“Then we plan for survival.” The words carried no judgment, only pragmatic acceptance. “If you start bleeding or the headaches become severe, you get to an ER immediately.”
“Won’t they report me?” The question tasted like fear.
“Tell them you’re traveling through, use a false address. By the time they process paperwork, you’ll be gone. It’s not ideal, but it’s better than dying in your apartment.” She sealed the supply bag with precise movements. “Pride is a luxury you can’t afford now.”
I’m choosing them over myself. Just like I chose him. The parallel struck me with painful clarity. That night, I’d chosen to follow my heat, to claim him despite every rational reason notto. Now I chose his children despite clear evidence of the cost. Perhaps this was my pattern, selecting destruction wrapped in the disguise of desire, embracing what would unmake me because the alternative felt like betrayal of something essential.
***
The drive back to Millbrook blurred through tears I finally allowed myself to shed. Interstate 49 stretched ahead like a gray ribbon through January hills, empty enough that I could fall apart without witnesses. I pulled over twice at rest stops, sobbing so hard the steering wheel shook beneath my grip. Twin alpha offspring. The words echoed in my head like a death knell, each repetition driving home the impossibility of my situation.
The first rest stop was barely a widening of the shoulder with a picnic table and portable toilet. I parked facing the trees, letting myself scream into the silence. The sound that tore from my throat wasn’t human, wasn’t omega, wasn’t anything but pure animal grief. Two alphas growing inside me, both demanding resources my body couldn’t provide alone. Without their father’s energy to balance the equation, I would dissolve like sugar in water, consumed by their need.
Back on the road, I tried to focus on the mechanics of driving. Hands at ten and two. Check mirrors every thirty seconds. Maintain speed five under the limit. Anything to avoid thinking about the supplies in the bag beside me, each bottle and packet a reminder of what I faced. The supplements Meredith had given me cost more than I made in two weeks. When they ran out, then what?
The second stop came when my vision blurred too badly to continue. This time I parked behind a defunct gas station, itswindows boarded and pumps long dry. The tears came quieter now, exhausted sobs that left me hollow. I pressed my palms against my stomach, feeling nothing through layers of clothing but knowing they were there. Two hearts beating in rhythm, two alphas already taking what they needed.
With Damon’s support, I would have survived. His alpha energy would have created the circuit Meredith described, feeding them power while they drew physical resources from me. A balanced equation, if I could stomach crawling back to the man who’d publicly shredded me. If I could endure his mother’s satisfaction, the pack’s judgment, the complete surrender of any dignity I’d scraped together.
Without him, my body would kill itself to build them. Bones thinning until they snapped. Organs failing as nutrients were redirected to more important construction. A slow dissolution that might last until delivery, or might not. Either path led to destruction, just different speeds and different kinds of death.
The sun was setting by the time I reached Millbrook, painting the shabby buildings in forgiving golden light. My studio apartment waited like a tomb, four walls that would witness my gradual disappearance. I climbed the stairs slowly, each step an effort that shouldn’t have been. The exhaustion wasn’t normal tiredness, it was cellular.
Inside, I spread out the supplies Meredith had given me on my small table. Prenatal vitamins in bottles that rattled with possibility. Protein powders that would turn my stomach but might buy me time. Iron supplements that looked like dried blood in capsule form. The dosages required were triple normal omega pregnancy needs, three iron pills with each meal, proteinshakes every four hours, vitamins that would turn my urine neon.
I did the math on my savings, the numbers cruel in their simplicity. $847 in my account. $400 for rent, $200 for utilities and food, leaving $247 for medical supplies that cost $150 per week. Six months, maybe seven if I stretched everything, if I worked until I collapsed, if nothing went wrong. The calculator app stared back at me, its glowing numbers spelling out impossibility.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered to my stomach, to the two lives that didn’t know they were killing me. “You didn’t ask for this. Neither did I.”
The apartment fell silent except for the radiator’s dying gasps. Somewhere below, my neighbors argued about money, their voices carrying through thin floors. Normal problems for normal people who didn’t carry twin alphas without pack support. I envied them with a ferocity that surprised me.
We’re all victims of that night, even you who don’t exist yet. The thought came unbidden as I measured out my first dose of supplements. That October night had created all of us, the woman I’d become, the mother I was becoming, the children who would never know their father. Or would know him only as the alpha who’d chosen politics over his mate, reputation over blood.
I swallowed the pills dry, their weight nothing compared to the future pressing down on my shoulders.
17
— • —
Damon
The outback visitor center had all the charm of a prison medical ward. Industrial disinfectant fought a losing battle against the underlying smell of human desperation, creating a cocktail that made my already rebellious stomach consider full revolt. I stood behind one-way glass that probably hadn’t been cleaned since the facility opened, watching two people who used to matter in my world.
Magnus and Neva Thornback sat at a metal table that had seen better decades. Three months in the outbacks had done what twenty years of pack politics couldn’t, broken them down to component parts. Magnus’s hair had gone gray in patches, the kind of aging that happens all at once when stress finally wins. His spokesperson badge was long gone, replaced by the universal uniform of the exiled: cheap cotton that bagged where muscle used to be.
Neva held herself differently now. The woman who’d once glided through galas with perfect posture had developed a defensive hunch, shoulders curved inward to protect vital organs. Prey behavior. The outbacks taught that quickly or you didn’t survive to learn it slowly. This might have been a prison, but they still had access to the outside. Only those convicted of heinous crimes were completely cut off.
“They’ve been model exiles,” Carlton said beside me, scrolling through his tablet with the efficiency of someone who’d rather be anywhere else. “No contact attempts with their daughter that we’ve detected.”
The head of security had insisted on coming personally, probably to document my descent into whatever this was. Hunting the parents of the woman I’d exiled. Definitely not standard Lycan King behavior.
Carlton’s report continued with the bland thoroughness of someone covering his ass. Food rations collected on schedule. Work assignments completed without complaint. No altercations with other exiles. The Thornbacks had folded into their punishment with the quiet acceptance of people who’d run out of fight. Or people biding their time.
I knew which one my money was on. Omegas didn’t survive pack politics for two decades without learning patience that would make saints weep. Magnus had built his career on waiting for the perfect moment, and his daughter had inherited that particular talent. The question was whether he’d already used it to help her disappear.
Through the glass, I catalogued the damage three months had done. Magnus’s hands shook with a tremor that spoke ofmalnutrition or stress or both. Neva’s wedding ring hung loose on her finger, the gold band sliding toward her knuckle with every gesture. They’d lost weight they couldn’t afford to lose, muscle mass replaced by the kind of lean that came from never quite having enough.
The observation room reeked of old coffee and older regrets. Ren stood by the door, ostensibly checking his phone but really watching me for signs of total breakdown. My beta had gotten good at reading the warning signals, the way my hands clenched before claws emerged, the particular stillness that preceded violence. Today I gave him plenty to worry about.
