Rejected and Pregnant I Fled The Pack novel Chapter 88

Chapter 88

I nodded, grateful, and continued following the healers into the medical wing, watching anxiously as they moved my father onto a proper bed, immediately hooking him up to monitoring equipment, working with focused, practiced urgency.

“What’s happening,” I asked, hovering near the doorway, unable to fully step back despite knowing I’d only be in

the way.

“We’re running diagnostics now,” the lead healer said, not looking up from her work. “His heart rate’s elevated, blood pressure concerning. Could be a cardiac event, could be something else entirely-stress-related, possibly, given everything I understand he’s been navigating these past weeks. We’ll know more shortly.”/

I paced the small waiting area outside his room, adrenaline and fear both still coursing through me, replaying his words on the path-*I’m proud of you, Damon. Not for the reasons I used to be proud of you.*

Evelyn arrived twenty minutes later, having apparently settled Willow with one of the nannies from my mother’s household, and found me still pacing, unable to sit still despite the exhaustion of the entire day finally catching up with me.

“Any word yet,” she asked, settling into one of the waiting room chairs, watching me with careful, worried attention.

“Not yet. They’re still running tests.” I finally forced myself to stop pacing, sinking into the chair beside her, exhaustion and fear both evident in the movement. “He said something to me, Evelyn. On the path, before the healers arrived. About being proud of me. About meaning everything he said about stepping down, about actually trying to change.”

“That sounds like he thought he might be dying,” Evelyn said gently, reaching over to take my hand.

“I think he did,” I admitted, my voice rough. “I keep thinking about it, about how genuine it felt, watching him say it while he could barely breathe properly. I don’t think that was performance, Evelyn. I don’t think a man genuinely afraid he might be dying bothers with careful manipulation.”

“No,” she agreed quietly. “I don’t think he would either.”

We sat together in the quiet, anxious stillness of the waiting room, and I found myself grateful, in the middle of the fear and uncertainty, for her steady presence beside me, for the fact that she’d come without hesitation despite everything complicated still sitting between her and my father.

The healer emerged nearly an hour later, her expression carrying cautious reassurance rather than the grim urgency I’d been bracing for.

“He’s stable,” she said. “We’re calling it a stress-induced cardiac episode-not a full heart attack, but concerning enough that we’re keeping him for observation and running further tests to make sure nothing more serious is developing. Given everything you’ve described about the past several weeks, significant lifestyle upheaval, emotional stress, physical injury from that rogue attack still healing-it’s not surprising his body finally responded to the cumulative strain.”

Relief flooded through me so intensely I had to sit back down, my legs suddenly unsteady. “Can I see him?”

“Briefly,” she said. “He needs rest more than conversation right now, but I understand you’d want confirmation he’s alright.”

I made my way into his room, finding him propped up slightly, wired to monitoring equipment, still pale but breathing more easily now, his eyes finding mine as I approached.

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“You’re an idiot,” I said, my voice thick with lingering fear and relief both. “Trying to give me some kind of deathbed speech when it turns out you’re just stressed.”

He managed a weak, genuine laugh at that, wincing slightly at the movement. “In my defense, it felt considerably more dire in the moment.”

“Don’t do that to me again,” I said, sitting carefully in the chair beside his bed. “I mean it. I don’t care how genuine the sentiment is, save it for when you’re not actively convinced you’re dying.”

“Noted,” he said, something warm and genuinely affectionate in his tired expression. “Though I meant every word regardless. I am proud of you, Damon. That doesn’t require imminent death to remain true.”

I sat with him for a while longer, the healer eventually insisting he actually rest, and made my way back out to where Evelyn waited, exhaustion and lingering emotional weight both settling heavily over me now that the immediate crisis had passed.

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