Chapter 5 Are You Pregnant?

Elena's POV

Every morning the nausea churning in my stomach dragged me out of sleep, and I hunched over the toilet dry-heaving until the acid scorched my throat.

I locked the bathroom door and turned the tap on full, using the rush of water to cover the sound. No one could hear.

My foster mother — Damian's mother, Morgana — had always despised me. If she found out I was carrying Damian's child, she'd never let me keep it.

And if Damian knew?

I'd thought about going to him more times than I could count these past days. I'd imagine how he'd react to the news — maybe he'd be shocked, maybe he'd go silent.

But maybe. Maybe the child would soften him.

That night, he'd said my name. Maybe it wasn't only disgust he felt for me.

A child — our child — maybe it could change something.

Maybe he'd say: stay.

I turned that fantasy over a hundred times. Every time I knew it was foolish. Every time I couldn't help it.

The bathroom door swung open.

Damian stood in the doorway.

He looked at me hunched over the toilet, then at the prenatal vitamins I hadn't managed to hide on the counter, and the expression on his face froze, piece by piece.

I scrambled up, wiping my mouth on my sleeve. "Damian — how did you—"

"You're pregnant?" He stared at me, stunned.

A tremor went through me. I lifted my head to look at him.

I got up off the floor and reached for his hand, my voice carrying a hope that sounded pathetic even to me. "Yes, Damian. I'm pregnant. It's our—"

"Stop." He recoiled a step, avoiding my hand, revolted. "I'm not taking some child of unknown origin, and I am definitely not taking you. Pack your things. I'm sending you to the she-wolf reformatory at the border today."

The words hit me like lightning out of a clear sky.

The she-wolf reformatory. That place was built for she-wolves who'd committed serious crimes and been stripped of their status.

Going there meant being cast out of Frostridge Pack for good. Exile for life. No chance of ever coming back alive.

"I won't go!" I broke, lunging forward and grabbing his arm, tears bursting loose. "Damian, please, this is your flesh and blood too. How can you send us to a place like that?"

Damian pried my hand off without mercy.

He looked at me coldly, every word merciless. "If you hadn't schemed your way into my bed, would there be a child at all? Even if you have it, I will never admit it's mine. Instead of getting thrown out of the pack later with some bastard in your arms, why don't you get the hell away from me now?"

The pain in my chest was like being ground to pieces.

I looked at this man I'd loved for ten years and felt like I was looking at a stranger.

Damian turned and started for the door.

My tears fell in fat drops onto the floor. I couldn't stop sobbing.

At the sound of it, his steps halted. He turned back and came to me.

"Damian, I don't want to go." I twisted the hem of my shirt, knuckles white. "I… I can have the baby quietly. No one will ever know. I won't be a burden to you—"

Something like a struggle crossed his eyes. The fingers at his side curled into a hard fist.

"Please don't send me away…" A thread of hope rose in me, and I looked at him, pleading. "I've had no home since my parents died. You're all I have."

Halfway through, I saw him go still.

For that instant, I thought I'd reached him.

But the next second, his hand shot out and closed around the necklace at my throat.

That necklace. The only thing my mother ever left me. On the back of the pendant were two names I'd scratched in, crooked, the year I was twelve — Elena and Damian.

The day I finished it, I showed him, blushing. He scoffed, said "childish," and walked off.

I thought he hated it. But once, when other kids snatched the necklace from me, Damian charged in alone, knocked down a dozen young wolves to get it back, then shoved it at me, red-faced. "My name's on it too. Don't lose it again."

He yanked. The chain snapped, leaving a red welt around my neck.

He flung his arm up and threw the necklace to the floor.

The pendant shattered. My name and Damian's cracked apart.

"Stop hanging on me," he said coldly. "You make me sick."

I stood there, frozen, the pain in my chest too much to breathe through.

Something flickered in Damian's eyes. Was it… pain?

No. Impossible. He loathed me this much.

Damian shouted toward the door, and Jason came in.

"Take her to the border reformatory," Damian ordered.

I knelt there, staring dumbly at the shattered pendant.

My hope, my love, my dignity — in that moment they shattered along with it, for good.

Everything in me died.

I wiped my tears and said to the empty air, my voice numb. "Fine. I'll go."

They put me in the back seat of a black SUV, and the car pulled away from the estate, heading for the desolate border.

When we passed a gas station, I spoke up.

"I need the bathroom."

The guard driving frowned, but in the end he stopped the car.

I stepped into the stall, locked it, and without a second's hesitation climbed onto the toilet and up to the narrow vent window in the wall. I forced myself through with everything I had and dropped hard onto the muddy ground behind the restroom.

I didn't care about the scrapes. I cradled my belly and bolted, never looking back, straight into the dense forest in the opposite direction from the border.

Damian. Goodbye.