Chapter 105

DEREK

I remember the exact moment my father died.

Not when I found out—when it happened. I didn’t know then, of course, but looking back, there was a sudden weight that settled in the air that day, like the wind itself knew something had shifted.

Something in the bond between us snapped.

We were out near the training fields. Me, Joe, and Brock. It was one of those late summer afternoons where the sun stays too long and the grass smells like fire. We’d been sparring, half-heartedly, mostly laughing.

Joe had just gone down with a dramatic groan, and Brock was trying to drag him off the mat by one ankle when I heard the distant howl.

It wasn’t grief. Not yet. It was a summons. A call I’d heard my father use dozens of times—low, clipped, precise.

I stood up straighter before I even understood why.

A messenger arrived maybe five minutes later, panting, face pale.

“Alpha…” he started.

And just like that, I wasn’t laughing anymore.

I still don’t remember the rest of what he said. The words bled together—ambush, rogue territory, too late, no sign of struggle but no chance of survival either.

There was no body.

Just burned trees and blood and silence.

I didn’t speak for hours. I didn’t cry, either. I remember Joe standing near me the whole time, occasionally offering water, occasionally saying my name like he wasn’t sure if I could still hear him.

And Brock—he just stood behind me. Solid. Unmoving.

I think they both thought they were helping.

And maybe they were.

But all I wanted in that moment was someone to hold me. Someone to tell me that the world hadn’t just cracked open beneath my feet.

Instead, I was told I was now the Alpha.

Congratulations, more or less.

I went to see my mother that night. She was curled on the couch in the conservatory, a blanket pulled tight around her shoulders, eyes staring at nothing. She looked smaller than I’d ever seen her.

“Mom,” I said.

She blinked. “He wasn’t supposed to die first.”

I didn’t know how to answer that.

She didn’t look at me again. Just started crying. Quietly. Endlessly.

In the days following my father’s death, Cassandra had been there for me. She stood beside me at the funeral, quiet and composed in a black dress that billowed in the wind. She didn’t weep or ask questions—she just slipped her hand into mine during the eulogy and didn’t let go.

At the burial, when my mother collapsed into me, it was Cassandra who steadied us both.

And in the evenings, when people crowded the estate to pay their respects and whisper condolences through forced smiles, it was Cassandra who made sure I had water, who answered the questions I couldn’t bring myself to, who ran interference when the grief turned suffocating.

She was… present.

But presence wasn’t the same thing as understanding.

Two weeks later, after the estate had gone quiet again—after the silence returned and the grief stopped being public and started becoming something private and dark—I found myself at her apartment.

I hadn’t called ahead. I didn’t know what I wanted.

Just that I needed something to feel okay again.

When she opened the door and saw me standing there, something flickered across her face—surprise, maybe. Or hope.

“I was wondering when you’d come,” she said softly.

I stepped inside.

She had candles burning, and the scent of vanilla and citrus drifted through the air. Her suitcase sat by the door—packed, zipped, and ready.

I sat on the edge of the couch and stared at it. Our trip. When I’d planned to propose.

“The trip?” I asked.

She crossed her arms. “We were supposed to leave tomorrow.”

“I know.”

She sat across from me, not quite close enough to touch. “It was going to be our trip, Derek. You said so. You told me this was the one.”

“It was supposed to be.” I ran a hand through my hair. “I’m sorry,” I added. “I can barely think straight.”

She sighed. A touch dramatically.

“Can we reschedule the trip?” I asked. “Maybe in a couple months? I just… I can’t leave right now. Not with the pack still unsettled. Not with my mom barely speaking. Not like this.”

Cassandra stared at me.

Then she exhaled slowly. “I already took the time off. I’m packed.”

I exhaled.

“I’m going to go,” she said eventually, voice soft.

I nodded, even though it hurt.

Because part of me had hoped she’d stay.

Part of me had hoped she’d cancel the reservation, sit beside me on the couch, and say, We’ll go when you’re ready. I’m not leaving.

But that wasn’t who she was.

