Page 21 of Pregnant, Rejected and Exiled By the Lycan King (Forbidden Alpha Kings #45)

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Rhea

Meredith’s clinic suddenly felt too small, the walls closing in as the healer’s words sank in.

Twin offspring were common. And in most cases one of them would be a beta or an omega, while the other would take on the genetics of an alpha.

But twin Alpha offspring. The term carried weight in our world, the kind of weight that crushed unprepared omegas.

I’d heard whispers of such pregnancies during my father’s political gatherings, always discussed in hushed tones with sideways glances.

Children born to the strongest alpha bloodlines, demanding extraordinary resources from their carriers.

Not just nutrition and care, but actual life force, cellular energy, the very essence of their omega parent.

My hands trembled as I pulled the paper gown tighter around my shoulders.

The vinyl examination table creaked beneath me as I shifted, trying to process what this meant.

Meredith had already moved to her desk, pulling out a tablet that looked as ancient as her ultrasound machine.

Her fingers flew across the cracked screen with practiced efficiency.

“Here.” She turned the tablet toward me, revealing medical texts that probably predated digital formatting. “These are survival statistics from the last comprehensive study. The Medical Council buried the research after the results proved... problematic for their narrative about alpha-omega bonds.”

The numbers swam before my eyes, each percentage a nail in my coffin.

Graphs and charts painted a picture I didn’t want to see but couldn’t look away from.

Fifty percent of alpha twin carriers made it to term without intervention.

The red line showing that statistic looked like spilled blood against the white background.

Of those who reached delivery, only thirty percent survived without alpha support. The math was simple and devastating.

“The studies are old,” Meredith continued, her clinical tone a thin veil over genuine concern.

“From before modern supplementation. But the core issue remains unchanged. Twin alpha offspring required energy frequencies only their sire can provide efficiently. They were designed to draw from both parents, creating a circuit of power that strengthens the bloodline.”

She returned to the examination, her movements carrying new urgency. The blood pressure cuff squeezed my arm tight enough to leave marks. She frowned at the reading, pumped it up again, frowned deeper. Too low. I could see it in the way her mouth tightened, the quick notation she made on my chart.

“Protein levels?” I asked, though I already knew the answer from the way my muscles had started aching, the way simple tasks left me breathless.

“Depleting rapidly.” She drew three vials of blood with quick efficiency, each one destined for tests I probably couldn’t afford. “The twins are in an active development phase. They’re building neural networks, bone structure, and organ systems. All of that material comes from you.”

The calcium test came next, a simple scan that revealed what I’d felt in my bones for weeks.

The density was already decreasing. My skeleton was dissolving to build theirs, my body cannibalizing itself to create something stronger.

They were literally building themselves from me, taking what they needed without regard for their host’s survival.

“With regular alpha energy infusions from the father, the odds improve to ninety percent.” She set down her instruments, meeting my eyes with brutal honesty.

“The bond creates a feedback loop. He provides the raw power, you provide the physical matrix. Together, you build something extraordinary. Without...”

She didn’t finish, but the implications hung heavy in the antiseptic air.

Without him, I was a battery being drained by two devices designed for a power source I couldn’t provide.

Without him, my body would give everything until nothing remained.

Without him, these children would take their first breath as I took my last.

“You’ll need specialized supplements. Iron infusions. Possibly bed rest by month six.” Meredith pulled open drawer after drawer, gathering supplies with grim efficiency.

“I can’t afford any of that.” The truth sat bitter on my tongue. Wayne paid me barely enough to cover rent and food. Medical intervention of this level? Impossible.

They’re killing me from the inside, just like their father killed me from the outside.

The thought rose unbidden, cruel in its accuracy.

Damon had destroyed my life with words and laws.

His children would finish the job with biology and need.

The Kildare line would claim me one way or another, it seemed.

“There are programs,” Meredith began, but we both knew the truth.

Programs required documentation. Documentation meant exposure.

Exposure meant death of a different kind, but death all the same.

I was trapped between biological inevitability and social impossibility, carrying prime predators in a prey’s body with no pack to support me.

“I can’t officially treat you,” she said, not looking up from her work. “Too risky for both of us. The Medical Council has eyes everywhere, even in forgotten corners like Branson. But I can give you enough supplements for two months, and teach you warning signs that might buy you time.”

She pulled a chair close to the examination table, our knees almost touching in the cramped space.

The intimacy felt necessary, like she was passing down sacred knowledge that couldn’t be spoken above a whisper.

Her hands were steady as she demonstrated on my arm, showing me where to press to check for fluid retention.

“Preeclampsia is your biggest risk with alpha multiples. Your blood pressure will spike, but by then it’s often too late.

Watch for this.” She pressed gently above my ankle, showing me how to test for pitting edema.

“If your skin stays indented for more than four seconds, you’re retaining fluid.

Headaches that don’t respond to medication, visual disturbances, upper abdominal pain, any of these mean immediate intervention. ”

The lesson continued with brutal efficiency.

How to count fetal movements, alpha twins should move at least ten times per hour when active.

What bleeding meant versus normal discharge, bright red was emergency, dark brown was old blood, clear with streaks was mucus plug.

The difference between Braxton Hicks and real contractions, timing, intensity, whether they stopped when I moved.

It was a crash course in staying alive while growing apex predators, each bit of knowledge another weapon in an unfair fight.

“Temperature spikes are particularly dangerous,” she continued, placing a digital thermometer in my supply pile. “Alpha offspring run hot. Your normal body temperature will increase by two degrees baseline. Anything over 102 means their metabolisms are overtaxing your system.”

She paused in her packing, a box of iron supplements heavy in her palm. Something shifted in her expression, the clinical mask slipping to reveal the woman beneath. Her hands moved to rest on my shoulder, the touch gentle but grounding.

“There are other options.” The words came carefully, weighted with decades of experience. “The pregnancy is still early enough. The procedure would be simple, safe. You could walk away from this, start over without...”

But my hands moved protectively over my stomach before conscious thought engaged.

The gesture was instinctive, primal, my palms spreading across skin that barely showed the changes beneath.

Inside me, those two heartbeats continued their hummingbird flutter, oblivious to the conversation about their existence.

My omega instincts had already claimed them, bonded with them, accepted them as mine to protect regardless of the cost.

Despite everything, the abandonment that still ached like a phantom limb, the exile that had stripped away my identity, the death sentence growing inside me with each divided cell, I couldn’t unmake them.

They were innocent of their father’s crimes, blameless in their biology.

They hadn’t asked to be conceived in a moment of heat-mad passion between incompatible souls.

They simply were, and I was their only advocate in a world that would use or destroy them.

Meredith nodded, unsurprised by my wordless refusal. She’d probably seen it a hundred times before, omegas choosing their offspring over themselves, maternal instinct triumphing over logic. Her hands resumed their packing with renewed purpose.

“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 not to.

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, its windows 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, protein shakes 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.