The smell of burnt coffee and stale grease hit me the moment I pushed through the diner's door. Joe's 24-Hour Diner wasn't much....cracked vinyl booths, flickering fluorescent lights, a counter that had seen better decades....but it was the last job I had left.
Was.
Past tense.
I didn't know it yet as I tied my apron around my waist, but I was about to lose this too.
"Table four needs refills," Joe barked from behind the counter, not looking up from his newspaper. He was a gruff wolf in his sixties, mostly grey around the muzzle, who'd given me this job when no one else would. I'd been grateful. I'd thought maybe he was different.
I grabbed the coffee pot and headed to table four.
Three male wolves sat there, young and cocky, probably mid-twenties. Their eyes tracked me as I approached, and I already knew this was going to be a problem.
"Coffee?" I asked, keeping my voice neutral, professional.
The one closest to me...sandy blonde hair, blue eyes that would've been handsome if they weren't filled with contempt.....leaned back in his seat and sniffed the air dramatically.
"You smell that?" he asked his friends, loud enough for half the diner to hear.
"Yeah," one of them answered, a dark-haired wolf with a cruel smirk. "Smells like... nothing."
"Exactly." The blonde one looked up at me, his lip curling. "Wolfless. What the fuck is a wolfless doing serving real wolves?"
My hand tightened on the coffee pot. "Just doing my job. Do you want the coffee or not?"
"I don't want anything touched by wolfless hands," he said, shoving his cup away. "It's fucking insulting. We come here to eat, and they got someone who can't even shift serving us?"
Keep calm, I told myself. Don't react. You need this job.
"I'll get someone else to serve your table," I said quietly, turning to leave.
His hand shot out, grabbed my wrist. Not hard enough to hurt, but firm enough to stop me.
"You know what you are?" he said, his voice dropping low, meant just for me. "You're nothing. Not wolf, not human, just... broken. Your pack should've cast you out the day you failed to shift. You're taking up space that real wolves could use."
I yanked my wrist free, my heart pounding with humiliation and rage. "Let go of me."
"Or what?" He grinned. "You gonna shift and make me? Oh wait....you can't."
His friends laughed.
I walked away before I did something stupid like throw hot coffee in his face. My hands shook as I set the pot back on the burner.
"Lilith." Joe's voice behind me made me freeze. "My office. Now."
Fuck.
I followed him to the cramped back office, barely big enough for his desk and two chairs. He closed the door and sat down heavily, finally meeting my eyes.
"I'm sorry, kid," he said, and I knew what was coming. "I gotta let you go."
"Joe, please...."
"It's not personal." He ran a hand over his grey hair. "But I got wolves complaining every shift you work. They don't want a wolfless serving them. They say it makes the food taste bad, which is bullshit, but customers are customers."
"I work hard. I'm never late. I don't cause problems...."
"I know." He looked genuinely sorry. At least there was that. "But I can't afford to lose business. Half my customers are from local packs. If word gets out I'm employing wolfless over real wolves..." He shook his head. "I got a family to feed. I'm sorry."
I wanted to argue. Wanted to scream that this wasn't fair, that I couldn't help being wolfless, that I needed this job desperately.
But what was the point?
"When?" I asked, my voice hollow.
"End of shift today." He pulled an envelope from his desk. "Two weeks' pay. It's all I can do."
I took the envelope, feeling the thin stack of bills inside. Maybe three hundred dollars.
It wasn't enough. It was never enough.
"Thanks," I said, because what else was there to say?
I finished my shift in a haze. The wolves at table four left without tipping, making sure I saw them stiff me. Other customers avoided eye contact, like being wolfless might be contagious.
By the time I clocked out at three PM, I was exhausted and hollow.
Two jobs in one month. Gone. Just like that.
I walked out into grey afternoon drizzle, no umbrella, no jacket heavy enough for the cold. The rain soaked through my thin sweater within minutes, but I didn't care. Couldn't muster the energy to care.
The city moved around me.....wolves laughing with their packmates, couples walking close together, families with children who would grow up to shift and run and be whole.
Everything I would never have.
I thought about the day I was supposed to shift. My sixteenth birthday. The ceremony that was supposed to change my life.
The pack gathered under the full moon, everyone excited. My parents stood beside me, Dad's hand on my shoulder, Mom beaming with pride.
"Tonight, you become one of us," the Alpha said, his voice carrying over the crowd. "Tonight, your wolf emerges."
I felt the moonlight on my skin, felt something stirring inside me.....anticipation, maybe, or just hope.
But nothing happened.
Minutes passed. Then an hour. The pack's excitement turned to confusion, then to pity.
"Sometimes it takes longer," the Alpha said kindly. "Try again tomorrow night."
But tomorrow night was the same. And the night after. And after.
A week of ceremonies. Two weeks. A month.
Nothing.
The pack healers examined me, running every test they knew. They checked my bloodline, my health, my connection to the moon. Everything came back normal.
"There's nothing wrong with you," they said, which somehow made it worse. "Your wolf is just... not there."
Not there. Like I was born incomplete. A puzzle with a missing piece.
Dad never treated me differently. Even when other pack members started avoiding me, when my friends stopped inviting me to runs, when I became invisible.....Dad still looked at me like I mattered.
"You're my daughter," he'd said. "Wolf or no wolf, you're mine. And you're perfect."
But I wasn't perfect. I was broken.
And now Dad was gone, and I was alone with my brokenness, and the world wouldn't let me forget it for a single day.
A car horn blared, startling me back to the present. I'd wandered into the crosswalk without looking.
"Watch where you're going, wolfless!" the driver shouted before speeding off.
I made it to the other side, my clothes soaked through, my hair plastered to my face. Found a bus stop and sat on the bench, staring at nothing.
Two weeks' pay. Three hundred dollars.
I needed seventeen thousand, eight hundred dollars.
The math was impossible. Even when I'd had two jobs, I could barely make rent and put a dent in Mom's hospital bills. Now, with no income at all?
There was no way out.
Except one.
I pulled the red flyer from my pocket. It was damp from the rain, the ink bleeding slightly, but the words were still clear.
THE RITE. Five gold bars. One night.
My hands trembled as I stared at it.
Tonight. Midnight. I'd made my decision last night, but somehow it felt more real now. More inevitable.
I had nothing left to lose. No job, no savings, no options. Just this.....one night with three Cursed Alphas in exchange for enough gold to save my mother.
The rain came down harder, soaking me to the bone, but I didn't move.
I sat there on that bus stop bench, clutching a bleeding red flyer, and wondered if this was rock bottom or if I still had further to fall.
Tonight, I'd find out.
Tonight, the Cursed Alphas would take everything I had left to give.
And I would let them.
Because the alternative was watching my mother die.
And I couldn't do that.
I wouldn't.
Even if it cost me everything.
Even if it broke me completely.
Some prices were worth paying.
I stood up, water dripping from my clothes, the flyer clutched in my shaking hand, and started the long walk home.
Eight hours until midnight.
Eight hours until my life changed forever.
Eight hours until I learned exactly what it meant to be claimed by monsters.
The rain poured down, washing everything away....my tears, my fear, my last shreds of dignity.
By the time I reached my apartment, I was numb.
Numb was good.
Numb meant I wouldn't think too hard about what I was about to do tonight.
I was ready.
I had to be. There was no other way around it.