Rejected and Pregnant I Fled The Pack novel Chapter 34

Chapter 34

“You’re not your father.” Her voice was firm now, steadier than it had been since she picked up the phone. “Not anymore, from what I’m hearing. Marissa told me what happened at the hospital. That you stood between the enforcers and Evelyn’s room.”

“I did.” I glanced back toward the bed, where Evelyn had drifted off again, exhaustion finally winning out over the tension of the confrontation an hour earlier. “I meant it too. Whatever he thinks he can force, I’m not going to let it happen.”

“Then you understand why I’m calling,” my mother said. “I need to know if you’re actually serious about that. Because if you are-if you’re genuinely done letting him dictate everything-then I need your help. I can’t fight a formal unfit declaration on my own, not with the resources he has. And Marissa doesn’t have anyone else standing between her and whatever he decides to do about the pregnancy.”

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Chapter 34

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Chapter 34

I sat with that for a long moment, feeling the full weight of what she was actually asking. Not just protection for Evelyn and Willow now, but a real, formal stand against my father’s authority, on multiple fronts at once, with consequences that would ripple through the entire pack’s power structure.

“I’ll help,” I said finally, no hesitation behind it despite the enormity of what I was agreeing to. “Whatever it takes. You spent thirty years absorbing whatever he decided to hand you. I’m not going to stand by and let him do the same thing to you now that you’ve finally left.”

“Even to Marissa?” My mother’s voice carried genuine surprise. “After everything she did?”

I glanced toward Evelyn again, sleeping peacefully with Willow’s bassinet close beside her, and thought about the woman who’d once been Evelyn’s closest friend, who’d made choices that had cost my mate everything, who was now facing her own reckoning largely alone.

“What she did to Evelyn was unforgivable,” I said carefully. “That doesn’t change. But that’s separate from whether my father gets to weaponize pack law against a pregnant woman just to make an example of her. Those are two different things, and I’m not going to let him use the second to punish the first.”

My mother was quiet for a moment, processing that. “You’ve changed, Damon. In just a few months.”

“Not enough,” I said honestly. “Not nearly enough yet. But I’m trying.” I paused, glancing back toward the window, toward the grey afternoon settling over the hospital parking lot. “Where are you both staying? I want to make sure you’re actually safe before we figure out next steps.”

She gave me the details-a small rental cabin two towns over from the pack lands, close enough to remain in contact but far enough to feel some distance from immediate reach. I made her promise to call if my father tried anything more direct than phone calls, and told her I’d start looking into what formal protections existed against an unfit declaration made without legitimate cause.

“Thank you,” she said quietly, before we hung up. “For actually listening. I don’t think anyone in this family has done that for me in longer than I can remember.”

The words settled heavy in my chest long after the call ended, another piece of the wreckage my father’s leadership had left behind, another reminder of exactly how much damage silent tradition could do when nobody ever questioned it.

I turned back toward the room, toward Evelyn sleeping peacefully with Willow beside her, and felt the full scope of what was now stretched out ahead of me-not just repairing what I’d broken with Evelyn, not just earning the right to be part of Willow’s life, but apparently now standing against my own father’s authority on multiple fronts simultaneously, with a week-long deadline hanging over all of it.

*What was he trying to do?*

I understood it now, turning it over fully in my mind-my father wasn’t just trying to force Evelyn home for optics anymore. He was trying to isolate everyone who might resist him, convince each of us separately that resistance was futile, that the outcome was already decided, before any of us had the chance to actually stand together against it.

He’d miscalculated, though. Badly.

Because instead of isolating us, his ultimatums had done exactly the opposite-given my mother a reason to finally reach out, given me a reason to actually take a side I should have taken years ago, and left me sitting in a hospital room with a week to figure out how to protect every person he was trying to strong-arm back into line.

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Chapter 34

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