Page 32 of Pregnant, Rejected and Exiled By the Lycan King (Forbidden Alpha Kings #45)
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Rhea
Somewhere between my hopeless rage and Damon’s insistent need for control, Damon had won. I had exhausted myself and passed out in his arms. The last of Millbrook that I remembered was being carried into the car and buckled in as I passed the ‘Visit Again’ sign.
The Kildare compound looked exactly as it did the night of my banishment, immaculate, intimidating, a monument to alpha power.
The same manicured lawns rolled toward the forest line.
The same marble columns framed the entrance like teeth.
The same pristine windows reflected winter sun with cold perfection.
But now I saw it differently: a prettier prison than my apartment, but a prison nonetheless.
Damon’s hand on my elbow guided me through the main entrance, his grip firm enough to prevent escape attempts. The marble felt familiar beneath my feet, though I’d only walked these halls for two nights before my world imploded. My body remembered, even if my mind wanted to forget.
Staff members stopped mid-task to stare openly at my obvious pregnancy.
A maid carrying linens froze so abruptly she nearly dropped her burden.
Two footmen exchanged loaded glances over my swollen belly.
The whispers followed our progress through marble halls like rustling leaves, each one speculating about the omega who’d returned carrying the Lycan King’s child.
I fought nausea that had nothing to do with morning sickness.
These walls had witnessed my greatest triumph, being claimed by the Lycan King in a haze of heat and need.
They’d also witnessed my greatest downfall, being dragged before the council and condemned for a crime I didn’t commit.
Now I returned as what? Not mate, the rejection had severed that.
Not quite a prisoner, though guards would watch my door.
Something undefined and therefore dangerous, a pregnant omega with claims on the bloodline but no official status.
“Your room has been prepared,” Damon said, his voice carefully neutral as we climbed the main staircase.
“My cell, you mean.” The words came out sharper than intended, but I was beyond caring about diplomacy.
We’d made it halfway across the main foyer when she appeared.
Lucinda Kildare materialized like a designer-clad nightmare, stepping from the formal parlor as if she’d been lying in wait.
Her appearance was perfection itself, Chanel suit in winter white, hair precisely cut to frame her ageless face, diamonds at her throat that could fund a small country.
Every inch of her screamed wealth, breeding, and the kind of power that came from never having to ask twice for anything.
The contrast made me hyperaware of my thrift store maternity clothes, the dress I’d bought for three dollars because it was the only thing that fit my growing belly.
My worn shoes had walked too many Millbrook streets.
My cheaper haircut had been done by a student at the beauty school, fifteen dollars including tip.
Everything about me announced my desperate circumstances, and Lucinda’s eyes catalogued each deficit with undisguised revulsion.
Her gaze fixed on my bump, and her perfect features twisted with disgust. “So the whore returns, belly full of a bastard.”
“Mother,” Damon started, but Lucinda cut him off with a gesture so imperious it should have required a scepter.
She circled me like a predator evaluating prey, her heels clicking on marble with metronomic precision.
Each pass brought a fresh wave of her expensive perfume, an exclusive that probably cost more than my monthly rent had.
Her examination was thorough and cruel, noting every sign of hard living the past months had carved into me.
“Look at you,” she said, voice dripping contempt like honey laced with poison. “Breeding like the animal you are. Did you trap another alpha with your heat? Or is this actually my son’s?”
The implication, that I’d spread my legs for any available alpha, made my claws threaten to emerge. I clenched my fists hard but not enough to draw blood, using the pain to maintain human form.
“Every word from your mouth proves you’re trash,” Lucinda continued, completing her circuit to stand before me like a judge pronouncing a sentence. “Gutter omega who used her body to climb above her station.”
“Better trash than a bitter harpy whose own mate couldn’t stand her.” The words escaped before wisdom could stop them.
Don’t let her see how deep her words cut you, I commanded myself even as I watched fury transform her perfect features.