Maybe it never had been.

For the first time, I didn’t follow her.

Didn’t chase.

Didn’t apologize.

But I didn’t forget, either.

And some part of me always carried that moment—like a shard of glass pressed into the soft part of my palm.

---

I found Cassandra in the solarium, stretched out on the chaise in a pale silk robe that shimmered like armor. Her legs were crossed neatly, a magazine open in her lap, a tall glass of cucumber water sweating beside her. It could’ve been a spa commercial—if not for the sharp flick of her gaze when she saw me walk in.

She didn’t smile.

I didn’t either.

“I checked the Silverclaw financial logs,” I said quietly.

Her fingers paused mid-turn.

“I was reviewing pack expenditures,” I continued, my voice level, trying to stay calm. “You told me you had a follow-up appointment with the OB. Who said you could still have children.”

She blinked once. “Okay?”

“But there was no appointment.” I moved closer, my hands in my pockets. “No charge. No clinic visit. Just a full-day spa package. Five hundred dollars.”

Now she looked at me.

“I’m trying to figure out why you lied to me.”

Cassandra sat up and folded the magazine shut with exaggerated precision, like she was trying not to show that her hands had gone a little stiff.

“I didn’t lie,” she said calmly.

“You said you went to the doctor.”

“I said I talked to the doctor,” she corrected. “And then I realized I needed something else. Something for me.”

My jaw tensed. “You crafted this whole moment. Like you were opening up. Like you were finally letting me in. You made it seem like you were processing the loss—like it was about healing.”

“I am processing it,” she snapped. “You think a spa day erases the grief? I needed air, Derek. I needed to feel human. You wouldn’t understand.”

“I understand coping,” I said. “I just don’t understand deception. Not from you. Not now.”

Her expression twisted. “Oh, please. Don’t stand there and pretend like you didn’t start this pattern. You’ve always said yes, Derek. Always made things easy for me. Always made me the center of your world—until she came back.”

I exhaled. Slowly. “I know.”

She blinked, caught off guard.

“I know I always said yes,” I repeated. “I spoiled you. I made every compromise. And for a long time, I convinced myself that was love.”

Her brow furrowed. “And it wasn’t?”

“It was something,” I admitted. “But it wasn’t healthy. You were the one who shouted louder, but I was the one who kept backing down. Every time you pushed, I bent.”

She looked away.

“And then when things started to get worse—when the cracks started to show—I doubled down. I kept trying to fix everything with gifts, or trips, or silence. I thought if I could just give you enough, you’d stop needing more.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat.

“But I didn’t help you,” I said. “I enabled you.”

Cassandra didn’t speak. She crossed her arms, but her posture sagged a little. Not anger. Not defiance. Just… resignation.

“You became someone I don’t recognize,” I said. “But the truth is, I helped build that version of you.”

“And now you hate her.”

“I don’t hate you.”

She scoffed, but softly.

“I once promised to mark you,” I said. “To protect you. To build a life with you. And I meant it.”

She looked down.

“You saved my life once. And I’ve never forgotten that. I never will.”

Her voice was quiet when she finally spoke again. “But you don’t love me anymore.”

I didn’t answer right away.

Because the truth was complicated.

Because no, not the way I used to.

But I wasn’t sure I’d stopped completely.

“I don’t know who we are anymore,” I said. “And I don’t know if we can come back from this.”

She nodded once. Then leaned back against the cushions, drawing her robe a little tighter.

“I hope she’s worth it,” she said after a while, but it wasn’t biting. It was sad. Small.

I looked at her—at the woman I’d once believed I’d spend my life with. At the woman I’d tried to rescue, and spoil, and hold together. At the woman I’d kept saying yes to, even when it hollowed me out.

I wasn’t blameless in this. I had shaped her, just as much as she had shaped me.

Maybe, if Elena never forgave me… if I never found my way back to her… then this—Cassandra—was the life I would have to live with.

Not because I chose her.

But because, in too many ways, I’d created her.

And maybe, just maybe… this was the price I had to pay.