Page 40

Kylie

My eyelids felt too heavy to lift, and forcing them open wasn’t easy.

Streaks of light flooded in once I opened them slightly, but they immediately shut again.

There were voices nearby, ones I wasn’t sure I recognized.

My lycan whimpered and then told me, Pack , so I knew the people I heard had to be Charlotte and Nathaniel.

Knowing they were here helped me find the strength to pull my eyes open.

A film across my vision took several blinks to clear, and once my vision sharpened, I saw I was still in the clinic.

There were machines everywhere, and an IV was still in my arm.

It took me a moment to get my bearings, but once I did, I noticed something.

Something had changed.

I felt different.

Better. I felt better.

Stronger and healthier than I had all my life. I didn’t know how, but I finally felt as I should have felt my entire life. My lycan was more present than ever, and it felt like I could run a marathon right now.

Was this how I should have felt my entire life? This was what I had been missing all this time?

As I moved around on the bed, testing my movements and relishing how easy it felt to do anything, my heart was so full of relief and happiness that tears welled in my eyes.

It took me a moment to realize my stomach was now flat, and I recalled blacking out because of the baby coming. I had a baby. Where was the baby? Did something happen to it?

I looked around and didn’t see a bassinet or anything else.

A snarl erupted from me as I struggled in my bed to find the button to call the nurse.

Instead, I screamed, “Nurse!” The door opened and closed, and a tall blonde in nursing scrubs walked into the room.

Her face was scrunched, and I could feel her annoyance as she approached me.

When she noticed me looking at her, she composed herself and smiled.

“How are you feeling?”

“Where is my baby?” I demanded, ignoring her question.

She patted my leg, and her smile didn’t fade. “In the nursery. I can go get him if you want.”

Him? I had a boy. Oh my gods, I had a boy. “Yes! Bring him to me. Is he okay?”

“Yes, he is perfect. Nothing happened to him during the delivery. It just took you a bit to wake up from everything. We had to give you a small dose of anesthesia to keep you under during the surgery.”

The deep breath I took as she spoke slowly escaped, and the relief I felt at hearing her say those words was overwhelming.

My lycan howled in relief, too, both of us eager to see our pup.

The nurse disappeared, and I could hear some arguing again in the hall.

If Charlotte and Nathaniel were out there, it should be on record that they are my emergency contacts and could enter.

She returned with a blue blanket nestled in her arms, and I scooted further up on the bed to have a better position to receive him.

The feeling of love and happiness didn’t quite capture it as the nurse transferred the bundle over to me. My heart exploded at the sight of the tiny face. He was so perfect. I couldn’t even describe how perfect his little face was as I unraveled him a little to see more of him.

“Hi, little one. I’m your mom.”

The baby let out a deep breath, content to hear my voice.

I rubbed my nose against his face, breathing in his scent.

The hint of mint made my heart jump until I remembered how pups could carry the scent of both of their parents until around puberty, when their lycan would slowly start to emerge.

I’d just have to deal with him smelling like Maximus until then, which was something I could handle.

The baby sighed again, and I could see his eyes opening.

I couldn’t wait to know what color his eyes would be and to hear his little voice.

And as he stared up at me, I knew everything in my life would be so different.

Better. It would be better.

This entire pregnancy, I knew my life would change.

I worried so often about dying, but I should have known I would survive it since I had endured so much worse.

Maybe I shouldn’t have listened to that voice in my head all that time.

If I survived the beatings and was told I wouldn’t make it far in life without my father, I could accomplish anything.

I just needed the right people in my life for that to happen, and now I had them.

When I looked around the room again, the nurse had disappeared, and I wanted to ask if Charlotte and Nathaniel were out in the hall. If I could have some alone time with my pup, then I would make it count.

With my new strength, I got out of bed and walked over to a changing table.

My pup wasn’t too happy about the warm blanket being removed, but I quickly finished the task and swaddled him again.

Once back in bed, I adjusted myself and my gown to pull out my breast for him to nurse.

He latched on easily, and the sensation of him nursing was strange at first. The tugging of his mouth hurt initially, but that discomfort slowly faded as he nursed.

I couldn’t pull my eyes away from him, and the love I felt consumed me.

The door opened again, and the nurse approached my bed, her voice louder this time. When I looked at her, the smile was gone, and she looked more annoyed than anything.

“You have a visitor, Kylie. Would you like them to come in?”

The ambiguity of “them” made me think it was Charlotte and Nathaniel. I smiled and told her yes. Of course, I wanted them to come in and meet my pup. They were the reason I had stayed alive this whole time, and they deserved to meet the bundle of joy that had come from the last nine months.

It wasn’t Charlotte and Nathaniel who walked through that door, though.

A powerful presence swept through the room first, making my lycan whimper. My jaw dropped, and my stomach twisted as it felt like my heart was going to explode from the way it was pounding in my ears.

Maximus was here.

He knew where I was and that I had given birth to his pup.

The anger I could feel coming off him made me want to leap out of this bed and run for the hills.

Yet the fear I felt had me rooted to this bed.

I couldn’t move as he approached. His eyes flashed with the glow of his lycan.

He looked disheveled, with tattered clothes and unkempt hair.

It seemed he had been through a lot, but it could have just been the shock of finding out I was pregnant.

It’s not like he cared about being bonded to me. He rejected me.

But the way his eyes scanned my body before shifting to the pup in my arms made me think otherwise. Why would he scan me if he didn’t want to know if I was okay? Unless that was the mate bond at play again.

