I should have taken a different route home.
Should have avoided the east side of the city where the nicer apartments were, where wolves with money and status lived in buildings with actual security and working elevators.
Where I used to live, back when Dad was alive and we could afford more than a shoebox studio.
Where Derek lived with his perfect mate.
But my feet carried me there anyway, some masochistic part of me needing to see what I'd lost. Needing to remind myself why tonight didn't matter, why giving myself to three monsters for gold wasn't really a betrayal of anything, because there was nothing left to betray.
The apartment building loomed ahead....red brick, clean windows, a doorman who actually gave a shit. I slowed my pace, told myself to turn around, walk away.
Then I saw him.
Derek stood outside the entrance, his arm around a woman who glowed with that unmistakable radiance of a freshly marked mate. She was beautiful....long auburn hair, perfect skin, curves in all the right places. Everything I wasn't.
My feet stopped moving.
Derek's head turned, and our eyes met.
For a second, neither of us moved. Then his expression shifted.....surprise, discomfort, something that might have been guilt if he were capable of feeling it.
"Lilith?" His voice carried across the distance between us.
I should have kept walking. Should have pretended I didn't hear him. But my legs wouldn't cooperate.
His mate....I refused to learn her name....looked at me with curiosity, then recognition, then pity. That fucking pity that everyone gave me now.
Derek said something to her, and she nodded, stepping back toward the building entrance but not going inside. Staying close. Protecting what was hers.
He walked toward me, and I watched him come, this man I'd spent three years with, this man who'd promised me forever.
He looked good. Better than good. The mate bond agreed with him....his skin had a healthy glow, his eyes were bright, his whole body radiated satisfaction and contentment.
Being with me had never made him look like that.
"Hey," he said when he reached me, shoving his hands in his pockets. "I didn't expect to see you here."
"I didn't expect to see you either." My voice came out flat, dead. "I'm just passing through."
"Right." He shifted his weight, uncomfortable. "How have you been?"
How had I been? Was he seriously asking me that?
"Great," I said. "Just great. Lost both my jobs, about to lose my apartment, Mom's still in a coma and the hospital is threatening to transfer her to county care. Living the dream."
He winced. "Lilith, I'm sorry...."
"Are you?" I cut him off. "Are you really sorry, Derek? Because you look pretty fucking happy to me."
His jaw tightened. "That's not fair."
"Fair?" I laughed, and it sounded unhinged even to my own ears. "You want to talk about fair? You spent three years telling me you didn't care that I was wolfless, that it didn't matter, that we'd figure it out together. Then the second you found your precious mate, I became nothing. Three years, Derek. Gone in one night."
"I didn't plan it....."
"No one plans it!" My voice rose, and I didn't care that his mate was watching, that people passing by were staring. "But you made a choice. You chose her over me, and I get it, I do. The mate bond is everything, right? Sacred and unbreakable and all that bullshit."
"It's not bullshit," he said quietly. "The bond is real, Lilith. You'd understand if you could feel it...."
"But I can't feel it, can I? Because I'm wolfless. Because I'm broken. Because I'm not worth a fucking mate bond."
The memory crashed over me, vivid and brutal.
Two months ago. Late at night. Derek showing up at my apartment, and I'd been so happy to see him because Dad had just died and I was drowning and I needed him.
But the look on his face.....distant, guilty, resigned.....told me everything before he even opened his mouth.
"I found her," he'd said. "My mate."
The world tilted. "What?"
"Tonight, at the pack gathering. I caught her scent and... Lilith, the bond snapped into place immediately. I couldn't ignore it. Can't ignore it."
"But what about us?" My voice was so small. "What about everything we planned?"
"You're not my mate." He said it so simply, like it explained everything. Like it erased three years in a single sentence. "I thought maybe I could fight it, thought maybe what we had was enough, but...."
"But I'm not enough." I finished for him.
"That's not what I meant...."
"Then what did you mean, Derek? Spell it out for me."
He ran a hand through his hair, frustrated. "The mate bond is everything, Lilith. It's biological, chemical, spiritual. Fighting it would be like fighting gravity. And you... you can't even shift. What kind of future could we have? What kind of life?"
"The life you promised me." Tears were streaming down my face now. "The forever you swore you wanted."
"I was wrong." His voice was cold now, like he'd already made peace with this, already moved on in his head. "I was wrong to think I could be happy with a wolfless girl when my real mate was out there waiting."
"Get out."
"Lilith....."
"Get the fuck out of my apartment. Now."