Lucinda’s face contorted with rage at the mention of her deceased mate. The careful Botox and surgical improvements couldn’t hide the ugly twist of her mouth, the way her eyes went flat and dangerous like a snake’s before it struck.
“You dare speak of Dominic? You?” Her voice rose with each word. “You, who murdered one son and corrupted the other with your heat?”
When she spoke, her voice dripped poison sweet enough to kill. “If you let this murderous slut in our home, I’ll make sure every pack in the territory knows their Lycan King thinks with his knot instead of his brain. They’ll know you’re weak, controlled by base urges, unfit to lead.”
The threat hung in the air like a guillotine blade. Damon’s jaw worked silently, a muscle ticking with suppressed words. I watched him wage war with himself, defend the omega carrying his child or appease the mother who’d help him secure power. The choice he made, when it came, felt inevitable.
His hand gripped my arm, not gently, steering me toward the stairs without a word of defense. Lucinda’s triumphant smile followed us like a curse, her victory complete in his silence.
“Third floor, east wing,” he said tightly as we climbed.
Not the family quarters then. The guest wing, where visitors were kept separate from real family, where inconvenient persons could be contained without contaminating the bloodline’s sacred spaces.
Nathan stood outside my designated room, and recognition hit like a slap. He’d been one of the guards who’d dragged me to trial, who’d watched as Damon carved away my mark. His expression stayed professionally neutral, but I read pity in his dark eyes. Pity was almost worse than hostility.
Damon opened the door to reveal a space that mocked my Millbrook apartment with its luxury.
A sitting area with silk-upholstered furniture.
A bathroom with marble fixtures and heated floors.
French doors leading to a balcony overlooking the compound’s immaculate gardens.
By any standard, it was accommodation fit for visiting royalty.
It was also clearly a containment unit.
The windows opened only six inches, enough for air, not enough for escape.
The balcony doors had stops installed, preventing them from opening fully.
The locks were electronic, the kind that worked from outside with override codes.
Even the bathroom window was reinforced glass, pretty but unbreakable.
“Nathan will be outside if you need anything,” Damon said, already backing toward the door like he couldn’t leave fast enough.
“What I need is freedom. Can he provide that?”
“You know why that’s impossible now.” He paused at the threshold, not quite meeting my eyes. “For your own safety.”
“My safety,” I repeated, tasting the lie. “Is that what we’re calling it?”
He left without answering, the electronic lock engaging with a soft click that might as well have been a gunshot.
Through the door, I heard him speaking to Nathan in low tones.
Instructions for my containment, no doubt.
Meal schedules. Bathroom breaks. All the logistics of keeping a pregnant omega secure without making it look too much like imprisonment.
I stood in the center of my luxurious cell, taking inventory.
The bed was king-sized with sheets that probably cost more than I’d made in a month at Wayne’s.
The closet held maternity clothes in my size.
Someone had been shopping while I was being retrieved.
The bathroom was stocked with prenatal vitamins, the expensive kind I couldn’t afford.
Through the windows, I could see guards patrolling the grounds. The same paths, the same patterns I remembered from my brief time as Damon’s mate. Nothing had changed except my status. Then, the guards had been for protection. Now they were wardens.
The twins moved restlessly, responding to my emotional turmoil with their own protests.
I sank onto the bed, hand pressed to my belly, trying to soothe them.
They didn’t ask to be conceived in a political disaster.
They didn’t ask to be the living evidence of their father’s poor judgment and their mother’s inconvenient survival.
“We’re home,” I whispered to them, the word bitter on my tongue. “Such as it is.”
I was back where it all started, but everything had changed. The marks on my throat had scarred over. The bond in my chest was severed. The twins in my belly were the only proof that once, briefly, I’d been more than an unwanted guest in this house of wolves.
Now I was just another problem to be managed, another secret to be contained, another inconvenient truth locked away until a solution could be found.
But as I lay on silk sheets in my beautiful prison, I made a promise to myself and my children: This time, I wouldn’t go quietly. This time, I’d make them all pay for underestimating a cornered omega with nothing left to lose.