Chapter 8
Damon:
I walked out of the Infirmary, each step heavier than the previous one. My mind played with the image of Sienna refusing to even look at her own child.
The way that she looks away from her, the way that her face twisted with pain and rejection made my chest ache. And though I couldn’t decide whether it was out of pain, anger, or just the rejection itself that made my chest tighten, I knew that it was something darker, something that I did not like, something that I wanted to push away.
The hallway was quiet. The faint hum of the heart monitor from her room echoed in my ears, But as I turned to the corner, wanting to leave, one of the nurses hurried towards me, her head
bowed respectfully, as if she waited for me to tell her to leave, as if she waited for her command. But I knew that if she had come to me, then there was something that she had in
mind.
“Alpha,” she said hesitantly. “I know that this might not be the time…”
“What is it?” I snapped, stopping her. My patience was already a thin line, as it was for her to
have a conversation with me right now. It’s not one that I wanted to think about.
“The baby,” she began softly. “She still doesn’t have a name.”
“Isla,” I said, stopping her. “Her name is Isla.”
The nurse was corrected on the before she looked down on her feet, allowing me to leave, I
stood there for a moment, debating as I stared at the closed room of Sienna’s door. So
starting now, slowed by the medication that she had been given, the thought of her just lying
there, broken and hollow, made me feel like something was burning inside of me.
She somehow fought to bring Isla into the world. She did not want to ignore her. She did not
want to let her go. And despite me rejecting her at first, she chose to keep fighting for the
baby. And yet she was rejecting her now. Nothing about the situation made any sense at this point, I just found myself being in conflict.
I walked out of the room without saying another word. The silence greeted me and I was
thinking for it. The less noise I heard around me, the better the outcome was going to be.
“Damon.” My mother’s voice startled me, and I turned to see her standing in the dimly lit
hallway. Her sharp eyes studied me, her expression unreadable. I knew that she did not like the whole situation and I knew she had a lot to say about it, but right now I did not want to be
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talking about it. Right now, I wanted nothing more than to just go to my office and get lost in my thoughts.
I needed to get things settled and I needed them straightened, but I also knew that she was not going to allow that.
“Mother,” I said, straightening. “Is there anything that I can help you with?”
She stepped closer, her footsteps deliberate. “How is she?”
“Sienna?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.
“No,” Evelyn said flatly. “The baby. Isla. I heard that you had named her.”
“Word spreads fast around here. I just named her. How could you have gotten the notice of it?”
I asked her sarcastically, knowing that she had heard me, knowing that she was listening and wanting to understand what I had in mind. Of course, she would want to do so.
“You still haven’t answered my question.”
“She’s fine,” I replied. “The doctors are monitoring her. And she’s going to stay under monitoring until she is okay to leave.”
Evelyn’s gaze didn’t waver. “And her mother?”
“You just said that you didn’t want to ask about her, that you wanted to ask about the baby.” I muttered as the weight of the question pressed on me. “She’s recovering.”
“Recovering,” She repeated, raising an eyebrow at me. “And you? What are you doing, Damon? Are you helping her? Supporting her? Or are you just standing by, blaming her for everything? I saw how you looked at her and I saw how she was looking at you. What are you doing to help
her out, Damon?”
“I didn’t ask for this,” I said through gritted teeth. “I didn’t ask to be tied to her. And now there’s
a child, a child I didn’t plan for. You can’t just expect me to accept that so easily.”
“That child is your blood. Whether or not you planned for her, she’s here now. And Sienna, as much as you may resent her, is the one who carried her and nearly died doing so.” Mom said, snapping Godfrey.
“She’s pushing Isla away,” I said, my frustration boiling over. “She won’t even hold her, Mother. She’s rejecting her. She won’t even be able to feed her as her milk won’t be enough.”
“Of course she is,” Evelyn said, her tone softening slightly. “She’s overwhelmed. Hurt. Do you think she wanted any of this? Do you think she wanted to be dragged back here, judged and cornered? And of course, how do you expect her milk to be enough when she’s weak? She
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nearly died, Damon.”
“She had a choice,” I snapped. “She could have let the baby go. She wouldn’t have been dealing with all of that.”
“And so did you,” Evelyn shot back, her voice rising for the first time. “You rejected her, Damon. You treated her like she was nothing, and now you’re angry that she’s not acting the way you
want her to? That’s not how this works. That’s not how life works.”
I clenched my fists, her words hitting harder than I wanted to admit.
“Sienna needs time, Damon. And so do you. But don’t make the mistake of abandoning that
little girl. Isla is innocent in all of this. She didn’t ask to be born into this chaos, but she’s here
now. And she needs her parents.” She said, taking a step closer to me.
“Parents?” I scoffed. “You think Sienna’s capable of being a mother right now? Do you really
believe that she would ever have been able to be a mother?”
“She is stronger than you think,” Evelyn said firmly. “And so are you. But you need to decide
whether you’re going to be the kind of man your daughter deserves, or if you’re going to let this
destroy you.”
******
The infirmary was quiet when I returned. Most of the nurses had already gone to sleep. Those
who were in charge for the night stood by the incubator or were out tending to the other
patients.
I approached Isla’s incubator, my chest tightening as I looked down at her. She was so small,
her tiny fingers curled into fists. For a moment, I allowed myself to feel something other than
anger, something fragile and terrifying.
“We got her to get her milk. She’s resting right now.” One of the nurses said, her voice low as she spoke.
I didn’t respond as my eyes were fixed on her, her small body as she lay inside that incubator.
My hand hovered over the incubator, hesitating before I finally rested it on the glass. Even the
idea of accepting her seemed absurd to me.
“You didn’t ask for this either,” I murmured.
The nurse said nothing, quietly stepping away to give me space.
For a moment, it was just me and Isla, the weight of the future pressing heavily on my shoulders. I didn’t know how to fix this, but one thing was certain, walking away wasn’t an
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option.
“I promise you I will not walk away from you. Not as long as I’m breathing, little one…”
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