Chapter 3

Jasmine's POV

The engine roar faded into the distance, leaving me alone on the cracked sidewalk with cold wind biting at my face.

I stood there for a long moment, feeling the alcohol haze start to lift slowly.

Something felt off about that ride. The interior was too nice—leather seats, a quiet engine, nothing like the rattling cabs I was used to. And that cologne...

I shook my head. No. I was drunk, imagining things, my broken heart playing tricks on me again. Just coincidence. Some wealthy businessman who happened to wear the same scent I'd once—

No. Don't go there.

I climbed the unsteady stairs, each step heavier than the last, and the familiar scent still ached in my chest as I fumbled for my keys.

I thought again of that night six years ago.

The door had barely closed behind Dominic before I'd collapsed onto the floor.

My wolf was howling inside me. The pain of the broken bond was physical.

"We had to," I whispered. "We had to."

She didn't understand. She only knew our mate was gone and it hurt and we'd done it to ourselves.

My father was convicted of a serious crime and sent to prison. The pack was given a new Alpha. I was to be cast out—rogue.

I knew Dominic. If he'd known the truth, he would have stayed and faced it with me. But he'd already endured too much because of me. I couldn't drag him down any further.

I'd lain there on the floor and let the sobs tear through me.

The room started spinning around me. Then, without warning, I was violently sick.

I shook my head violently, forcing myself back to the present before the memory could drag me under completely.

The apartment was dark when I finally got the door open. I toed off my shoes as quietly as I could, planning to collapse on the couch so I wouldn't wake Lily with my stumbling.

Then I heard it. Coughing—wet and ragged and wrong.

I was across the room in three strides, my heart hammering against my ribs. Lily was sitting up in our shared bed, her small body shaking with each cough that tore through her. Her face was flushed bright red, her breathing coming in short, labored gasps.

"Baby." I pressed my hand to her forehead and swore under my breath. Burning hot. "How long have you been coughing like this?"

"I don't know." Another cough wracked her tiny frame. "Mommy, it hurts. My chest hurts."

My hands were already reaching for my phone, fingers clumsy with panic and residual alcohol. Nearly two in the morning, but I didn't hesitate.

Elijah answered on the second ring. He is Lily's Healer. Medical care in this town is basic at best—he was sent here three months ago on a temporary assignment from outside.

"Jasmine? What's wrong?"

"It's Lily. She's coughing worse than before, fever's really high, I don't know what to—"

"Okay, take a breath for me." His voice was calm, professional, the healer taking over. "What's her temperature?"

I fumbled for the thermometer with shaking hands, nearly dropping it twice before I got it under Lily's tongue. "One-oh-three point four."

"Alright. Get the blue bottle from the medicine kit I gave you. Two teaspoons. I'll stay on the line while you do it."

I measured it out as carefully as my trembling hands would allow, and Lily took it without complaint. She'd had so much medicine in her five short years that she didn't even make faces at the taste anymore. That thought hurt worse than anything—that my baby had been sick for so long that medicine was just normal to her now.

"Good," Elijah said when I told him she'd taken it. "Keep her upright for at least twenty minutes. If the fever doesn't start coming down in half an hour, call me back immediately and I'll come over."

"Thank you." My voice cracked despite my best efforts. "I'm sorry to bother you again."

Even though he'd phoned me in the car only moments ago, I still couldn't shake the guilt.

"Don't apologize." A pause. "Jasmine, we need to transfer her to my hospital for more thorough treatment. If it's the cost, I can cover it. You don't have to do this alone."

I closed my eyes, feeling the weight of his offer and everything it implied settling on my shoulders. "Elijah, I appreciate it more than you know. I do. But it's too much. I can't accept that kind of help from you."

"Why not?" He sounded genuinely confused. "You're my friend. Let me help."

"I just can't," I said quietly. "But thank you. Really. I mean it."

I couldn't take that much from Elijah. Those bills could hit tens of thousands, and I'd owe him something I could never pay back.

He sighed but didn't push further, knowing me well enough to recognize when I'd made up my mind. "Okay. But please, at least think about it. For Lily's sake."

After hanging up, I settled beside Lily's bed with a damp cloth to cool her forehead. She was already breathing a little easier, the medicine starting to work its way through her system.

"Mommy?" Her voice was small and rough from coughing.

"I'm right here, baby. I'm not going anywhere."

