Rejected and Pregnant I Fled The Pack novel Chapter 13

Chapter 13

Evelyn pov

Three months.

That’s how long it took me to find this place-a small town called Millbrook Junction, tucked into neutral territory where pack law held no sway, where humans and unaffiliated wolves lived alongside each other without anyone asking too many questions about where you’d come from or why you’d left. Three months of driving, of temporary jobs in temporary towns, of sleeping in motels and eventually a rented room above a hardware store, before I finally found somewhere that felt like it might actually hold still long enough to build something.

I stood in the empty storefront on Main Street, sunlight slanting through the dusty front windows, and let myself imagine it the way I had a hundred times before, back when imagining it felt like a betrayal of the life I was supposed to be living.

A diner. My diner.

I’d wanted this for years-long before Damon, long before the pack politics and Luna training and mate bonds had swallowed up every plan I’d ever made for myself. I used to talk about it constantly in the early days of our courtship, sketching menu ideas on napkins, describing the exact shade of red I wanted for the vinyl booth seats, the specific way I wanted the bell above the door to sound when someone walked in. Damon used to smile and nod along, and I’d mistaken that for genuine interest instead of what it actually was-patient tolerance for a dream he had no intention of ever letting me chase.

*You’ll be Luna,* he told me once, the third or fourth time I’d brought it up, his tone gentle but final. *Lunas don’t run diners, Evelyn. Your responsibilities will be to the pack.*

I’d let it go, because I loved him, because I told myself there’d be time later, some future version of our life together where I might get to have both. I understood now, standing in this empty storefront three months and one broken bond later, that there never would have been a later. Not with him. Not in that pack. He would have found a hundred reasons over the years why now still wasn’t the right time, why my dream still needed to wait behind everyone else’s expectations.

Well. I wasn’t waiting anymore.

Thank the Moon Goddess for the quiet, stubborn instinct that had made me squirrel away savings for months before I ever imagined I’d need them-money I’d told myself was just in case, some vague safety net I didn’t examine too closely at the time. It turned out to be exactly enough, combined with what I’d managed to earn drifting through those first uncertain months, to put a down payment on this space and start the slow, grueling work of turning it into something real.

I ran my hand along the dusty counter, already picturing where the register would go, where

1/2

+15 Bonus

I’d hang the little chalkboard menu I’d designed weeks ago in a diner-napkin fever of excitement that had nothing to do with anyone’s permission but my own.

*Evelyn’s.*

That’s what I was going to call it. Nothing clever, nothing tied to pack tradition or mate bonds or anyone else’s name but mine. Just Evelyn’s, plain and simple, a small stubborn declaration that I existed now entirely on my own terms.

I pressed a hand against my stomach, still gently rounded now, undeniable in a way it hadn’t been three months ago when I’d first driven away from the pack lands not knowing for certain. I did know now. Had known for two months, ever since a human doctor in some forgettable town had confirmed what my body had already been telling me. A daughter, according to the last appointment. Due sometime in the depths of winter.

I hadn’t told Damon. I wasn’t planning to.

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify