Alpha's Regret: The Seventh Time was Forever

Chapter 232 - I don’t need your money, Mr. Ashkael

Back at the restaurant, the waiter came back to the table with the careful, composed expression of someone carrying information he wasn’t completely sure how to deliver.

"Alpha." He kept his voice low. "They’re gone."

Voren’s face didn’t change. But something behind his eyes did. A single, quiet recalibration that came and went fast enough that you’d miss it if you weren’t paying attention.

He set his glass down and looked at the waiter for just a beat longer than he needed to.

That was not how rogue assassins behaved. Not the real ones. Real assassins didn’t turn around because somebody dropped a name at them, not unless someone had paid them more to expose whoever sent them than they’d been paid to finish the job.

Or unless they’d genuinely had no idea who was in that restaurant, and the name had rattled them enough to pull back and reconsider.

"Did you get anything? The name of whoever sent them?"

The waiter shook his head. "The second I said your name, Alpha, they moved fast. I don’t think they knew you were here."

Voren sat with that for a moment, turning it over quietly. Something in the shape of it didn’t add up. He silently made a mental note to look into later, thanked the waiter, and let him go.

composure of a woman who had just mentally stepped over an interruption

dead," she said. Flat. Vaguely conversational. Like she’d just observed that it

not afraid," Voren pointed

back of Seraphine’s mind. ’A gifted wolf doesn’t go down that easily. We could’ve handled every single one

of her mouth curve just slightly, in a way she

would have been afraid because she would keep wondering who sent them but if they left at the mention of Voren, then she could easily

was that the only wolves gifted wolves could not defeat were Alpha wolves. Everything else was just noise. But that wasn’t a card she was laying

drawing from direct experience, both hands clasped under her chin. "Or please, somebody save me—" she mimicked Daisy’s screams of that night at the pack

before whatever mechanism he usually kept running had a chance to catch it. "That’s not what I meant," he said. "I don’t

known before he finished the sentence, because there was only one person in her life

in front of Voren was a different matter. The first time she’d tried pointing at Daisy with Ravyn in the room, Voren had been right there not believing a word

deep enough to create genuine blind spots,

her chair. "Tell me what you actually came out

this himself, later, through his own channels, without telling

increase my

that came out of Seraphine was short and not even a little warm. "You might as well