My Alpha Rejected Bonding, He Cried After I Died

Chapter 3 Without Goodbye

During our first year together, Damian's ears would turn red every time he spoke to me. He was nothing like the man looking at me with revulsion now.

I was nothing back then, just a lowly, wolfless girl. He left his home for me. He broke away from his Pack.

We squeezed into a rented studio barely 430 square feet in size. The kitchen was hardly big enough for one person. The bathroom faucet dripped constantly. The heating never worked properly in winter, and the room was never quite warm enough.

But Damian never complained.

He learned to cook soups and stews for me. Stews gave him the most trouble. He always added too much salt, and they tasted like seawater. I would force down a spoonful, and he would watch me nervously.

"Is it bad? I'll throw it out and start over."

"It's good," I said.

He froze for a beat, then scooped me up and spun me around. When he set me down, his face was so flushed it was almost unrecognizable.

I thought that was love.

I thought we would stay that way forever.

But life was not a fairy tale.

My mother's illness grew worse. Between dialysis, targeted therapy, and imported specialty medication, the medical bills piled up like an avalanche.

Damian made decent money. With his talent, I knew he would have succeeded anywhere, even without his Pack. But he should never have been dragged down with me. What he earned was enough to cover rent and food, but nowhere near enough for my mother's medical bills.

I once caught him going to his Pack in person to beg for money. He was so proud, yet there he was, willing to kneel for my mother's hospital bills. I hid around the corner and cried for a long time.

I could not bear it.

I could not let him be dragged down with me. His life was never meant to end that way.

I called Damian's father.

"Mr. Blackwood, I accept your terms. Give me the money, and I will leave Damian immediately."

"This will cover your mother's treatment. The rest is yours. You love him, don't you? Then don't hold him back."

Those words, "Don't hold him back," drove into my chest like nails.

Damian had given up the life he was born into and lowered himself into mine. He should have been living in a mansion, driving luxury cars, and commanding his Pack. Instead, he was working overtime at a design firm until dawn, lowering his head to clients just to collect the final payment on a project.

I was the one holding him back.

Without me, he would have gone home long ago. He would have returned to the world where he belonged, become the Alpha he was born to be, marked a Luna of proper standing, and lived the life everyone had expected for him.

"I will leave him," I said. "I will not contact him again. I will disappear from his life."

I did not cry.

I had no tears left.

I only wondered what Damian would cook that night. He had mentioned the day before that he wanted to try tomato beef stew. I wondered if he would add too much salt again.

I would never get to taste it.

I left without a word. I took my mother and vanished.

I chose to let him hate me. Let him hate me for being mercenary and shallow, the kind of woman who abandoned a man for money.

Hatred was easier to let go of than love.

If he hated me, he could move on. He could return to the life he was meant for. He could live the life he was always meant to live.

That was the last thing I could do for him.

I took my mother abroad and used the money for her treatment. Her condition improved for a while. She asked me why Damian never came to visit. I told her we had ended things.

She did not ask again.

At night, when her coughing kept her awake, she would stare out the window for a long time, lost in thought.

A year later, my mother passed away anyway.

The day she left me, I took the wedding dress out of the closet and laid it beside her. Her eyes were closed. The corners of her mouth curved slightly upward, as if she were having a pleasant dream. I held her hand. It was cold and thin, the knuckles sharp beneath the skin.

"Mom," I said, "he was so good to me. Really. He was so, so good to me."

She gave no answer.

I cried through the night.

Later, Damian returned to his family and took over the Pack. He became a name in the financial pages, young, immensely wealthy, with a future everyone seemed eager to bet on.

In the third year after I left him, he found me.

I did not know how.

He stood at my door in a black coat, thinner than he had been three years earlier. The shadows beneath his eyes were so dark they looked bruised, as though he had not slept in a very long time.

He caught my wrist. His grip was fierce, as if he were terrified I would escape again.

"Don't leave again," he said. "Please."

I nodded.

Perhaps I was also trying to make up for my own regrets.

But what I did not know then was that after he came back, everything had changed.

He stopped going near my bond site. He stopped releasing his scent for me. He stopped touching me.

From the very first day, our marriage was an empty shell, all form and no substance.

I never learned what he had been through in those three years. All I knew was that he hated me.

He hated me for leaving without a word. He hated me for making him search for three years.

I used to believe that if I waited long enough, he would eventually forgive me. So I watched him bring home one woman after another.

I remembered the fever I had back when we were still in that rented studio. It had climbed to 104 degrees. Damian was frantic. The roads were slick with snow, and he fell hard on the way back, his knee slamming against the curb.

By the time he returned, the leg of his trousers was soaked in blood. His hands shook as he handed me the medicine, not from pain, but from fear.

"Don't die," he said. "You can't die. If you die, what am I supposed to do?"

'But Damian, I really am dying now. Would it still hurt you? You have found someone you love more. All that is left for me is hate. Damian, I do not have much time left. I cannot wait for your forgiveness anymore.'

I fought through the pain and sent Damian a message.

Yara: [Damian, I want a divorce.]

'Damian, I do not want to wait anymore. I do not have the strength left to wait.'