Rejected and Pregnant I Fled The Pack novel Chapter 68

Chapter 68

+15 Bonus

Chapter 68

“Why did you actually come,” I asked quietly, somewhere along the walk, needing to understand the deeper motivation behind tonight’s rescue, beyond simply Marcus’s warning.

“Because you’re my son,” he said simply. “Whatever else has happened between us, whatever damage I’ve caused through thirty years of poor choices, that doesn’t change. I wasn’t going to simply let you face something like that alone if I had any way of preventing it.”

“That’s different from apologizing on a doorstep,” I said carefully. “This was actually dangerous. You could have been seriously hurt.”

“I know.” He glanced at me, something raw and honest in his tired expression. “I think, honestly, some part of me needed to actually do something that mattered, rather than just talk about wanting to change. Words are easy, Damon. You made that clear enough yourself, back at the council session. I wanted to actually prove something, even if it meant real risk.”

We walked in silence for a while longer, the pack house finally coming into view ahead of us, lights glowing warm against the deepening evening.

“This doesn’t erase everything,” I said finally, needing him to understand clearly, even now, even after he’d genuinely helped save my life. “One dangerous night doesn’t undo thirty years, or the enforcers at the hospital, or any of it.”

“I know that too,” he said quietly. “I’m not asking it to. I’m just trying, slowly, to actually become someone worth eventually trusting again. However long that takes.”

I nodded slowly, accepting the honesty in that, even as my body still ached fiercely from the fight, even as genuine gratitude and lingering wariness both sat tangled together in my chest, refusing to fully resolve into anything simple.

We reached the pack house, and healers immediately took over, cleaning and treating both our wounds with practiced efficiency, and I found myself watching my father from across the medical room, still trying to fully reconcile the man who’d fought so fiercely on my behalf tonight with the man who’d sent enforcers to a hospital just weeks earlier.

Callum arrived partway through treatment, alarm evident on his face as he took in the scene. “I heard about the rogues. Are you both alright?”

“We’ll heal,” I said, wincing slightly as the healer finished stitching the worst of the gash along my side. “My father showed up in the middle of it. Fought them off with me.”

Callum’s eyebrows rose slightly, glancing between us both with evident surprise. “That’s… unexpected.”

“He’s been letting Marcus watch him this whole week,” I said. “Knew about the surveillance and let it continue anyway.”

“Also unexpected,” Callum said, though something thoughtful crossed his expression now, clearly recalibrating his own assessment of the situation.

Once the healers finished, my father lingered near the doorway, watching me with careful, uncertain attention, like he wasn’t quite sure whether he was welcome to stay longer or should simply leave now that the immediate crisis had passed.

“Thank you,” I said finally, meaning it despite everything still unresolved between us. “For tonight. Whatever else remains complicated, that mattered. You could have been seriously hurt helping me.”

1/2

Chapter 68

+15 Bonus

“I’d do it again,” he said simply. “That much, at least, I’m certain of.”

He left quietly after that, and I sat alone for a while in the medical room, processing everything-the ambush, the pain still radiating through my side, and the strange, complicated reality of my father’s genuine intervention, real and dangerous and entirely unlike anything I would have expected from him even a week earlier.

I pulled out my phone, wincing slightly at the movement, and called Evelyn, needing to hear her voice after everything that had just happened.

“Damon?” Concern immediately evident in her tone. “Are you okay? You sound off.”

“Rogues attacked my car on the way back,” I said, keeping my voice as steady as I could manage despite the lingering ache. “I’m okay, healers patched me up. But Evelyn, my father showed up in the middle of it. Fought them off alongside me.”

There was a long pause on the other end, processing that. “That’s… a lot to take in.”

“I know,” I said. “I don’t fully know what to make of it either. Genuine change, or something else entirely, I still can’t be certain. But tonight, at least, he showed up when it actually mattered, not just words this time.”

“I’m glad you’re safe,” Evelyn said quietly. “That’s what matters most right now. We can figure out what it all means once you’re actually home resting.”

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify