Chapter 2

I was too young then. I had no idea what to do.

All I knew was that my heart hurt so badly it had gone numb.

Afraid Adrian would misunderstand me again, I could not bring myself to use his card.

In the end, one of his friends "lent" me the three hundred thousand on the condition that I drink with him for one night.

They forced so much alcohol down my throat at the club that my stomach began to bleed.

When Adrian came to get me in the middle of the night, his face was livid.

He did not say a word during the drive. Only after we reached home did he finally explode.

"Do you have any idea what would have happened if I'd arrived a few minutes later?"

"Is money truly that important to you?"

"Were you willing to get yourself killed just so you could pay me back?"

I shrank into my seat, too ashamed to lift my head.

My stomach burned, but the cold in my heart was worse.

Yet after he finished shouting, he dropped to one knee in front of me and wiped the blood from the corner of my mouth.

He summoned a healer and stayed until my wolf finally settled.

He had just opened his mouth to ask what I had done with the three hundred thousand when Selene called.

She was sobbing. Her wolf had lost control, she said, and Adrian was the only one who could calm her.

Adrian remained silent for a long time.

He tucked the blanket around me, then turned and left anyway.

From that day on, gold digger and fortune hunter became labels I could never tear away.

When his friends mocked me, Adrian no longer laughed with them, but neither did he defend me.

Soon afterward, my father was diagnosed with wolf-soul degeneration. The disease consumed him with terrifying speed.

Then my father lost his fight.

On the day he died, I called Adrian in hysterics, barely able to form a coherent sentence.

Adrian was presiding over a pack council meeting.

He hung up.

I sent voice message after voice message. Some were explanations. Others were nothing but grief spilling out of me.

Much later, he transferred eight hundred and eighty-eight dollars to my account.

I stared at the number on the screen, my hand trembling so violently I could barely hold the phone. All the color drained from my face.

After that day, Adrian and I were mates on paper and strangers in every way that mattered.

He stopped answering my messages. Each new transfer seemed intended only to remind me that, in his eyes, I was a shameless gold digger.

Strangely, however, he never petitioned the elders to dissolve our mate bond.

I collected my medicine from the pack clinic.

The house was cold when I returned.

The pain in my wolf soul intensified, stabbing out from the deepest part of my consciousness and driving through flesh and bone.

With shaking hands, I measured out the pain-relieving herbs and swallowed two of the sleeping tablets the healer had prescribed.

They took effect quickly.

As my thoughts began to blur, I looked up at the enormous photograph from our mating ceremony hanging on the wall.

Adrian was smiling so freely in it, sunlight and my reflection bright in his eyes.

It had been taken when we loved each other most.

He had cradled my face and brushed a kiss over my lips.

"Elara, I'll be good to you for the rest of my life."

The rest of his life.

What an effortless lie.

My fingers trembling, I typed a message.

Adrian, if I died, would you grieve for me?

I pressed send.

My phone vibrated almost immediately.

A transfer notification appeared.

Eight hundred and eighty-eight dollars, as always.

I stared at it for a very long time.

Then I clapped a hand over my mouth and stumbled into the bathroom, retching over the toilet.

In the end, nothing came up. Only involuntary tears blurred my vision.

The medicine dragged me under.

I collapsed onto the bed, the room dissolving around me.

In the haze, I thought I saw the twenty-year-old Adrian walking toward me with that shameless grin of his, tucking a flower behind my ear.

"Hey. How about becoming my mate?"

I smiled too and struggled to reach for him.

I wanted to say yes.

But my tears fell first.

Let it end like this.

Perhaps it would be better if I never woke again.

At least the Adrian in my dreams would never tell me, in that cold voice, that mating with me was the greatest regret of his life.