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I knew that Damian was complicated, and I knew that his alpha liked—needed—to take charge in bed, and I knew that sometimes this meant that the connection was intense. It required a surrender from me, but I liked it, actually. It was hot to give in to him, even if it was not entirely comfortable for me, even if it was pain. My omega bent like that for him. We fit together, a symbiosis, a complete circle, his take to my give.

But the way she was framing it, it seemed different.

Damian seemed almost opportunistic, pushing to get whatever he could get from both of us, using us both to get off. I knew he was having sex with her because he told me that he’d gotten her pregnant, but he made it sound like it was some kind of one-time mistake, that he always tried to resist her and she was always flaunting herself, teasing and taunting him, and he “lost it.”

But he seemed to use that excuse a lot, didn’t he?

It wasn’t yet 4:00, but I wanted a drink. The Sign of the Fang wasn’t open, so I went to the Red Moon Tavern, a bar and grill that was near the middle of the square. It was more touristy than the Fang. I ordered food, appetizers, mozzarella sticks and wings, and I ordered one rum and Coke and then another rum and Coke.

I went back to the manuscript that Opal had written, but she went on a long, long digression about her pregnancy with Jace, feeling mightily sorry for herself about it, and explaining how she’d concealed it from Damian because she knew that Damian was still spending every night in my bed.

Except, I guess the nights he was sneaking into her bed and fucking her while licking her bite mark and saying my name. There were nights he wasn’t with me, but I wondered if he left me, sleeping and fragile and sick because he had broken the promise between us, and put his fucking cock in her and then came back to me to wake up with me in the mornings.

Every time I thought about that, I felt bright red anger zing through me.

Anyway, Opal wrote a long, long description about how she had tried to get an abortion, how she had gotten an appointment at a clinic, and how she’d gone and sat in the parking lot and she could not get out of the car.

She wrote that she knew it was selfish, but that she decided she didn’t care, because she had proved to herself that she was a selfish person now. She claimed that she did not think that the baby would make any difference to Damian.

We were all at college at that point.

We’d all gone in state, but she and Damian were at one public college and I was at another. I was at the big state school, the one right on the outskirts of the city, and they were at a smaller school, closer to Riverside, one that was close enough that she was actually commuting there and living at home. Damian was staying in the dorms there. Vincent had actually gone to the same school as me, but he was four years ahead of me and had graduated by the time I got there.

She went on and on about it, trying to justify the fact she didn’t have the abortion, and this was something I had never thought about. I never wanted her to have an abortion. I respected her right to choose. Anyway, the pack, being traditional, was not big on abortion. Sometimes, sure, it was necessary, but they tended to lean into that being if you were raped or really too young or whatever.

Personally, I didn’t think that pregnancy should be treated as a punishment for poor decisions, but I had learned a long time ago that people’s opinions about abortion were innate, not entirely rational, and impossible to change. People thought a thing about it and they made it, like, part of their identity.

I had noticed, however, that traditional people tended to think that nature should take its course and to distrust technology and medical advances, and that people in cities, progressive people, tended to distrust tradition and to think humans could improve on anything and everything.

As in all things, a balance was probably better. Sometimes, the natural way was the right way. Sometimes, however, nature was just brutal and senseless and cruel, and it was up to civilization to take the sting out of it.

I didn’t blame Opal for the baby, that was the thing. The baby was the thing that made him leave me, I guess, but in a way, at that point, I was relieved. In a way, at that point, I wanted it over with him. Vincent was right that I couldn’t seem to quit Damian, no matter what.

I ended up skimming her long diatribe of excuses, and as I did, I realized what was making me feel this way.

I was jealous.

She got to have his babies.

I was supposed to have his babies.

I didn’t end up having any babies at all.

And sometimes, being childless, it’s an ache that comes for you in the darkest of times, in the still of the night and the brightness of noon. In the moments of seeing children on a playground and the moments of absolute silence—no cries coming from a crib in the corner—nothing but you all alone and useless. You are shot through with the knowledge you are nothing to no one.

It’s freedom, maybe.

Or it’s only a sign that no one has ever wanted you for anything. No one chose you. No one thought you could bear their children. No one fought for you or wooed you or really wanted you.

These were the thoughts I was thinking as I turned the pages of the manifesto angrily.

“Hey.”

I smelled him first, and then I looked up, and he was standing over me.

“Are you following me, Damian?” I said.

“Why are you still in Riverside?” he said.