Rejected and Pregnant I Fled The Pack novel Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Marissa was quiet for a long moment, and when I glanced up from my phone, I found her staring at the floor, arms wrapped around herself in a way that looked, for the first time since this began, genuinely uncertain.

“I didn’t think it would go this far,” she said quietly

“What did you think would happen?” The anger in my voice surprised even me, sharp and sudden, finally finding a target that wasn’t purely internal. “You knew I’d just marked her. You knew what that meant. And you climbed into my bed anyway, and when she caught us, you laughed in her face this morning like none of it mattered.”

“I know.” Her voice cracked. “I know, Damon, I’m not trying to excuse it. I just —I’ve wanted you for so long, and when you finally—”

“That’s not an excuse.” I cut her off, my phone buzzing in my hand, and my heart lurched violently before I registered it was just a notification from some pack group chat, not Evelyn. The disappointment hit harder than I expected. “None of this is an excuse. Not for you. Not for me. I let it happen. I could have stopped it at any point over the last few weeks and I didn’t, because some selfish part of me wanted both of you, and I told myself that was normal because it’s what my father did.”

“Isn’t it?” Marissa asked, something almost desperate in her voice now. “Normal, I mean. For alphas?”

“I don’t care anymore what’s normal.” I turned back to my phone, typing again, the words spilling out faster than I could fully think them through. “I care that the woman I marked, the woman I promised myself to, is somewhere out there right now, alone, possibly carrying my child, because I couldn’t keep myself from ruining the one good thing I actually had.”

*Evelyn. I need you to understand something. What I did wasn’t about not wanting you. It was about my own weakness, and I am so sorry that you’re the one paying for it.*

*Please come back. Or if you won’t come back, please just talk to me. I’ll fix whatever needs fixing. I’ll do whatever it takes.*

I hit send and immediately felt the hollow futility of it settle back into my chest. She wasn’t answering. She wasn’t going to answer. I could feel it in the bond too-faint now, distant, like she was actively working to shut me out of it, and the realization that she might actually succeed, might actually manage to close that connection entirely, sent a fresh spike of panic through me.

“Damon.” Marissa’s voice was small behind me. “What do you want me to do?”

I turned to look at her fully then, really look at her, and found that whatever I’d felt for her over the past few weeks-whatever careless, selfish thing had driven me into her bed-had

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curdled entirely into something that looked a lot more like resentment.

“I want you to leave,” said. “Not just this room. I think you need to leave the pack for a while. I can’t look at you right now without seeing exactly what we cost her.”

Her face crumpled, but she didn’t argue. She turned and left without another word, the door clicking shut softly behind her, so different from the violence with which I’d slammed it shut myself not twenty minutes earlier.

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