"There's a parent day at preschool." She looked up at me with those big eyes—Dominic's eyes, his exact shade of amber that I saw every single day. "At the end of the month. Is Daddy going to come?"

My heart clenched painfully in my chest.

I'd been telling her stories since she was old enough to ask about her father. Gentle lies about a man who loved her very much but lived far away for work. Who couldn't visit but thought about her every single day. Who would come home as soon as he could.

"Daddy's very busy with important work, sweetheart," I managed, brushing her dark hair back from her feverish forehead. "But I'll be there. Isn't that enough?"

"I guess." She didn't sound convinced, and that hurt too. "My friend Emma says her daddy brings her ice cream every Friday after school. Does my daddy like ice cream?"

Pain lanced through my chest so sharp I almost gasped. "Yeah, baby. Yeah, he loves ice cream. Chocolate was always his favorite."

"Will I ever meet him?"

"Maybe someday," I whispered, the lie tasting bitter on my tongue. "Now sleep, okay? You need to rest and let the medicine work."

I stayed beside her bed until her breathing evened out completely, until her small hand went slack in mine and I was sure she was deeply asleep. Then I crawled onto my side of the bed and stared at the ceiling, too wired to sleep despite the exhaustion pulling at my bones.

That cologne kept floating through my mind. Noir de Minuit. In my half-drunk haze earlier, I'd thought—but no. It couldn't have been him. Just coincidence. Just my broken heart playing tricks on me the way it had been doing for six long years.

The next evening, I walked into The Copper Fang for my shift, still feeling slightly off from the combination of too much alcohol the night before and too little sleep after.

"Jasmine!" Marta hurried over as soon as she spotted me, her face guilty in a way that immediately put me on alert. "Honey, I am so sorry about last night. I just found out this morning—the driver cancelled your ride right after I placed the order. Did you manage to get home okay?"

I froze, my stomach dropping. "What?"

"I felt terrible when I realized, but you'd already left and I couldn't reach you." She peered at me more closely. "You did get home safely, right?"

Oh God. Oh no.

I'd gotten into the wrong car. That's why the interior had been so nice. That's why the man sitting in the back had looked at me like—

"Yeah," I said faintly, my voice sounding distant to my own ears. "Yeah, I... I got a ride."

Marta's eyes lit up with sudden interest, the guilt immediately replaced by curiosity. "Ooh. From who? Do tell. Please tell me something interesting finally happened to you."

I thought about that moment when I'd pressed my face against a stranger's neck and smelled Dominic's cologne. About the business card I'd apparently given him, which I only vaguely remembered. About the contemptuous sound he'd made when I'd tried to—

God, what had I done?

"It was just... some guy," I said, aiming for casual and probably missing by a mile. "Businessman, I think. He was already in the car when I got in. I must've taken the wrong one."

"And?" Marta pressed, clearly hoping for more. "Was he cute? Rich? Did he ask for your number?"

I felt my face heat up. "Marta, I was drunk. I barely remember what he looked like." That was a lie. "He gave me a ride home. That's it. End of story."

"Mmm-hmm." Marta clearly didn't believe me but was enjoying herself too much to let it go. "You're blushing. You never blush. Come on, there's got to be more to it than that."

"There's not," I insisted, but my mind was racing. The wrong car. An expensive car. With someone important enough to have a driver and afford that kind of vehicle. Someone who'd been in the Borderlands last night, who I'd gotten drunk and stupid in front of, who I'd—

Oh God, the cologne. I'd talked about Dominic's cologne. I'd pressed against him like he was some kind of replacement for—

"Jasmine, honey, you look like you're going to be sick," Marta said, her teasing tone shifting to concern. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," I lied. "Just... tired. Lily was sick again last night. High fever."

That successfully distracted her, as I'd known it would. Marta's expression immediately softened with worry. "Oh no. Is she alright now?"

"Better. Elijah talked me through it over the phone."

"That man is a saint," Marta declared. "I don't know what you'd do without him."

Before I could respond, our boss's voice cut across the room like a whip crack. "Marta! Jasmine! Get over here. Now."

We exchanged quick glances and hurried toward Frank's office. He was standing in the doorway holding up plastic-wrapped garments on hangers, and my stomach immediately sank when I saw what they were.

"New uniforms," he announced, looking more excited than I'd seen him in months. "Put them on. Tonight's huge—we've got VIPs coming in, and I want everyone looking their best."

"The biggest name of all," he puffed up, "is the new Alpha King."