Mated to the Triplet Alphas
Chapter 124: Finally Over

Chapter 124: Chapter 124: Finally Over

I felt his arms tighten around me, his body tensing as something heavy struck his back. His grunt of pain was muffled against my hair as dust and chunks of debris rained down on us.

“Leo!” I gasped, trying to look up at him. His face was twisted in a grimace, sweat beading on his forehead. Blood trickled from a gash near his temple where a piece of concrete had struck him.

“I’m fine,” he growled, though his breathing was ragged. “Just stay down.”

The building continued to shake violently around us. Cracks spread across the walls like lightning bolts, and the floor beneath us tilted at an alarming angle. The automated voice continued its countdown.

Leo lifted his head slightly, quickly assessing our situation. “We need to move. Now.”

He grabbed my hand and pulled me to my feet, his grip surprisingly gentle despite the urgency. We stumbled into the hallway, which was barely recognizable now. It was filled with debris, exposed wiring, and thick dust that made it hard to breathe.

“This way,” Leo urged, tugging me along.

He navigated the crumbling corridors with impressive speed and precision, pulling me close whenever a new tremor shook the building. The emergency lights flickered, casting eerie red shadows across his face.

“How much farther?” I coughed, my lungs burning from the dust.

“Two more floors down,” he replied tersely. “There’s a side exit there that goes down from outside the building. It will be safer than staying inside.”

We rounded a corner and came face to face with a massive gap where part of the floor had given way. Leo didn’t hesitate. He scooped me up and leapt across the chasm, landing with perfect balance on the other side.

“Show-off,” I muttered against his chest. It didn’t stop my heart from skipping a beat. Hopefully, Leo couldn’t hear it with all the commotion around us.

The ghost of a smile crossed his face before he set me down. “Feel free to repeat that when we’re not on the brink of death.”

Another explosion rocked the building, this one closer than the last. The force of it knocked us both against the wall.

“Two minutes remaining,” the automated voice announced calmly, as if commenting on the weather.

“Come on!” Leo grabbed my hand again, pulling me toward a stairwell that was miraculously still intact.

We’d barely made it down one flight when familiar voices echoed from below.

“Hazel!” Lucas’s deep voice carried up to us.

“Lucas!” I exclaimed, relief flooding through me. “Up here!”

Seconds later, Lucas and Liam appeared below us, their faces streaked with dust and sweat. Lucas’s expression was a mixture of anger and relief, while Liam seemed ready to cry when we headed down to meet them.

“What the hell were you thinking?” he demanded, but there was no real heat behind his words. He grabbed my shoulders and scanned me up and down for injuries. “How could you run off like that?”

“No time for reunions,” Leo cut in. “This place is about to become a pile of rubble.”

Liam nodded. “Levi’s already outside with Esther. We need to move.”

The building gave another violent shudder, and I stumbled. Lucas caught me effortlessly, his strong arms steadying me against his chest.

“Can you shift?” he asked quickly. “We’d move faster as wolves.”

I tried to shift, but when I tried, I felt a wave of weakness. Pain pierced through my stomach, causing me to grimace.

“I can’t,” I admitted, frustration coloring my voice.

“Thirty seconds remaining,” the mechanical voice intoned.

“Fuck,” Leo cursed. “Run. Now.”

We sprinted down the remaining stairs, the four of us moving as one group. The ground floor was in shambles, with fallen beams blocking the main entrance.

“This way,” Leo directed, pointing to a narrow corridor I hadn’t noticed before.

We followed him, ducking under hanging wires and jumping over debris. The exit appeared at the end of the hallway, illuminated by a flickering emergency light.

Leo shoved it open, and fresh air hit us like a blessing. We burst out into the open, running at full speed away from the doomed facility.

“Ten... nine... eight...” The countdown was audible even from outside.

“Shift!” Lucas yelled.

In seconds, three wolves stood where they once stood.

Lucas took one glance at me, and instantly, I knew he was signaling for me to climb on his back. I didn’t argue, quickly mounting him and gripping his fur tightly.

The wolves took off, racing away from the building with supernatural speed. We’d barely made it a hundred yards when the countdown reached zero.

The explosion was deafening. A massive fireball erupted from the center of the facility, followed by a shock wave that rippled through the ground. The wolves staggered but kept running as the building collapsed in on itself, sending a massive cloud of dust and debris billowing into the air.

We didn’t stop until we reached a safe distance, a small clearing in the woods that surrounded the now-destroyed facility. As I slid off Lucas’s back, a familiar wolf with black fur bounded toward us.

Levi shifted back to human form, hastily pulling on the clothes he’d tied to his ankle.

“About time you guys showed up,” he said, relief evident in his voice. “I was starting to think I’d have to go back in there after you.”

“What happened to Esther?” I asked, my throat dry from dust and exertion.

“Handed her off to the warriors Callum contacted,” Levi explained, running a hand through his messy hair. “They’ve got her secured. Callum’s escorting them back now.”

The other men shifted back to human form, quickly dressing. Lucas immediately pulled me into his arms, burying his face in my hair.

“Don’t ever do that again,” he whispered fiercely. “When that explosion hit and we got separated...”

Liam joined the embrace, his warm arms encircling both of us. “We thought we’d lost you.”

Levi completed the circle, his usual playfulness replaced by raw emotion. “Family hug,” he murmured, his voice uncharacteristically thick.

I felt the tension drain from their bodies as we tightly held onto each other. It was finally over. The facility was destroyed. Esther was captured. We were reunited and all safe.

Leo stood apart from us, his expression unreadable as he watched the smoke rise from the ruins of the building. He looked down and pulled out the photograph from his bag.

Helena’s photograph.

I couldn’t see his face directly, but I could only imagine the sort of expression he must be wearing.

The moment was broken when a sharp pain suddenly stabbed through my lower abdomen. It was so unexpected and intense that I gasped, doubling over.

“Hazel?” Liam’s concerned voice seemed to come from far away.

I tried to straighten up, but the pain intensified. My vision blurred at the edges.

“She’s bleeding,” someone said. The agony was so much that I couldn’t tell who it was anymore.

I looked down and saw with horror that blood was streaming down my legs, staining the ground beneath me. My head felt impossibly light, as if it were filled with air.

“I don’t feel...” I tried to say, but the words slipped away from me.

The last thing I saw was the panicked faces of Lucas, Liam, Levi, and even Leo, as they rushed toward me. The world tilted sideways, and quickly, darkness claimed me.