Alpha's Regret: The Seventh Time was Forever

Chapter 236 - You seem pretty close to my ex-wife

Voren went completely still. He stared at nothing for a long moment, turning the request over like a man who had just been handed a task that was going to cost him significantly more than it looked like on the surface.

Managing Seraphine was already the closest thing to a full-time occupation he’d encountered outside of actually running his own pack and companies in the city and now Ravyn was asking him to walk her voluntarily into the Centenary training gym, which was going to require either a miracle or a very specific combination of leverage and patience.

"Why?" he asked, his voice staying even, already building toward a refusal the moment the explanation didn’t hold up.

"I found out some things I need to address with her present. I promise I won’t piss her off."

Voren pressed his lips together and let that sit for a second. "It won’t be easy."

"I know. But she won’t hear me out on her own. You know that better than anyone. You’re the only option I have right now. Please don’t say no."

"Can you promise me she walks out of that gym in a better mood than she walks into it? Because your pack pays if she doesn’t," