Goodbye My Alpha (Taya and Griffon)

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Taya

I took my suitcase to my best friend Harper Duke's.

I gently knocked on the door and waited.

Harper had grown up with me in the same orphanage, and we were like sisters.

Except Harper had her wolf.

"If anything happens, come home," Harper had said when Griffon took me away five years ago.

It was because of Harper that I could leave everything from Griffon behind.

As soon as Harper opened the door, a wide smile appeared on her face when she saw me.

"What are you doing here?"

I tightened my grip on the suitcase. "I need a place to crash," I said quietly.

Only then did Harper see the suitcase, and the smile on her face disappeared, a look of worry replacing it.

"What's wrong?"

"I just broke up with him." I forced a smile to hide my pain.

Harper looked closely at me and saw past my pretense in a matter of seconds. Her eyes narrowed, then she frowned.

I knew how I looked. I was thin and pale, my eyes sunken.

Harper hugged me tightly. "Don't worry. I'm here for you."

I couldn't help but tear up at her words. I hugged Harper and patted her gently on the back.

"I'm fine. Don't worry."

Harper knew how much I liked Griffon, how much more I wanted with the powerful, distant Alpha.

We shared everything.

Over the past five years, I had worked hard to earn the amount Griffon had paid me so I could give it back to him. I was so naive and innocent, I believed that if I returned the money, his feelings for me would change. Maybe then we could be something more than just "employer and employee."

But I couldn't have been more wrong.

Harper remembered that rainy night five years ago just as might as I did.

If it weren't for Silas Johnson, I wouldn't have met Griffon.

If the accident never happened, I could have had a happy life.

I didn't want to burden Harper with my sorrow. After gently pulling back from the hug, I smiled and said, "Girlie, aren't you going to let me in? It's freezing out here!"

I stood there, forcing myself to believe that I would soon recover from this. For orphans like us, who had no one to rely on, being abandoned was just another day, right?

Harper took my suitcase and led me into the house.

"You don't need a place to crash. This is your home, too."

After that, she turned around, fetched clean pajamas, and handed them to me. "Go take a shower. I'll make you something to eat, and you can get some sleep. Don't think about anything else, okay?"

"Okay." I took the pajamas and nodded.

Harper had always been like this. She was unconditionally good to me, like a beam of light that sliced through the darkness.

Most other people didn't know what to do with me. I lived in a gray area...raised by wolves yet not a she-wolf.

It was a pity that I suffered from terminal heart failure, and my life was soon coming to an end. Had I been blessed by the goddess with my wolf, there would be other options, other treatments. But with no wolf to help me heal... If Harper found out that I was going to die soon, she would be devastated. And the last thing I wanted to do was burden her with that knowledge.

I gazed at the busy figure in the kitchen and slowly walked over. "I want to quit my job."

Harper nodded in agreement and said, "You should. You've been working so hard for so long. God, you must be exhausted. Quit your job and take some time to yourself. Don't worry about anything; I've got your back."

I wrapped my arms around my best friend and squeezed her tightly, filled with too many emotions to verbalize them. Then, I turned around and went to the bathroom with tears in my eyes.

Fate had never favored me.

If Harper and I were meant to be apart, I should use the last three months of my life to be with her.

To be with someone who truly loved me.

***

The next morning, I applied makeup to conceal my pale face and lips and went into the office to quit my job.

After I finished writing my resignation letter, I went to ask Lila to approve it.

Lila had never really liked me. She didn't try that hard to convince me to stay, and only said a few words before agreeing to approve my resignation.

The whole process would take a month, and I couldn't leave immediately, so I had to take two weeks of annual leave first.

I had worked at the Midwest Packs Association for five years, and the annual leave I had was fifteen days. It would make sense for me to take a break before resigning.

Seeing that I was in a hurry, Lila couldn't help rolling her eyes.

"I can approve your leave, but as soon as it's over you'd better come back and finish your work before your last day."

"Okay," I replied. Then, I picked up my bag and left.

As I hurried out of the company, I saw Roman Starke, Beta of the Starke Pack.

He was a well-known creep in Arcadia, and he loved to play with women-regardless of whether they wanted to play, too.

I was scared when I saw him walking toward me, a wolfish smile on his face, so I quickly turned around.

But Roman was quicker. He grabbed my hand and pulled me into his arms.

"Where are you going in such a rush, baby?"

He lowered his head, leaned close to my ear, and gently blew against me.

His warm breath on my ear made goosebumps rise, and I shivered in disgust.

I pushed Roman away desperately before I could think about any possible repercussions of resisting an Alpha in public, but he held my waist tight.

"You smell so good..."

He pushed his nose into my hair and inhaled deeply, his hands moving upward to my breasts.

While Griffon had always wanted me to smell nothing like myself, Roman's wolf was the opposite.

Had Roman not been such a creep, I might have actually appreciated that Roman wasn't trying to make me something else in order to be attracted to me.

I pressed down on his hand and hissed out, "Beta Starke, please behave yourself."

"Behave? Why should I? That defeats the purpose of being an Alpha," Roman said mischievously, nibbling on my earlobe.

Roman may have looked unassuming, nothing like most of the other gruff Alphas and Betas in the Midwest region, but he was far worse.

I turned my head, disgust shining in my eyes as I looked at him.

But Roman didn't care. In fact, it excited him even more.

The more a woman resisted, the more his wolf wanted to conquer her.

And the fact that I was so resistant to him turned him on even more.

Everyone knew this about Beta Starke.

Though, the fact that I had no wolf to bow down to the dominance of an Alpha was probably why it was easier for me to tell him no, despite the fact that he could kill me with one slash of his paw. Roman lifted my chin with one hand and caressed my cheek with his fingers, letting his claws come out just slightly.

"Beta Starke, please. We hardly know each other." I dipped my head, shying away from his touch.

Roman had first targeted me when I went to deliver documents to the Starke Pack a month ago.

Since then, he had often come to the Midwest Packs Association offices to harass me under the guise of business.

Whenever he met me, he touched me inappropriately or harassed me with rude words.

I needed this job, needed to keep the Alphas and Betas as happy as possible due to my lack of wolf. I couldn't afford to offend Roman, and so I'd always endured his harassment.

But now that I had nothing left to lose, I was no longer afraid of him.

Unexpectedly, although I treated him coldly, Roman was not fazed. He gripped my face.

"Maybe we aren't close," he growled, "but if you accepted my offer to spend the night with me, we could get to know each other much better."

He was persistent, I had to give him that.

I pushed him away.

The more I resisted, the tighter his grip became. I was sure that the points of his claws would be indents in my skin; hard enough to leave a mark but not hard enough to bleed. He kissed my cheek, forcefully. The feel of his ice-cold lips on my skin almost made me puke. Just as I was about to punch Roman in the face, I heard a voice behind me.

"Griffon?"