Chapter 2
I shoved past the thugs blocking my way.
Rushing to the kitchen door, I pounded on it violently.
"Damian, Leo's heart stopped! Get the hell out here!"
Lily's whiny giggles echoed from inside the room.
"Damian, you're hurting me."
Damian's annoyed bark cut straight through the wood.
"Evelyn, keep acting up and I'm gonna have you thrown out! Leo is a piece of trash who can't even handle a fever! It's just natural selection!"
My heart completely plummeted to rock bottom.
I turned and bolted right out of the diner.
The rain was pouring down in sheets.
Running to the curb, I hailed a cab and sped to the top private hospital.
I burst into the corridor outside the ICU.
Through the glass window,
I saw my five-year-old son hooked up to countless tubes.
His tiny body was twitching erratically on the bed.
Gray wolf fur flickered across his pale skin.
It was the rejection reaction from a failed shift.
The doctor stepped out and pulled off his mask.
"Ms. Grant, Leo's organs are failing. We gotta do an immediate stem cell transplant. But the funds require Mr. Blackwood's iris authorization."
I instantly pulled out my backup phone to call Damian.
Once.
Twice.
Ten times.
Still, nobody answered the phone.
I slumped onto the freezing corridor bench, and Rainwater dripped from my hair onto the floor tiles.
Until Dawn broke, Damian still hadn't shown his face.
I went to the counter and maxed out all my personal credit cards, barely scraping together enough to cover Leo's life support for today.
Clutching the receipt, I walked over to the elevator.
The elevator stopped at the VIP OB-GYN floor.
The doors slid open.
Damian stood there in a brand-new, custom-tailored suit. He was carefully guiding Lily out of the elevator car.
Lily had changed into an expensive silk maternity dress. Around her neck was the pink diamond necklace Damian gave me for our wedding.
Damian's hand rested protectively over Lily's flat stomach.
He kept his head low, smiling tenderly down at her.
"Watch your step. The doctor said the first trimester is the most unstable."
I froze dead inside the elevator. My eyes locked onto them in absolute disbelief, and Damian looked up and caught sight of me.
Every ounce of tenderness vanished from his face instantly. He immediately pulled Lily behind his back.
"Are you stalking me?" He demanded sharply.
I stepped out of the elevator and pointed straight at Lily's belly.
"Yesterday you claimed you were working at a diner, and today you're bringing her to a VIP OB-GYN clinic?"
Lily shrank back further behind Damian's frame.
"Damian, I'm scared."
Damian wrapped his arm tightly around her. "Don't worry, honey. I've got you."
He turned to glare furiously at me. "Since you've already seen it, I won't hide it anymore. Lily is pregnant, with a pureblood pup."
Those words pinned me right to the spot.
A pureblood pup?
He had actually sired a pureblood heir with another woman, while our half-wolf son lay downstairs, fighting for his life.
I shoved the medical receipt into the air.
"Leo's heart stopped last night! I spent the entire night calling you! Yet you were here accompanying this woman for her checkup!"
Damian snatched the receipt and ripped it into shreds.
"That useless brat Leo was never gonna survive anyway! He deserves to be weeded out! The pup in Lily's belly is the true future of our pack!"
Lily pulled a piece of paper from her bag and deliberately loosened her grip.
The paper fluttered down right to my feet.
It was an ultrasound report.
The outline of a developing fetus was clearly printed on it.
The gestational age in the corner read: twelve weeks.
Twelve weeks.
Three months ago.
Exactly when Leo failed his shift for the first time and rushed to the ER.
While I was guarding our son day and night at the clinic, he was out screwing this human woman.
Bending down, I picked up the report.
My hands shook so hard I could barely hold the thin paper.
Damian snatched the paper right back out of my hands.
"Don't use your filthy hands to touch my son's photo."
He carefully folded the report and slipped it into his pocket.
"Evelyn, know your place. You're nothing but a breeding tool. Since you can't birth a healthy pup, step aside for Lily."
I snapped my head up.
"Step aside? Damian, don't you dare forget. Three years ago, you knelt before the corporate elders begging me to remarry you! You signed a blood oath agreement!"
Damian sneered.
"A blood oath? That was nothing but a formality. You think the elders give a damn about a woman who can't birth purebloods?
"Lily is carrying a pureblood heir right now. The entire pack is gonna treat her like royalty. You and Leo lost your leverage a long time ago."
Lily leaned back into Damian's chest.
"Damian, don't be so harsh on Evelyn. It hasn't been easy for her looking after that sick kid. Once our baby is born, we can just send that sick kid to an orphanage. That way, Evelyn will finally be free."
I raised my hand and swung a violent slap right toward Lily's face.
Damian intercepted it, locking his grip around my wrist and twisted it hard.
A sickening pop of bone dislocating echoed through the air.
Agonizing pain instantly ripped through my entire body.
I was forced down onto one knee on the floor.