Alpha's Regret: The Seventh Time was Forever

Chapter 197 – Leave me out of your problems

On the other end of the line, a long, unbothered yawn came through before Humphrey’s voice followed, thick with irritation and sleep.

"Ravyn... can’t you just let me rest for once?" he muttered, clearly unimpressed. "Leave me out of your problems."

Ravyn’s grip on the phone tightened slightly, his jaw clenching as he forced himself to stay composed, even though the urgency clawing at his chest was getting harder to contain with every passing second.

"Dad, there’s been a chemical explosion in the pack," he said quickly, his voice steady but edged with pressure. "I just need you to talk to Sera. She has the cure, and I need her to help us. Pack members are getting paralyzed, and if we don’t figure this out soon, we don’t know when the next explosion will happen, or how many more people will—"

He stopped abruptly, interrupted by another yawn. Ravyn’s expression hardened, frustration flashing through his eyes before his father’s voice cut in again, sharper this time.

"Ravyn," Humphrey said, the irritation now fully awake in his tone, "Seraphine was bedridden because of that same chemical, and you didn’t care."

The words hit heavier than Ravyn expected, but Humphrey didn’t pause.

"And now," he continued, his voice turning colder, "you want her to leave the city and come running to fix your pack?"

Ravyn exhaled slowly, steadying himself before answering, forcing logic into a situation that was quickly becoming personal.

"She doesn’t have to come here," he said, more measured now. "I can arrange everything from this side. She can prepare the cure, and I’ll pick it up myself. I’ll pay for it—whatever it costs."

There was a pause on the other end, followed by a quiet sigh that carried more weight than words.

"Willing to pay..." Humphrey repeated, almost to himself, the disappointment clear beneath the surface. "I thought you regretted your actions."

deeply, the air feeling heavier than

to her," he admitted, though the words didn’t come easily. "She

truth. If it wasn’t for Daisy, we wouldn’t even have an heir. She’s the

brief but strident. "No," Humphrey said flatly, his voice cutting clean through Ravyn’s justification. "Sera

words didn’t stop there.

his tone quieter now but no less piercing, "if you really believe you’re innocent in all of this... then why don’t you

quickly,

for the right way to say it, though

dropping just

a faint, humorless exhale before he added, more quietly,

the pack destroyed," Ravyn continued, his tone tightening again with urgency, "then

stretched across the line, long enough to feel intentional. Then finally, Humphrey spoke from the other side

he replied, his voice laced with calculation. "In

straightened slightly, tension coiling in his

see what I can do to convince her," Humphrey went on, "but you need to understand something. Her value isn’t the same

"But doctors—pack doctors, city doctors—it doesn’t matter. They all

don’t know much about medicine," Humphrey

unmistakable pride now. "She’s a gifted child.

a pause. "You should just admit it, Ravyn... you lost something

together, his jaw tightening

things, powerful things, far beyond what he had expected, or what he had

Even MindNest...

was the kind of empire people envied, the kind he himself had wanted to be part of,

a stubborn, infuriating woman. "Dad," Ravyn said finally, his voice firm again, grounding himself in what mattered most to him, "my