I heard the knock and assumed it was Ben at first. But then I realized that Ben never knocked. I forced myself out of my groggy state.

"What?"

"It's Tyler. Can I come in?" he asked.

I shut my eyes with sigh and laid back down in the bed. I felt awful. I was pretty sure I was pregnant, but there was a chance I was just lovesick and heartbroken. I still hadn't figured out how to talk to Ben, how to properly communicate how much what he'd done had fucked with me.

"Yeah. Come in."

Maybe the advice of another omega would do me some good. He entered and shut the door behind him.

"I'm going to turn the light on," he warned me, and the light blinded me a little, but I slowly opened my eyes, letting them adjust. I sat up. He looked me over and shook his head.

"You can't stay in bed forever. Eventually, you're going to have to find out."

He was right, of course, and that annoyed me.

"You found out," I said thoughtfully. "Who told you?"

Tyler shrugged. "Stefan. But it didn't take much to figure it out. When I last saw you, you were hours away from heat. Living with an alpha...well, I know that story from personal experience."

His eyes crinkled a bit with an understanding smile and I sighed and nodded.

"I just don't know what I'm going to do. I don't know how to talk to him about it. He was so drunk, and he... I don't even know what I can believe of what he said, you know? I just heard him say the condom broke and I froze up. I can't even look at him. I don't want him to think I'm... I don't know. I don't know what I want him to think, or what I should say. I don't know."

It was so frustrating. I had no experience with anything even close to this, it was something I'd been working to avoid ever having experience with.

"Look. You can't decide anything until you know for sure," Tyler said, and pulled a box out of his hoodie pocket. It was a pregnancy test, and he handed it to me.

"Take it. It's easy, just pee on the right part and we'll find out in a few minutes what the situation is."

I stared at it like it was a ticking bomb that might go off in my hand and leave me a dripping trail of fleshy goop on the walls.

"C'mon," he said, shaking it toward me. I flinched away from it. I may have even batted at it with my hand, pushing it away from myself. He laughed, and then I laughed too, at my own ridiculousness.

But I really didn't want to know, and I looked at him with pleading eyes.

'Don't make me do this,' I begged silently.

"It's the only way to know for sure. Unless you want me to take you to the doctor tomorrow..."

My eyes widened in horror.

"Oh, God, no," I protested, and I took the damn test from him, gripping it too-tight in my fist.

"I'll wait out here," Tyler promised. "You go into the bathroom, and... in five minutes, you'll have the information you need."

The information I needed, maybe, but also the information that would doom me. I gave him another long-suffering sigh, and a scathing look, but he took it easily, and nudged me with his foot toward the bathroom.

I went inside and shut the door. I pulled the test out of its box and unwrapped the paper instructions, reading them briefly. Damn it, this was stupid. I should just leave the pregnancy test there and say I'd taken it. Kick Tyler out of my house. He had good intentions, but I really wasn't ready, that was why I'd been curled up in bed.

It had been a week, though. A week out of only a three month pregnancy was a large chunk. I didn't really have any more time to waste.

I peed on it, and then left it on the counter to decide my fate, staring at myself in the mirror. I looked at every fleck of color in my own eyes, the two shades of green and the gold, the brown deeper below, all mixed and mottled together. I looked so sad. So desperate. But what would I really do, if I were pregnant?

I'd had a week to think about it, I'd been through every possibility in my mind, and already, I knew two things: if I were pregnant, I would keep the baby. And if I wasn't pregnant, part of me would be disappointed.

I rapped my fingers on the counter. I paced back and forth. I squeezed my eyes shut and counted backwards from a thousand. Anything to keep from looking at the test. And then finally, I could avoid it no longer.

"James? What does it say?" Tyler asked from outside the door.

I locked the door and sat down on the shut toilet seat, where I had faced too many secrets on my own. I took the test in my hand and slowly peeked an eye open.

Pregnant.

I was going to be a father.

"James?" Tyler asked.

My heart pounded in my chest. My whole life was going to change, and I didn't even hate it. I didn't even hate Ben for it. I was upset that I hadn't chosen it, but then and there, I did choose it. And I knew that I had one last thing I had to do to keep my baby safe before I could really settle into being a parent, that role I had never wished for until now.

I had to make sure that Cal Henderson never ended up mayor of our city. I had to get him out of my life forever. That night was the candidate's debate. If I could humiliate him in front of the whole city, if I could show him for what he truly was...

But Ben. Ben would never let me go, and I doubted Tyler would, either, once he saw that positive test. The way I had been protected and coddled as an omega would only increase once everyone knew I was with child. I had to do this before they locked me up again.

I glanced at the small window in the bathroom. Every now and then, when I'd been dying for freedom at the mansion, I would lock myself in the bathroom, shift into my wolf form, and climb out the tiny window. Until they'd put bars on it, anyway. But Ben hadn't thought to protect my against myself.

I climbed up onto the toilet and forced the window open, glancing down. Sure enough, there was a fire escape within jumping distance, and I could run down the stairs to the ground floor from there.

I glanced back at the locked door.

Tyler was banging on it now.

"James, are you okay? I'm going to come in. I'll force the door if I have to. Just say something."

"I'm fine!" I lied. "I'll be out in a few minutes."

Then I shifted, the pregnancy test and all of my clothes falling into a pile on the floor. I left my shirt and jacket and I grabbed my shoes and pants in my mouth, my wallet inside of them. As a wolf, I squirmed my slender body out of the small window and then jumped from the edge of the building to the fire escape in one leap. My heart pounding, I ran down the stairs. It was only a matter of time before they discovered I was gone, and when that happened, Ben would tear the city apart searching for me.

I had one last day of freedom, one last chance to make a difference. So I ran as hard and as fast as I could, toward the most dangerous man I knew.