When You Were My Mate

3

Demetra.

I get back to the pack house a little past midnight. My body aches everywhere…. like even my bones are tired. I don’t bother turning on the light; I just crawl into bed and start crying all over again. The kind of crying that makes your throat hurt.

Slade. Of all people, it had to be him.

Emris hates Slade more than he hates any other enemy. He’s the son of Alpha Ronni from the Lion Pride Pack. The Lion Pride Pack and the Black Covenant share a territory….joined by waters, separated by Alphas. They’re rich, powerful but Emris would rather die than be in the same room as them. I didn’t even recognize them!

The older man just… he thought I was someone else.

My phone glows in the dark: 2:17 AM.

A part of me still wants to go to him, to tell him again that this is a mistake. Maybe if he just listens one more time, he’ll see it. Why does loving him make me feel like such an i***t? I know deep down he doesn’t deserve it. He doesn’t deserve me. And yet… I still do.

When I finally wake up, it’s because someone’s tapping my arm.

“Demetra!” It’s the head chef’s voice. “Goodness, child, I thought you were dead for a second. Do you realize you’ve slept two hours past your shift? Emris’ suite—”

Once I see it’s morning, I leap out of bed and dash into the bathroom. I’m so dead. I’m supposed to clean Emris’s room before he gets back from the gym. If even one of his stupid, expensive things is out of place, he throws a fit. Then he’s late for breakfast, and the whole pack knows it’s my fault.

I shower and throw on my uniform then take the elevator straight up to the penthouse level. I start planning my apology in my head as I move into Emris’ floor.

Suddenly, I stop because standing right in the middle of the living room are Elena and Luna Derisha. And Luna Derisha is holding something lacy and blue between her fingers.

My bra.

It’s the one Emris took yesterday. The one I told him, over and over, to give back.

I forget how to breathe but I have to say something.

“Lu… Luna.”

Luna Derisha’s violet eyes look almost black. “Who owns this?”

I rub my hands on my apron like that’ll make me look less guilty. “Um… I don’t know.” I lie.

The door behind me swings open and Radu fills the threshold like a dark mountain. He is the Luna’s gamma, the wolf everyone hushes for in the halls. He’s the one who rescued Emris after he was kidnapped and caged for two years as a kid.

Radu doesn’t waste words, he only growls and moves when the Luna says so. Seeing him here means this isn’t just a scolding; it’s an execution.

“You f*****g slut! You’re trying to seduce my son. You put your bra in my son’s closet.”

Elena shakes her head. “How old are you to be acting so shameless? You’re at least seven years younger than Emris!?”

“Luna, it’s not… it’s not mine.”

“It smells like you. Filthy. My son, who is going to be Alpha, is the person you’re trying to seduce? You’re just like that maggot of a mother who gave birth to you! That b***h spread her legs for every man in the pack just to climb the ladder, and you ended up following the worst of her traits—”

Her hot hand snatches my hair!

Then, Luna Derisha uses it to bring to my knees. It’s so painful, so utterly painful and shocking that I taste metal and then white light. I see a bunch of my hair in her hands and then I feel blood coming from my scalp.

I look up in tears.

“It’s not yours. Fine. We’ll test it, then. Bring her downstairs where all the pack employees look. I will use this b***h as a lesson.”

“Luna, please! Luna, please!”

My screams are short as Radu’s massive hand closes around my ankle. He doesn’t even lift me; he just uses my own body to drag me across the floor. My uniform rides as I twist and kick, but it doesn’t matter.

By the time we reach the hall downstairs, every pack employee is there. Cooks, cleaners, security, everyone is looking at me at the centre. I’m trembling on my knees. I’ve always feared Luna Derisha, but never like this. Never when Emris isn’t here to stop her.

“I hope you’re all watching…” Elena says loudly. “This is what happens to anyone who thinks they can seduce the future Alpha. Your little colleague here hid her bra in his closet, and now she’s pretending it isn’t hers.”

Luna Derisha tosses the fabric at my face. “If you say it’s not yours, prove it.”

I am not able to stop shaking.

“But Luna….” the head chef speaks up for me. “In front of everyone?”

“Are you questioning me?”

“Apologies, Luna! Apologies!”

I crawl forward on my hands and knees in tears. I grab the hem of Luna Derisha’s designer dress. “Please. Forgive me. I’ll never do anything like this again. Please.”

“Luna, I’m begging you. Pleaseee-“

“You should have thought of that before you tried to disgrace my family.” Luna Derisha looks at Radu and I hear his boots coming forward.

I feel Radu’s hands on the back of my uniform and the fabric rips straight down my back. I scream, trying to cover myself.

“Rip the bra, too so she can try this one.”

Radu obeys. The straps of my own bra snap, and I sob, using my long white hair as a pathetic curtain to hide my body. Through the veil of my hair, I see some of the male employees turn their backs so they don’t watch. The girls just stare in horror. I am naked, on my knees, utterly broken.

Through, my sobs, I hear the one sound that could make this worse.

The sound of the Luna’s sons. Emris. Silver and Regan. I’m shivering, naked and exposed on my knees, when I look up and see them standing there.

