When My Alpha Received My Ashes

Chapter 2

The car stopped outside the priciest bridal boutique in Fir Bay. When Ronan walked in, Daphne was stepping out from behind the curtain. I recognized the dress. The designer's original sketch, made for me, still hung in the shop window. The dress had just been taken in to fit her.

"Do I look good?" Daphne lifted the skirt and spun.

Ronan was dazed for a split second, then gently brushed the hair off her cheek. "It suits you."

Five years ago, he'd looked at me the exact same way. I'd stood in front of the fitting-room mirror, too scared to even ask the price. He'd crouched down and smoothed my skirt and said, "Just pick the one you love. Leave the rest to me." I never forgot the way he'd looked up at me. Now Daphne asked if her train was too long, and he bent down again to spread that same corner neatly for her. Even that small tenderness belonged to her now.

"Ronan, I've waited so long for this day."

I stared in shock as Daphne kissed his cheek. I lunged forward, desperate to stop it. My hand passed straight through him.

How could he? Why Daphne? She killed his mother.

I shouted hoarsely at Ronan, but unfortunately I was already dead. He couldn't hear my voice at all.

I could only watch everything unfold numbly.

Daphne admired the wedding gown a moment before unease crossed her face. "Will Tess be mad? You two are still registered as mates..." "Should we invite her?"

Ronan looked into the mirror, and a slow smile spread across his face. "Of course. She's waited all these years. How could she miss it?"

I understood exactly what he meant. He wanted me watching while he handed another woman everything I'd begged for and never gotten.

Everyone knew that his mother, Constance Calder, had never gotten along with me—she even despised me.

She hated that Ronan had given up his right as Alpha heir just to be with a lowly wolf like me.

But no one could have imagined that Constance Calder's final call before her death had been to me.

The call lasted 19 seconds. I heard her gasping. Right after she told me where she was, the line went dead. By the time I got to the manor, she wasn't breathing anymore.

Daphne said through tears that I had called to provoke Constance and that I had literally angered her to death.

Ronan didn't believe a word Daphne said. He investigated himself, but every lead pointed to me.

He stared at me, his voice full of hatred. "Tess, you're vicious. Even if my mother hated you, she didn't deserve to die."

So he ordered his men to lock me up.

That night, Daphne came to me gloating and told me that she was the one who had actually killed Constance.

"She wanted to marry me off to some ordinary Beta, and told me it was the best choice for me."

"Why should I? If I marry, I'll marry the best. I'm going to be the Luna of the pack!"

I went crazy trying to rush out and tell Ronan the truth, but the guards at the door wouldn't let me out.

I could only watch as Daphne smiled like a victor and walked away, step by step.

The day of the burial, Ronan forced me down in front of her headstone. Icy November rain soaked my dress. Sharp gravel cut into my knees. I clutched his pant leg tightly, telling him the real killer was Daphne. He pried my fingers loose one by one. "You're still trying to frame her? Tess, from today on, you owe me a debt you'll never pay off in this life."

He never took our names off the mate registry. Instead, he wrecked my career, banned me from setting foot anywhere in the territory, and had guards posted to watch the house we used to call home. He started bringing other women into the guest rooms. Whenever I stood on the stairs, he'd hold them in arm deliberately, then look up at me. "Does it hurt?" "My mother hurt worse when she died."

Later, he blocked my number and told his people never to pass along anything from me. "If it's about her, I don't need to hear it."

The last time I begged him to just listen, he shut the car door in my face.

The bridal shop's lights made my eyes sting. After helping Daphne into the car, Ronan finally pulled out his phone, like he'd just remembered some minor chore, and unblocked my number. It rang and rang, unanswered. His patience ran out fast.

"Tess, you'd better pick up right now." He called three times in a row before hurling the phone onto the seat beside him.

I looked down at it. When the screen lit up, I still reached for it out of habit. An old photo of us filled the screen. In it, I was smiling with my head on his shoulder.

Ronan, it wasn't that I wouldn't answer.

I'd already been dead for days.