen belly. I yank out the IV and stumble out of the room.

Passing the stairwell, I freeze at the sound of Logan's best friend, the hospital's deputy director, hissing at him. "Logan, Olivia just had a low blood sugar spell, and you ditched Sophie to play hero! You know if she'd gotten here thirty minutes later, that pup in her belly would've been lost!"

"Have you fallen for Olivia? Have you forgotten how the Grants destroyed the Ramirez pack? Do you even care about Sophie?"

Logan's tall frame looms in the shadows, the glowing tip of his cigarette flickering. His dark eyes narrow. "I can't let Olivia go. She's the pup's real mother."

His voice is so cold it chills me to the bone. "I love Sophie, but Olivia's loved me for eight years. She was young and reckless back then, sure, but the Grants are bankrupt now. She's paid her price."

"And Olivia's not trying to steal Sophie's place. I've given Sophie the title of my mate, the power, the status. Letting Olivia's pup be my heir? That's fair."

His friend stammers, "So that's why you ordered the healers to scrape Sophie's womb five times before the test-tube procedure? To make sure any miscarriage would cause a hemorrhage, maybe even cost her her womb? So she'd have no choice but to carry the pup, even if she learned the truth?"

Another brutal truth rips through my already shattered heart. I stand rooted, my mind blank.

I didn't know Logan had blocked every escape route I had left.

I tremble with rage, ready to storm in and confront him, but his next words stop me cold.

"Sophie won't leave me." His lips curve into a smug, obsessive smirk. "Her mom's gone. I'm her last family in this world. And unless I'm dead, I'll never let her go."

A chill races from my toes to my scalp. Logan's not just ruthless-he's unhinged.

I have to play dumb and slip away quietly.

I force myself back to my room, just as a nurse comes to change my bandages. "Ma'am, your wound's stopped bleeding, but we need a CT scan to be sure."

I nod, not thinking much of it.

She leads me to the MRI room, but as soon as I lie down, she straps me to the table. Before I can react, she shoves a wad of gauze in my mouth and slides me into the machine's tight, dark tunnel. Then she walks out.

My heart sinks. Something's wrong.

I thrash, trying to scream, but the gauze muffles me. I hear her lock the door and warn others the room's under maintenance, off-limits.

I'm alone in the dim, cavernous space.

Claustrophobia claws at me, wrapping me in suffocating dread. My bound body shakes, sweat soaking my skin. It's like I'm back in high school, when Olivia and her pack stripped me, doused me in filthy slop, and locked me in a metal coffin in the school's basement biology lab for three days and nights.

That trauma left me with crippling claustrophobia. Four years ago, Logan spent half our savings on a therapist to pull me out of that nightmare.

Now, I'm trapped again, my breaths shallow, my body drenched in sweat. The pain in my abdomen flares, and a humiliating urge to pee overwhelms me.

Seventeen hours later, a suspicious night-shift healer finally unlocks the door and frees me.