Rejected and Pregnant I Fled The Pack (Evelyn and Damon) novel Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Damon pov

I stormed into Evelyn’s room without knocking, the last of my patience burning away with every step down the hallway. My wolf was snarling now, agitated and confused, torn between two instincts that seemed to be pulling me in opposite directions-one that wanted to comfort my mate, and one that bristled at the memory of Marissa’s tear-streaked face, the red mark blooming across her cheek.

Evelyn didn’t even look up when I entered. She’d pulled her closet open and was yanking clothes off hangers with sharp, efficient movements, stuffing them into an old duffel bag I didn’t recognize.

A growl rumbled out of my chest before I could stop it. “What is this?”

She spared me a single glance over her shoulder, and the hatred in her eyes hit me like a physical blow-colder now than the raw devastation from the night before, settled into something harder, something more permanent. “What does it look like, Damon?”

“You attacked Marissa in the middle of the hallway.” The words came out sharper than I meant them to, my frustration from the scene downstairs still coiled tight in my chest. “In front of half the pack.”

“She laughed at me.” Evelyn didn’t stop packing, didn’t even slow down. “Outside my own door, the morning after I caught her sleeping with my mate, she stood there and laughed at me for being upset about it. I’m not going to apologize for that.”

“I’m not asking you to apologize for being upset.” I dragged a hand through my hair, trying to find some version of this conversation that didn’t end in disaster, though every conversation we’d had in the last day had ended exactly that way. “I’m asking you to apologize for hitting her. She’s part of this pack, Evelyn. You can’t just—”

“She’s part of *this pack*.” Evelyn straightened, turning to face me fully now, and something about her stillness was more unsettling than her fury had been. “You’re worried about pack harmony right now. That’s what matters to you in this moment.”

The bluntness of it might have almost been funny in another life, in another version of this conversation that wasn’t currently detonating everything I had left. But there was nothing funny about the look in her eyes, nothing funny about the duffel bag now half full on her bed, nothing funny about the growing, sick realization crawling up my spine that this wasn’t just an argument. This was something else entirely.

“What are you doing?” I asked again, quieter this time, some of the anger draining out of my voice as genuine alarm started to replace it.

“I told you already. I’m leaving.” She turned back to the closet, pulling out another armful of clothes with brutal efficiency. “I’m not staying here, Damon. Not in this pack, not in this house, not tethered to a mate who cheated on me and then walked in here to defend the woman who helped him do it.”

“You can’t leave.” The words came out before I could think them through, some instinctive panic seizing my chest at the thought of her actually walking out that door for good. “You’re my mate. We’re bonded. You have responsibilities here, to this pack, to—