“What the hell is going on here!?” Emris yells, looking at me.

Elena and Luna Derisha spin around. They hadn’t seen him come in.

“Mom, what the hell.” Silver says.

Regan, the other brother, just chuckles. “Isn’t she Emris’s pretty little housekeeper?”

“No, she is her mother’s daughter!” Luna Derisha shrieks. “And I don’t care what you say today, I will punish her mercilessly! Put on the bra, now!”

I squeeze my eyes shut. I will rather die right here than be humiliated any further.

“Demetra!” I hear Paxton’s voice, and he’s already at my side. Before I can say anything, he uses his own chef’s coat as a wrap around my shoulders.

“Paxton.” I shake my head.

“She needs more cover!” He yells to anyone who’ll listen and for a second, I think he might fight them all.

“Paxton!?” Susan, the head chef calls out to warn him but he doesn’t answer.

Then I hear a rumbling growl from Radu. My eyes dart up just in time to see the massive Gamma take a step forward to make an example of Radu but Emris moves faster.

He doesn’t go for Radu. He goes straight for Paxton, grabbing him by the collar of his shirt and yanking him away from me.

“The Luna gives an order and you bring yourself into the middle of it!”

I can see it in Emris eyes. This isn’t just about the Luna’s command. This is all the jealousy he’s been holding for Paxton, finally finding a public excuse to explode.

“Demetra would never try to seduce you! There has to be some mistake!” Paxton chokes in Emris’s grip. “We all know Demetra! She’s kind, she’s content, and she’s worked her entire life for this pack!”

Emris’s eyes flash with a dark, wicked fire. “What are you… her little lover?” I watch, horrified, as his hand tightens around Paxton’s throat. Paxton’s face begins to turn a terrifying shade of purple.

“Stop!” I yell.

“If I were her lover, so what?” Paxton gasps. “Are we so little to you that we are not worth your love, too? If I were, what does it even matter to—”

Emris hurls Paxton across the room into the bar cellar in an explosion of shattering glass and wood. The crowd screams, some scatter in fear, others rush to help him.

I get up to see if he’s okay. But Emris has something to say to me.

“Get out of my pack now!”

The shout makes my whole wolf skitter and break in half.

“But you know I have only you.” I whisper. I need him to remember. I need him to remember that in this entire, cruel world, he’s the only one I have.

“What the hell do you mean by that!?” Elena inserts herself.

Emris eyes are empty. “You have ten minutes to leave the pack house. If she doesn’t, Radu makes sure she leaves with a claw mark as a souvenir.”

Then he walks away.

Susan is the first to reach me. “Come on, sweetheart, quickly!”

When we reach my room, she lets go so I can pack. I pull on a shirt with trembling hands. My fingers fumble with the zipper of an old bag I drag out from the closet. My chest hurts; my throat burns. I’m shaking so badly it’s hard to fold anything right.

I keep thinking: I’m pregnant. I’m pregnant, and I have nowhere to go. No one to call family. My mate, the only person I ever thought I had just destroyed me.

With five minutes left before Radu comes, I can’t breathe. That’s when I see the business card Alpha Ronni gave me, lying at the corner of my mirror table. His name, his number. I grab it.

When I step out, Summer, Susan, and the others are waiting in the hallway. One by one, they hug me quickly, whispering goodbyes. I don’t trust myself to speak so I just keep moving before I fall apart.

Downstairs, Luna Derisha is waiting. Silver and Regan step aside to let me through.

“Elena?” Luna says lightly, “just promise me that right after you and Emris are married, you’ll give me a grandchild.”

Elena smiles. “Of course, Mother-in-law.”

I press a trembling hand to my stomach and swallow the scream sitting in my throat.

Emris, I swear you’ll never know that I left with a part of you.

I leave the Black Covenant Pack house and I don’t look back.

Outside the gate, I just carry my light bag and think. Do I call? Do I not? Alpha Ronni barely knows me. No one outside this territory even knows me.

I check my wallet and there’s a few bucks at most. Luna Derisha always said food and a bed were my payment so I can’t even afford a motel.

I need help. I take out my phone, type in the number on the card, and call.

“Hello?”

I try not to cry.

“Yes… um, I’m Demetra.” I stammer into the phone. “We met — at the store. I was with Emris that day. You are Alpha Ronni—”

There’s a pause, then a deep, surprised voice. “Yes, you. I can’t believe you’re calling. Are you all right?”

“I…I’m sorry to bother you, Alpha. I just… I have nowhere else to go. That’s why I called.”

Silence. I hear my own heartbeat. My mind starts racing and I think what am I doing? He’s an Alpha. I shouldn’t even be calling him.

“Never mind. I shouldn’t be calling you. You’re—”

“Where are you right now?”

“I’m just outside the Black Covenant gates.”

I look around me.

“I’ll send an escort. A convoy of cars. You’ll be brought to safety at once. Don’t move. Do you understand me?”

“Yes…yes Alpha.”

The line goes dead, and I clutch the phone to my chest. I look down at my belly and make a promise that Emris will never get to know of my child. He will search for me but he will never find. This heart will never forgive him. This heart will never forgive everyone in the Black covenant pack.