Rejected and Pregnant I Fled The Pack novel Chapter 27

Chapter 27

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Chapter 27

Damon moved instinctively at the sound, taking a step closer despite Dr. Reyes’s warning glare, something raw and desperate crossing his face. “Evelyn, please. I’m not here to fight with you, I’m not here to demand anything. I just-I need to know you’re okay. Both of you.”

I gripped the bed rail through the contraction, breathing hard, tears still streaming down my face, and found, in the middle of the worst pain I’d ever experienced, that I didn’t have the strength left to fight him off/ Not right now. Not in the middle of this.

“Stay by the door,” I managed, my voice ragged. “Don’t-don’t touch me. Just stay there.”

Something in his expression cracked at the boundary, but he nodded immediately, retreating to the far corner of the room, hands raised slightly like he was trying to prove he’d honor exactly what I’d asked. Dr. Reyes glanced between us once more before apparently deciding this wasn’t a battle worth fighting in the middle of active labor, and turned her focus back to me.

“Alright, Evelyn, I need you to push on the next contraction,” she said, and everything else in the room seemed to fade slightly, narrowing down to the enormous, consuming work still ahead of me.

I don’t know how long the next stretch lasted. Time seemed to fold in on itself, marked only by the rhythm of contractions and the nurse’s steady counting and Dr. Reyes’s calm, encouraging voice guiding me through each push. Somewhere in the middle of it, I was distantly aware of Damon still standing in the corner, silent, his presence a strange, unwanted comfort I refused to examine too closely, some old instinctive part of me registering that he was there even as the rest of me fought to keep him at arm’s length.

“One more, Evelyn. I know you’re exhausted, but one more big push.”

I found strength I didn’t know I still had left, some final reserve pulled up from somewhere deep and desperate, and pushed with everything I had.

And then, suddenly, overwhelming and immediate, there was a sound that cut through everything else in the room -a thin, furious wail, indignant and alive, filling the space where seconds before there had only been my own ragged breathing and the doctor’s calm instructions.

“There she is,” Dr. Reyes said, warmth breaking through her professional calm for the first time. “A healthy baby girl.”

I let out a sound that was half sob, half disbelieving laughter, all the exhaustion and fear and months of careful preparation collapsing into pure, overwhelming relief as they laid her against my chest-small and warm and impossibly real, dark hair damp against her head, her cries already softening now that she was against me.

“Hi,” I whispered, tears streaming freely now, all of it finally catching up to me at once. “Hi, baby girl.”

I was so consumed by her, by the sheer, staggering reality of finally holding her after months of imagining this moment, that I almost forgot Damon was still in the room. It was the sound of his own breath catching, sharp and audible from the corner, that pulled my attention back toward him.

He stood frozen, one hand pressed against his mouth, staring at us with an expression I’d never seen on him before-not the careful authority he usually carried, not the desperate pleading from the parking lot months ago, but something stripped bare and raw, tears visible even from across the room.

“Evelyn.” Her name-our daughter’s name, though I hadn’t spoken it aloud yet, hadn’t decided how much I wanted to share with him in this exact moment-seemed to catch in his throat. “Can I-is it alright if I-”

I looked down at my daughter, tiny and perfect against my chest, and then back up at Damon, standing there

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stripped of every excuse and justification he’d offered me over the last eight months, looking at his own child for the first time with an expression that looked, despite everything, entirely genuine.

I didn’t have an answer ready. Not yet. Not after everything.

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