Natalie~
I had lost my mind.
I mean that quite literally.
There was something about watching Alex—my Alex—crumpled in my arms, blood soaking through his tiny shirt, that cracked something in me. Not just a crack. A break. A fracture that went so deep, it splintered across every version of me that had ever lived and died and loved before.
I wasn't Natalie Cross in that moment.
I was wrath. I was memory. I was divinity reborn.
And I remembered everything.
My fingers trembled as I brushed Alex's hair away from his pale forehead, my knees digging into the dirt where I'd dropped, clutching him close to my chest. His breath was shallow, and my heart stilled with every second that ticked by. I whispered his name over and over like a prayer, like a promise.
"Alex… baby, I'm here, I've got you…"
He blinked up at me with those same bright eyes that made Zane melt. Eyes that called me Mom even before the word ever left his lips.
Someone had dared to hurt him.
