Damon rubs his arm with the hand not connected to an IV drip.
The shot /hurts/—more than he cares to admit—but it works. He's back.
He doesn't remember what happened, doesn't know what came over him. All he knows is in one moment, he's meeting red eyes, and in the next, he's being tackled to the ground, a large dart-like needle injected below his shoulder.
Fortunately, it seems that no one is badly hurt, evident by how he's the only one on the hospital bed.
His inner alpha is still pacing, angry but subdued. There are no pheromones in the room anymore, courtesy of the scent patches they slapped on him and the pheromone-neutralizing device they made sure to leave on. Alone and with his body sore, snippets of memories slowly come back to him.
Sitting up on the bed, his fangs gradually retract. On the table to his right is the chewing toy he's been given to soothe his aching gums. It flies into the trash basket.
The door opens. Kaiden is standing by the doorway with Lucy following him behind.
She's glaring at him, the first time he is seeing such open hostility from her. He doesn't miss the irony in the situation, although if what he remembers is true, then he can't blame her.
As his memory comes back in whole, he grasps a full understanding of what transpired.
When Kaiden tries to enter, Lucy holds him back by the hand. She whispers to him, but even from across the room, Damon can hear Kaiden assuring her that he'll be fine alone.
"Don't hesitate to press the button again if something happens," she not so quietly whispers, shooting another glare at Damon before letting go.
The door closes behind Kaiden, leaving the two of them alone.
Kaiden sits down on a nearby couch, and without preamble, he announces, "I'm pregnant."
--
Kaiden expects this to happen; it's why he asked Lucy to bring Damon to a hospital and not someplace else.
Still, the continuous demands to take tests after tests takes a toll on him, more mentally than physically. There are only so many times he can pee on demand, even if he drinks a lot to fill his bladder. Thankfully, the hospital doesn't allow him to do a blood test more than once a day. Try as he may, Damon can't deny that the consistently positive results only confirm what Kaiden already knows.
Damon's reaction, however, is outside his expectations.
Before coming in today, Kaiden pictured Damon to be angry, surprised, or perhaps—in the tiniest sliver of hope—even happy. None of his imagined scenarios include Damon clutching one hand to his face, quietly laughing while looking at the paper the nurses handed to him.
The sound is not one of delight. It's more akin to a series of desperate thumps from a manic prisoner trapped inside a metal cage. Kaiden does his best to sit still despite the shudder running through his body.
"I see what's going on now," Damon says, voice dark and low. "Do you believe I'm foolish enough to believe this?"
Huh?
Surely, Damon doesn't think that Kaiden somehow managed to forge the results, right?
How is that possible when Damon never let him out of his sight, not even when he was peeing in a cup?
Damon is still chuckling when he asks, "So what do you want? Money?"
"No. I just … wanted to let you know." Truthfully, he doesn't know why he bothers to inform Damon. He does so only because it feels like the right thing to do, so Kaiden quickly adds, "since it's your child too."
"I'm not sure about that." Damon crosses one leg atop another, one finger tapping on his knee. He sets the paper down on the table in front of him.
Not giving Kaiden the chance to process his words, Damon continues by saying, "You go around smelling like another alpha"—he spits the word like its venom—"and now you're telling me you're pregnant with my child."
"It IS yours," Kaiden says before he can stop himself.
He's been scented by Caoli almost every day that he often forgets he has her pheromones on him. Like routine, she scented him this morning as well when he came by to ask for a day off. Now Kaiden knows the reason why Damon turned feral earlier. If it's not because of the claim of another Alpha when he's carrying Damon's child, then he doesn't know what it is.
Damon says nothing, face dropping from that eerie look of amusement to a chilling, blank expression.
"I'm not lying." Kaiden looks down. He can't look into Damon's eyes, not when the Alpha's gaze is scorching his meager courage.
"Prove it," Damon says with a voice so calm it brings tranquil water to shame.
Kaiden still doesn't look up, not because he's scared or ashamed, but because he doesn't want Damon to see the tears threatening to fall from his eyes. He won't cry, not this time.
However, his efforts are futile when he hears Damon saying, "Prove to me that it's mine by getting rid of it."
Kaiden's head snaps up, tears be damned. He has no words, not a single one. To say he's shocked is not enough to convey how confused he is by this sudden progression. What does he even say in this situation?
They stare at each other in silence—one unwavering while the other is crumbling. He doesn't know how long they stay like that.
Several questions fly through Kaiden's head, all of them unanswered. Despite the mayhem in his mind, there is one voice that speaks loud and clear.
Kaiden has already spoken to the doctor before this, the same one who treated him during his last hospitalization. She breaks the news to him not with delight, but with a graveness not suited for people in the profession of treating others.
"Your pregnancy is dangerous," she says to him, repeating her warning from months prior, "and it will be even more so if you decide to abort the child. I'm not going to lie to you, there's a chance you might become infertile after this regardless of the choice you make."
The words are crude—cruel even, but it's exactly what Kaiden needs to remember to bring himself back up from the despair Damon's words put him in.
He's not giving up on his child; he's not giving up on himself. He is, however, giving up on the hope that the Damon who was kind enough to save him that night will return. Maybe that version of Damon all this time is a delusion, his brain's last-ditch attempt at comforting his lonely heart.
Well, it doesn't matter now.
Kaiden stops crying. The doctor's words are louder in his ears than the beating of his heart. He wipes his tears away with his head low, brushing the last remnants of his frailty with the palm of his hand.
When he looks at Damon again, it is neither with the bright, red eyes full of longing nor the pitiful gaze of a child asking for help. He looks at Damon like the man is a stranger, no more than a passing face on the street.
"Thank you for your time." Kaiden stands to leave, and for the first time since entering the hospital, he stands tall and proud. "I'm sure you're a busy man, President Lin, so I'll make you a promise right here, right now."
Damon keeps quiet as he watches Kaiden's sudden shift in attitude.
Kaiden feels big—bigger than ever—when he says, "I will never appear in front of you again."
Damon says nothing as he watches Kaiden leave, unaware of how true these words are about to become.