The tugging returned. The pull toward him, like I felt the first time I met him, was there again. I let out a groan because his closeness made my lycan dance inside me, urging me to mark him as he approached. His minty scent wrapped around me, making me sigh as a feeling of safety swept through me.

No. That’s not how this is going to work.

I didn’t want him coming in here and thinking his presence alone would make me want him back. If he even wanted that.

“He’s beautiful,” he whispered as he stared at his pup.

I had forgotten how sexy his voice was as the words rolled off his tongue. There was some tension in his tone, too, but it didn’t detract from how velvety it sounded.

What could I say to that other than “I know”?

So I kept my mouth shut. My body trembled at his closeness, and it was difficult to hide it from him.

I squirmed under his gaze as it shifted to my eyes.

It was clear Maximus was pissed off at how intense his look was, but it softened a little when I looked back.

The corners of his mouth turned up for a moment before a scowl replaced it.

“Why the hell did you run from me?” he growled. “You were pregnant, you ran away, and you thought it was a good idea to keep this a secret?”

His voice grew louder as he spoke. I lowered myself onto the bed, feeling like absolute shit from his accusations. More than anything, I wanted to disappear, seeing him so angry with me.

No. He rejected us. That’s why we ran.

My lycan surged forward, flooding me with her strength.

It wasn’t pure alpha power like Maximus’s, but it was omega strength, fierce and grounded.

The kind I’d always needed, the kind that could have helped me stand up for myself.

Now, without a pack, after running from the mate who had ripped out my heart and stomped on it without a second thought, I needed that strength.

I needed to tell him exactly how I felt.

And I planned to.

“Excuse me?” I countered. “I wasn’t the one who rejected you, remember? This was all your decision, and everything that happened since you cast me aside is on you!”

He growled but kept it low enough not to startle the baby. “That’s not what I wanted.”

“Well, you sure as fuck didn’t want me to stay!

I ran because you took another woman’s counsel over our bond.

It felt like I was living in my pack all over again!

” I shouted, unable to contain the rage boiling inside me.

The baby jumped from my sudden increase in volume and cried.

I pulled him up to my face and used skin contact to calm him.

Maximus gripped the edge of my bed, and I heard the metal strain under the pressure.

I didn’t flinch like I thought I would under his piercing gaze.

This time, I knew what I was fighting for.

Not just for myself but for the life I brought into this world.

Maximus wouldn’t make me feel less than what I deserved to feel right now.

“You chose to do this to us, not the other way around, Max.”

“Like I don’t know that,” he said through clenched teeth. “I’ve been kicking myself endlessly for my fuckup with Nova, and I have to live with the fact I rejected my fated mate every damn day of my life now. However, running away and keeping my child a secret from me? That was… unnecessary.”

He kept his voice low again, but I didn’t let that deter me from expressing my anger. He wasn’t going to get away with what he had done. Not this time. Not ever.

“Why would I tell you anything after what you did? We were supposed to be mates! I was supposed to trust you, and you shut me out and cast me aside the moment someone said nasty things about me! Were you ashamed of me?”

“No,” he growled again, but I didn’t waver. “It was a mistake.”

“Yeah, it was a mistake. One you can live with. Now leave.”

The words came out of me unexpectedly. This was the boldest thing I had ever said in my life. I just told an alpha to leave. No, not just an alpha. The king.

My voice didn’t shake, and I meant what I said. I didn’t want him in here. He didn’t deserve to be by my side right now. Yet he didn’t move. I gaped at him and growled. He still didn’t budge.

“Get. Out,” I commanded through my teeth.

“No. I won’t leave you and my pup here. I deserve to know why you walked away from me! Just because I rejected you doesn’t mean you can just walk out the door. You didn’t even fight to stay!”

The baby squirmed in my arms, and I pulled on my omega energy to send calming waves into him.

It was something omegas could do, and I had never had the strength to do it before.

I felt my lycan come more to the surface, slipping under my skin as if preparing for a shift, and then the calming energy rolled off me.

The baby stilled and yawned before nuzzling against me.

I kept the energy going but turned toward Maximus again.

“You’re right. I could have stuck around and watched you take another female. I could have asked to be transferred to another pack, but I chose to take my life into my own hands for once. That’s my business, not yours.”

“You are my mate. Your business is my business.”

“No,” I growled. “We aren’t mates. You made sure of that.”

“How dare you use that against me! It’s not what I wanted at all, but I couldn’t shake the feeling it was the best thing to do! I am a king! I have more lives to worry about than just my own.”

It disgusted me to hear him use that as an excuse. How was being bonded to me a burden? How was it affecting anything for the kingdom?

“Fated mates allow someone to become stronger. That doesn’t make any sense.”

“But you were weak!”

There it was. Everything I feared was laid bare.

He still considered me weak. He didn’t know everything I had been through and still viewed me as lacking.

It wasn’t until I chose to live, shedding everyone else’s expectations, that I finally felt free.

The strength within me surged once I recognized my worth and understood that if I wanted to live, I needed to make the choices to do so.

If he couldn’t see how his choices led to this outcome, then I couldn’t help him.

I knew what my choices had resulted in, and I was now happy with where I was in life.

I had connected with my lycan, and I had a pup to live for.

That was all I needed if he didn’t want to accept that this was his fault and fix what happened between us.

“Get out. I won’t say it again,” I said firmly. He stared at me for a few moments longer before turning toward the door. I heard his feet stomping as he left, but I couldn’t stop myself from calling after him. “Don’t come back until you’re ready to be an adult and talk about this.”

He slammed the door behind him.

Good riddance. If he didn’t come back, that was on him.

I had a life to live and a baby to raise.