He didn’t believe that Taya was lying inside. He had to expose their lies! Andre waved her hand at the pack guards, who immediately moved forward, shovels in hand. Harper rushed to stop them while Jackson grabbed Griffon by the collar of his white dress shirt.
What are you trying to do? She’s dead!” Griffon growled and started to shift into his lycan form, reaching up to grab Jacks
on’s wrist with a clawed hand. He dug his fingers into Jackson’s skin and suppressed his own pain. “Why are you hiding her from me?” Jackson snorted and looked at Griffon as if he were looking at a lunatic.
“The mighty Alpha Knight.” He snorted again. “You’re so pitiful. You don’t even have the balls to face her death.” Griffon shoved Jackson away. He pointed to the fresh dirt and snapped his fingers at his men. The man was completely irrational.
Everything that Harper had been feeling rose to the surface and poured out of her in a rush. She ran forward, placed her palms on Griffon’s chest, and shoved him as hard as she could.
“This is all your fault!” she yelled. “You’re the one who caused her to die, and now you’re putting us through this because you won’t believe she’s gone! She called you the day she pa*sed away, but you didn’t answer.
That’s on you! Why can’t you just leave us alone?!” Seeing that this woman dared to put hands on his Alpha, Andre stepped forward to restrain her, but Griffon stopped him. He stared at Harper.
“Ms. Duke, I would just want to ensure if the person inside is her…” Harper gaped at him. He truly was crazy. How many people had to tell him that Taya was dead for him to finally believe it? Jackson looked like he had just heard the funniest joke in the world.
“What’s lying inside is just a handful of ashes, so if you think that’ll help, go right ahead.” Jackson and Griffon stood there, glaring at each other, chests heaving.
The air was thick with the pheromones each of the Alphas was putting off, and everyone there wasn’t sure what to do other than to stand back and let the two of them sort through No one wanted to get between two angry Alphas, that was for sure.
What Griffon didn’t know was that Jackson had had a mating ceremony performed at the end. Griffon had zero rights to anything regarding Taya, but right now, he didn’t feel like that was the man’s business.
Jackson’s words made Griffon clench his fists so tightly that his claw dug into his palms. It was as if an electric current had struck him, causing his entire body to ache.
But even if it hurt so much, he didn’t believe Taya was dead. How could she die before he could say goodbye to her? After everything, wouldn’t she have wanted to see him one last time?
He shook his head, then narrowed his eyes at Harper. “No, if she died, you wouldn’t have cremated her so quickly…” Harper looked at him indifferently and suddenly felt sorry for him. How could he be this far in denial?
After a moment, Harper said flatly, “Taya asked to be cremated after she tried and tried to call you and you had Tara answer the phone instead.” Griffon froze. Seeing his pale face, Harper thought he was ridiculous. “I’m still not sure why you’re so upset about this. She was your mistress, your substitute lover for the woman you always wanted to mate.
This is disrespectful to your future Luna.” Griffon blinked. “I’ve never regarded Taya as a substitute…” Harper snorted.
“Okay. She wasn’t a substitute…she just happened to have a similar name and look just like Tara. Sure.”
Darkness enveloped Griffon, and he fell into silence. He hadn’t thought of it that way, and suddenly, his view of everything shifted and he saw things from Taya’s perspective.
After a long time, he opened his mouth and did not make a sound. When he opened his mouth again, he said, “When… when did her heart fail?”
“You’ve been sleeping with her for five years but didn’t even know. How would I know?” Harper thought momentarily, then added, “I know she’s had it since before she signed the contract with you.”
Anything she could do to twist the knife in a bit deeper, she was going to take the opportunity to do so. Griffon’s body stiffened. How had he not noticed something so monumental? No, he had discovered it once…
He remembered that night when he couldn’t bear to leave and fell asleep with her in his arms; he heard her call out Silas’s name in her sleep. He’d been so angry that he pushed her away.
Perhaps it was because he pushed her too hard that she choked and woke up, and then her breathing became rapid.
She reached out to him with difficulty and asked him to take her to the hospital… But he was angry and didn’t know she had heart issues, so he didn’t. He even deliberately humiliated her with money to vent his anger. Harper continued.
“Stella said that if she hadn’t been beaten, she should have been able to live for another two months with the help of medicine, but you killed her.
In that two months, we might have been able to find a heart for her.” He slowly lowered his head and looked at his right hand…
This hand slapped her and caused her to fall and hit her head. It was he who had killed her… His heart ached when he thought of how helpless and desperate she was under her peaceful and beautiful smile.
She cared for and hid her weak heart, accompanied him for five years without complaint or regret, but what had he done?