He was wearing a royal-blue shirt and a coat of the same color. Even from a distance, he exuded immense power. Everyone who walked by him gave him a wide berth, as if they were afraid of getting too close.
As he approached, I could see his face. The tenderness of youth had faded away, leaving a chiseled jaw and strong angles.
It had been so long, but when I saw him again-with the new name “Jackson Sterling”-I only felt calmness. Not even a single stutter of my heart.
I lifted a hand to wave at the group. “This way!”
When the man saw the woman waving at them, he was slightly taken aback.
His trip to Arcadia was primarily to attend the bidding for the Weston City project.
The last person he expected to receive him was Taya.
He was stunned for a few seconds before he returned to normal and led his men toward her. Even his wolf was thrown off kilter by seeing her.
He was a more than a foot taller than her when he stood before her, looking down at her.
“Ms. Palmer, long time no see.”
Taya’s response was business-like. “Alpha Sterling, please come with me.” Then, she turned around and left, as if expecting them to follow her.
Jackson frowned at her indifference toward him. Did she not like him? The other part of him was angered that a human would treat him this way.
He hesitated for a moment before walking up to her. “Ms. Palmer, you’re not still angry with me, are you?”
Hearing this, Taya stopped and turned her head to look at him. “What right do I have to be angry with you, Alpha Sterling?”
Jackson felt a little helpless, but he did his best to try to smooth things over. “I do apologize for our last meeting. With my memory loss, I truly don’t remember you.”
I looked up at the face before me, exactly like Silas’s. My calm heart was suddenly torn apart.
I wanted to ask him if he had truly lost his memory or if he was pretending not to know me.
Five years ago, after he woke up, he learned that I’d sold myself He’d been unhinged, blaming me for betraying him. He’d thrown me on the bed and kissed me wildly, as if he was trying to reclaim me, then he’d strangled me.
Then, he suddenly lost his memory when the Sterling pack said he was their lost Alpha.
If he had lost his memory, why did he say that when I went to the Sterling pack to beg him not to abandon me?
I closed my eyes. My heart ached when I thought of the two hard kicks he had given me.
At that time, I didn’t believe Silas had lost his memory.
No, it was because I wasn’t a virgin anymore.
And wolves didn’t want tainted women for mates.
After Silas was taken away by the Sterling pack, I visited the main pack house daily. I knelt in front of him, not caring an ounce for my dignity, explaining to him repeatedly that I’d only sold myself to save him.
Not only did he not believe me, he kicked my chest with his leather boot, shoving me away from him as if I were a mutt who was bothering him.
As he had done it, he’d growled fiercely, “Don’t use saving me as an excuse. You’re the cheap one!”
I’d refused to give up, even after being humiliated and kicked.
I cried and tugged at his trouser leg, hoping he would not abandon me, hoping he would remember how much we loved each other. I’d thought he viewed me as more than just human. As soon as he found out he was an Alpha, I was no longer good enough for him.
Then he broke my fingers one by one.
Oh, how he’d looked at me. His wolfish sneer was full of disgust and pleasure, as if his wolf was getting off on the revenge.
The pain in my dislocated fingers was almost nothing compared to the heartache.
I’d curled into a ball, opening my mo uth to beg him to let me go.
But before I could say anything, he roughly slapped me again.
He used all his strength, and my cheek swelled up instantly.
It was as though he had forgotten I was a human, that my body couldn’t take the same abuse a shifter’s could.
I looked at the Alpha standing in front of me in a designer suit and shoes in disbelief.
“Why?” I asked, leaving everything it implied unsaid.
Why did Silas Johnson, who had doted on me so much in the past, want to beat me to death after taking the name Jackson Sterling and becoming the Alpha of the Sterling pack?
Was it because I didn’t believe he had lost his memory and came to find him, a human daring to step on pack lands uninvited? Or was it because once he became an Alpha, a human mate wouldn’t suffice?
Why?”
After I spoke, Jackson’s calm face instantly turned sinister, his eyes changing color to the dark orange of his wolf’s.
“You’re still asking me why,” he sneered. “Why was I lying unconscious in the hospital while you were fu c king another man? After all that’s happened, and you still want to be with me? You’re ridic ulous.”
My breath caught in my throat.
With those words, I knew he hadn’t lost his memory at all. He truly had only pretended it so he could abandon me.
Goddess, I was so stu pid to think that the decent Jackson Sterling in front of me was still my Silas, who had promised to love me for a lifetime.
I regretted everything-going to beg for Jackson, kneeling before him…
I remembered that second kick he’d given me.
He’d used all of his immense strength to plant his booted foot in my chest.
He knew that I’d had surgery on my heart. He knew it was weak,
that it shouldn’t be able to take a bl ow to the chest.
After spitting out a few mouthfuls of blood, I’d finally understood that he wanted me to di e…
There I was, trembling in a pool of blood, but he’d only looked at me with a snarl on his mo uth.
“Taya, I don’t love you anymore, and I don’t want to be with you anymore, so don’t bother me! And remember this clearly: I’m now the Alpha of the Sterling pack, not Silas Johnson from the orphanage. If you or Harper Duke dare to expose my past identity or use it to threaten the Sterling pack, I will make you regret it.”
I had seen Griffon’s indifference, suffered through his moods, but Silas was much…much more than him.
Even if Griffon had only regarded me as a substitute, at least he had never lied to me.
Silas kept saying he loved me so much that he would give up everything for me. He said he didn’t care that my wolf had never come, he would protect me. Said that he had wolf enough for the both of us.
But what did I get in return?
Nothing. He had even abandoned Harper, his older sister.
If it weren’t for Silas’s ruthlessness, I never would have agreed to become Griffon’s lover.
I had wanted to take revenge on Silas by doing so. He was looking down on me for selling myself. So I would do more of what he didn’t like.
my But it changed. I failed to control my emotions. And then physical reaction to Griffon made me gradually forget about Silas. I’d found it hard to believe that me, who had been hurt so badly by Silas, could fall in love with another man.
Griffon had brought me out of the haze I’d been living in with his occasional warmth…
I thought that it might have something to do with my orphan background.