Rejected and Pregnant I Fled The Pack novel Chapter 2

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Evelyn pov

I don't remember the walk back to my room. One moment I was on my knees in the dirt beneath that oak tree, and the next I was fumbling with my own door handle, my hands shaking so badly it took three tries to get it open.

I made it to the bathroom just in time.

My stomach turned itself inside out, and I gripped the edges of the toilet like it was the only solid thing left in the world. Somewhere between the retching and the tears, I couldn't tell anymore which was making me sicker—the image burned into my mind of Marissa's legs wrapped around him, or the phantom scent of jasmine and vanilla that seemed to have followed me home, clinging to the inside of my nose no matter how many times I gagged.

*You had to see this coming.*

His voice looped in my head like something feral, gnawing at the edges of whatever composure I had left. I heaved again, even though there was nothing left to bring up, my body simply refusing to let go of the horror it had witnessed.

My wolf whimpered low in my chest, a sound I felt more than heard, curling in on herself somewhere deep inside me. She had trusted him too. She'd surged forward eagerly the night before when he bit down over my pulse point, had preened under the mark like it was something sacred, something permanent. Now she just whined, small and confused, unable to understand how the same man who'd claimed us with such reverence could look at us hours later like an inconvenience.

*How could he.*

I said it out loud this time, my voice cracking against the bathroom tile, echoing back at me in the empty room. How could he mark me—bind my very soul to his—and still find his way into another woman's bed within a day? How could Marissa, who'd braided my hair before my mother's funeral, who'd sworn on everything she loved that she'd never do to me what her own mother had done to hers, climb into that bed like it cost her nothing at all?

I sat back against the cool porcelain of the tub, drawing my knees to my chest, and let myself shake.

The mark on my neck throbbed faintly, a low pulse that should have felt like comfort and now felt like a brand. Proof of my own foolishness, permanently inked into my skin. I pressed my fingers against it, half expecting it to hurt worse, to somehow physically manifest the betrayal coursing through the bond. It didn't. It just sat there, warm and steady, mocking me with its permanence.

*I can't stay here.*

The thought arrived so clearly, so suddenly, that it felt less like a decision and more like an instinct—the same kind of instinct that told my wolf to run when danger was close. And danger was close. Not in the way of claws or teeth, but in the quieter, more insidious way of a pack that would expect me to smile through this. To accept my place beside him and Marissa both, because that was simply how things were done when an alpha decided he wanted more than one woman. I'd seen it before, in other pairings, other pack politics dressed up as tradition. I'd never imagined it would be my own life.

I don't know how long I sat there on the bathroom floor before I finally found the strength to stand, gripping the sink edge to pull myself up. My reflection in the mirror looked like a stranger—eyes swollen, cheeks streaked, hair still mussed from running through the trees. I turned on the tap with hands that hadn't fully stopped trembling and reached for my toothbrush, desperate to scrub the taste of bile and heartbreak out of my mouth, desperate for one small thing to feel normal again.

I'd barely gotten the toothbrush to my lips when the door swung open behind me.

I didn't need to turn around. I could smell him—cedar and rain, a scent that used to make my chest go warm and now made my stomach lurch all over again. Damon stood in the doorway of my room like he owned it, like walking into my private space uninvited after everything wasn't a violation on top of a violation.

"You ran," he said, arms crossing over his bare chest. He'd pulled on sweatpants at least, though I noted bitterly that he hadn't bothered showering. He still smelled like her. "In front of half the pack."