Rejected and Pregnant I Fled The Pack novel Chapter 15

Chapter 15

Evelyn pov

The nausea hit without warning, same as it always did lately, twisting through my stomach hard enough that I barely made it to the small bathroom at the back of the diner before I was

sick.

I knelt there on the cold tile, one hand braced against the wall, waiting for the worst of it to pass. It had been like this for weeks now-not constant, not predictable, just sudden and vicious whenever it decided to strike, usually at the worst possible moments. Halfway through inventory. In the middle of a conversation with Pete about kitchen tile. Now, apparently, at the end of a long day of sanding down the old counter, exhaustion catching up with my body in the cruelest way possible.

When it finally passed, I sat back against the wall, breathing hard, one hand instinctively finding its way to the curve of my stomach.

*A cheater’s pup.

The thought arrived unbidden, ugly and unwelcome, and I hated myself a little for thinking it even as it settled into my chest like a stone. It wasn’t fair to her-my daughter, innocent in all of this, formed from a bond I’d trusted completely before I understood exactly how little that trust had been worth. She hadn’t asked to be conceived the night before her father decided fidelity was optional. She hadn’t asked for any of this.

But some small, wounded part of me couldn’t fully separate the two-the joy I was slowly, cautiously starting to feel about becoming a mother, and the sharp, persistent fear that every time I looked at my daughter’s face, I might catch some echo of Damon staring back at me. His eyes, maybe. Or that particular tilt of his smile I’d once found so devastating and now couldn’t think about without my stomach turning for entirely different reasons.

I pressed both hands against my stomach and made myself breathe.

“It’s not your fault,” I whispered into the empty bathroom, the words echoing faintly off the tile. “None of this is your fault.”

I meant it. I needed to mean it, needed to find some way to separate the love I already felt for this child from the wreckage of the bond that had created her, because the alternative— carrying resentment into motherhood, letting Damon’s betrayal poison something that deserved to exist entirely outside of it-wasn’t a version of myself I was willing to become.

But the fear didn’t fully leave, not even after I’d talked myself calm. It just shifted shape, settling into a different, more practical kind of worry.

*I hope he can’t sense it.*

+15 Bonus

The thought had been creeping into my mind more and more often lately, ever since the pregnancy had become undeniable, ever since I’d started feeling the first fluttering movements low in my belly that confirmed what the doctor’s appointments already had. Mate bonds carried all sorts of things between two wolves-emotion, distress, sometimes even physical sensation if the bond was strong enough. I didn’t know exactly how much Damon might still be able to feel through whatever thin, strained thread still connected us, even after months of me actively working to smother it.

I didn’t know if a father could sense his unborn child through a mate bond. I’d never had reason to learn something so specific, back when I still believed my life would follow a normal, predictable pack trajectory-mating, marking, children raised within pack walls with a Luna’s guidance and a father who actually deserved the title. I’d never imagined I’d need to know how to hide a pregnancy from the very bond that was supposed to celebrate it.

I pulled myself up from the bathroom floor slowly, one hand still braced against the wall, and made my way to the small sink to rinse my mouth out, splashing cool water against my face until some of the clamminess started to fade.

My reflection in the cracked mirror above the sink looked tired but steadier than it had months ago-the version of myself that had run from that pack house in bare feet felt like someone else entirely now, someone I recognized but no longer fully was. I’d built calluses since then, both literal, from months of renovation work, and the other kind, the ones that came from learning to survive entirely on my own terms.

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