Chapter 1
chapter1Belongs to (N)ôvel/Drama.Org.
The love of Alpha Griffon Knight's life has returned from overseas.
I've been his for five years.
Now, it was time for me to leave.
***
On my five-year anniversary with Griffon, I received two envelopes. One was his engagement party invitation, and the other was my heart failure diagnosis.
I sat on the floor in silence for a long time, the two pieces of paper placed on my left and right, like two diverging paths, both leading to death.
Taya
"Taya."
"Taya Palmer!"
I was so lost in my thoughts that I didn't even notice the doctor calling my name twice.
"Ms. Palmer, we urge you to be admitted for treatment as soon as possible."
Seeing me standing there, unsure, the doctor asked me again, kindly.
"If I'm hospitalized...will I get better? What about a heart transplant?" My words sounded hollow.
The doctor simply shook his head, offering no reply.
If treatment was futile, then why bother?
I held the medical reports tightly in my hand. The white paper and black letters in front of my eyes became more and more blurred.
When I came to my senses, I found that my tears had soaked through parts of the paper.
I laughed, in disbelief. I just received an invitation for my lover, Griffon's, engagement party. And now, my death invitation had arrived.
After the doctor left me, I sat in the hallway outside his office.
I sat on a bench along the wall, numb from the news I'd received and lost in my thoughts.
Alpha Griffon Knight is technically my employer, and the service I provide is the use of my body.
It'd been five years since he claimed my virginity; he had me sign a contract immediately after.
He had never given me an explanation for why he hired me for this, only money.
I've never understood why he needed me for this. As a powerful, rich, gorgeous Alpha, he could have anyone in the world he wanted.
Without paying them.
Why choose an orphaned human girl with nothing to offer?
To everyone else, he was charming yet distant, friendly yet aloof and unattainable. There wasn't a moment where he let the mask slip, where he wasn't calmly and rigidly in control of everything and everyone. Including himself. With me, though? He was always the wolf, always an animal. Always the coarse Alpha, and never the cool, calm, and collected leader that others saw.
But after five long years of trying, I had failed to thaw Griffon's frozen heart. It was time to wake up from my illusion that I could ever make him care for me the way I had come to care for him.
Apparently, given the invitation I had received, he could thaw his heart for someone else, though.
I sat on the bench in silence for a long time. Nurses, doctors, and patients walked by. But nothing distracted me from the pain seizing my heart.
On a bench across from me, a young man helped his girlfriend sit down slowly. Their fingers were intertwined, and the boy's eyes never left the girl.
At one point, he said in a gentle voice, "Baby, don't be afraid. I'll be with you all the way."
Griffon had once spoken to me in a gentle voice the only time.
It was the night he claimed my innocence.
His body was covering mine, so large and so warm. Then he started moving his hips, his forehead pressed against mine, our noses touching.
I could see him struggling to control his wolf side, his eyes flashing.
Pleasure beyond anything I'd ever experienced before consumed my body.
I'd wrapped my arms around him, moving my hips to meet his thrusts, overcome by the new feelings in every nerve-ending.
And then he'd murmured softly, "Tara, why'd you leave me?"
I'd frozen in place when he'd said someone else's name.
After he had finished, he got up from the bed, cleaned himself off, and got dressed. Back to being the version of himself that everyone else saw. As if he hadn't just broken me.
"I'd like to offer you a contract," he'd said. "Your body, whenever I want it."
Then he rattled off an insane amount money like it was pocket change.
"I..." It was like he'd slapped me, and my first instinct was to refuse, no matter how rich and powerful an Alpha he was.
But then I thought of Silas, and the money I needed to save him...
So I'd quietly replied, "Okay."
I traded my dignity to save Silas.
After I'd signed the contract, I'd asked him why me.
He never answered, but I knew it was because of whoever Tara was.
The woman whose name was on the engagement party invitation I'd received.