Rejected and Pregnant I Fled The Pack novel Chapter 30

Chapter 30

+15 Bonus

Chapter 30

Damon pov

I’d been sitting beside Evelyn’s bed for nearly an hour, Willow finally settled into the small hospital bassinet beside the bed, when my phone buzzed against my thigh.

I almost ignored it. Everything about this room-the quiet, the exhausted peace that had settled over Evelyn as she drifted in and out of sleep, the soft, even sound of Willow’s breathing-felt too fragile to interrupt with pack business. But the buzzing continued, insistent, and I finally pulled the phone from my pocket, glancing at the

screen.

*Dad.*

I stepped as quietly as I could toward the small window at the far side of the room before answering, not wanting to risk waking either of them.

“What,” I said, keeping my voice low.

“Where are you.” My father’s voice came through clipped, sharp with an authority I’d spent my entire life deferring to without question. “Callum tells me you drove north with half the guard and didn’t bother explaining why.”

……

“I found Evelyn.” I kept my eyes on the window, on the grey morning light filtering through the glass. “She just gave birth. I have a daughter.”

There was a pause on the other end, brief but telling. “A daughter.”

“Willow.” I glanced back toward the bassinet, something in my chest tightening protectively at the sight of her small, sleeping form. “She’s healthy. Evelyn’s healthy too.”

“Good.” My father’s tone shifted immediately into something brisker, more businesslike, entirely uninterested in lingering on sentiment. “Then you’ll bring them both home. Today, if possible. We need to formalize the succession publicly before any more damage is done to this pack’s stability.”

Something cold settled into my stomach. “That’s not happening.”

“Excuse me?”

“Evelyn’s not coming home. Not today, not because you’re demanding it.” I kept my voice as steady as I could manage, aware of how badly this conversation could spiral if I let my own temper answer his. “She needs to heal. She needs time. I’m not dragging her anywhere.”

“You don’t have the luxury of time, Damon.” His voice hardened further, years of practiced pack authority bleeding into every word. “Do you understand what the last eight months have done to this pack’s standing? Rumors of an unstable succession, an heir born outside pack lands, your own mother running off in the middle of the night like some scandal we can’t control-”

“You knew about Mom?” I cut in, surprised despite myself. “You know where she went?”

“I know she left a note accusing me of driving her to it,” he snapped, and for the first time in the conversation, something genuinely raw slipped through his usual controlled authority. “Thirty years of marriage, and she leaves in the middle of the night without so much as a conversation first.”

“Maybe she tried having that conversation for thirty years and you never actually listened,” I said, the words leaving me before I’d fully decided to say them.

1/2

Chapter 30

+15 Bonus

The silence on the other end went sharp and cold.

“Watch your tone with me,” my father said, low and dangerous, the exact voice he’d used my entire childhood to remind me of exactly where I stood in the pack hierarchy beneath him. “I don’t know what delusions you’ve worked yourself into up there, but you have responsibilities here that don’t disappear because you’re feeling sentimental over a baby.”

“Her name is Willow,” I said, my own voice hardening now, something protective flaring up in my chest that hadn’t fully expected. “And I’m not bringing her mother home to be paraded in front of the pack as proof everything’s fine, when nothing about the last eight months has been fine. Evelyn left because I destroyed something with my own choices. I’m not going to compound that by forcing her back here before she’s ready, just to satisfy your idea of pack optics.”

“This isn’t about optics, it’s about stability. Succession requires-”

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