Rejected and Pregnant I Fled The Pack novel Chapter 18

Chapter 18

Before I could answer, the door behind her opened further, and a familiar, heavier presence filled the doorway.

My father.

He stood there taking in the scene with a slow, assessing gaze that I recognized instantly and hated just as instantly-the same calculating expression he’d worn for as long as I could remember, the one that treated every crisis as simply another political variable to be managed.

“I heard raised voices,” he said, stepping into the room, his eyes moving between Marissa’s tear-streaked face and the test still clutched in her hand. Whatever he saw there, he processed with unnerving speed, something almost like satisfaction settling into his expression. “Well. It seems congratulations might be in order.”

A growl tore out of my chest before I could stop it, low and furious, echoing off the office walls.

“Don’t,” I warned him.

My father raised an eyebrow, entirely unbothered by the warning, the way he’d been unbothered by every growl I’d ever aimed at him since I was old enough to have a temper of my own. “Don’t what, exactly? Point out that you might be about to have two children by two different women within months of each other? That’s rather significant news, Damon, regardless of how uncomfortable it makes you.”

“This isn’t the time.” My hands curled into fists at my sides, my wolf snarling right alongside me, torn between fury at my father’s casual dismissal of the wreckage in front of him and the sick, spiraling panic still churning through my own chest. “Evelyn is pregnant too. I just felt it through the bond. I need to find her, and instead I’m standing here dealing with—”

“With the consequences of your own choices,” my father finished, entirely upmoved by my rising anger. “Yes, I imagine that is rather inconvenient timing.”

“Inconvenient.” I stared at him, disbelief momentarily overtaking my panic. “My mate is somewhere out there, alone, pregnant with my child, because I destroyed everything we had. And you’re calling this *inconvenient.*”

“I’m calling it exactly what it is.” My father’s voice hardened, some of the practiced calm giving way to genuine irritation now. “A mess of your own making, one that now has significant implications for pack succession. Two potential heirs, from two different women, one of whom fled the pack entirely under circumstances that reflect rather poorly on your judgment. This isn’t simply your personal heartbreak to manage anymore, Damon. This affects the entire pack’s stability.”

Marissa let out a small, broken sound beside me, and I felt a fresh wave of guilt crash over me

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at the reminder that she was standing right there, listening to my father discuss her pregnancy like à political liability rather than an actual, frightened person.

“Get out,” I said, and this time I aimed it at both of them-Marissa, still clutching that test with shaking hands, and my father, standing in my doorway with that same calculating expression he’d worn my entire life. “Both of you. I need to think, and I can’t do that with either of you in this room right now.”

My father studied me for a long moment, something unreadable passing behind his eyes, before he finally inclined his head, unbothered as ever. “We’ll speak properly once you’ve calmed down. This needs to be handled correctly, Damon. For the pack’s sake, if nothing else.”

He left without waiting for a response. Marissa lingered a moment longer, wiping at her eyes, before she too finally retreated, the door clicking shut softly behind her.

Alone again, I sank back into my chair, the flutter of the bond still humming faintly in my chest-proof, undeniable now, that Evelyn was somewhere out there carrying my child, a child I hadn’t earned the right to know anything about, a child whose mother had every reason in the world never to let me find her.

I put my head in my hands, my wolf whimpering low and miserable inside me, and understood with sudden, crushing clarity that whatever I’d hoped to fix by finding Evelyn again had just become infinitely more complicated.

I still had to find her. That much hadn’t changed.

But now, whatever I said when I finally did, it would have to account for the fact that I was about to become a father twice over-once to a child conceived in love and betrayed by my own weakness, and once to a child conceived in the exact mistake that had cost me everything.

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