I look up from my lap. Lowe is staring at me with a tender, amused expression. The keys are in the ignition, but he hasn’t turned them. He’s motionless, like he forgot what he was about to do.

“What?” I ask, a little defensive.

“Nothing.” His smile is soft. Like a boy who got caught. “You okay?” He clearly has no idea what I’m thinking.

I nod, keeping my eyes on the darkness outside as he starts the car. My cheeks are hot. I’m on the verge of something.

It’s possible that I understand next to nothing about Weres. About love. About Lowe and Gabi. It’s possible that I’m an idiot who reads too much into too little. But I feel something deep in my belly, and I know it to be right.

Lowe may have a mate, but she’s not Gabi.

CHAPTER 25

He should never have told her. He made a mistake—several, in fact.

Something elusive dangles in front of my nose, but I can’t focus on it. It’s a tip-of-the-tongue state, a sneeze that won’t start and teeters there, waiting.

Lowe’s mate is not Gabi. I fiddle with the memories of past conversations, trying to recall what I know, what Lowe openly acknowledged, and what gaps I filled on my own. There’s a nagging spark of something in my chest, something fizzy and not unhappy. I try to rationalize it into nothing, and when that fails, I force my attention away by saying, “I live five minutes from here.” I wet my lips, studying the familiar contours of my old neighborhood. “Lived.” I bite my lower lip. “I guess I still do. The council took over my rent.”

“Want to stop by?”

“Why?”

“I’d like to see it.”

I snort. “It’s not a very architecturally pleasing building.”

“It’s not about the building, Misery.”

It takes more like ten minutes to get there, but Lowe follows my directions without complaints. I punch in the code at the main entrance, but didn’t bring any keys with me, so once we’re in front of my door, I pluck a hairpin off.

“You’re . . .” He lets out a low, affectionate laugh, shaking his head.

I push the door open and lift an eyebrow. “I’m?”

“Amazing.”

My chest is too tight for my heart.

“How long did you live here?” he asks, following me inside and glancing around.

I calculate it in my head. “Four years, more or less.”

The Collateral is entitled to a small trust fund, and I used pretty much all of my money on my fake Human IDs, and then to put myself and Serena through college. We were on a tight budget for a few years, sharing cramped spaces and constantly compromising on the decor. The result was a mix of minimalism and shabby chic that we both looked back on with equal fondness and horror.

This place, though, is where I moved after graduating. I had my first salary and could splurge a little. I was pleased with the clean, no-fuss spaces. I rescued most of the furniture from flea markets Serena and I visited on cloudy days, early in the morning, and loved how uncluttered and roomy the final result was. I listened to synthwave music without anyone judgmentally asking me what trauma had led to me to enjoy “that shit,” and could even display my lava lamp in all its cringe glory.

And yet, when I glance around the living room, trying to see the place from Lowe’s perspective, it only seems empty. Lifeless. Like a museum.

Picturing myself in it has my stomach in twists. It’s only been a few weeks—my tastes can’t have changed so much in so little, can they?

I turn to Lowe and find him white-knuckling the doorframe. “Are you okay?”

“It smells a lot like you,” he says. His voice is hushed, eyes glassy and unfocused. “More than your room in my house. More . . . layers.” He wets his lips. “Give me a second to get used to it.”

I don’t ask him if my scent bothers him, because it’s clear by now that it doesn’t. He used to hate it, though. Or did he? He sure didn’t deny it, and I thought he only recently changed his mind, but maybe . . .

“Are you and Gabi close?” I ask. Not what we were discussing, but Lowe appears to welcome the distraction.

“I don’t know her well.” He takes a deep breath, slowly getting himself under control. “She’s a couple of years older, and grew up in another huddle. I’ve only met her a handful of times.”

“Why was she chosen to be the Were Collateral?”

“She offered to.” He takes a few steps inside, fingers lightly tracing the empty surfaces, as though he wants to leave little snippets of his scent in this home. Braid it with my own. I see no dust, which means that Owen must have arranged for a cleaning service. He really is a better brother than I gave him credit for. “She was a second. She wanted a truce with the Vampyres. She lost relatives in the war, I believe.”

“I see. Did you ask for volunteers?”

He shakes his head. “Your father’s proposal was discussed during one of our round tables. I wasn’t going to ask anyone to put themselves in danger, and was very clear that if us providing a Collateral was nonnegotiable, I wouldn’t go through with the marriage. After the meeting, Gabi took me aside and asked to be sent in.”

“Right.” I wander into the kitchenette and idly open the fridge. Inside there’s a forgotten bag of blood. What a waste. “She asked. Lowe?”

He leans against the wall, already more relaxed. “Yeah?”

“What did I study in college?”

He gives me a puzzled look. “You?”

“Me.”

“Why?” He shrugs when I don’t reply. “You majored in software engineering and minored in forensic sciences.”

Okay, okay.

Okay.

“It was never her.”

His stare is perfectly blank.

“Gabi. She is not your mate.”

“She—no. Did you think she was?” He blinks, uncomprehendingly.

“Governor Davenport said so. Back at the ceremony.”

His eyes widen with understanding, and I watch the realization hit him. “No. The traditional contract between Vampyres and Weres requires the Collateral to be two things: in good health, and related to the Alpha of the pack.”

I knew that. But for the first time, I actually think about it. “Do you have any living relatives aside from Ana?”

He shakes his head.

“I see. And you weren’t about to let her go.”

“It was also nonnegotiable.”

“So . . . ?”

“We made the case that a mate is equivalent to a blood relative within a Were pack. It’s not quite as straightforward as that, but . . .”

“The council bought it.”

Lowe nods. “I asked your father not to publicize that she was my mate to avoid issues for Gabi once she returned home. I didn’t think . . .” I watch understanding fully sink into him. That I’d been assuming it was her. That I thought he’d brought me to meet his mate, even as we . . . “No. No, Misery.” He seems distressed on my behalf. “She isn’t. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.” It’s not his fault if I assumed, and it has nothing to do with me, anyway.

But it has. We study each other across several feet, and there’s a question bubbling deep in my belly, and an answer simmering inside him, a tentative certainty that warms the air between us.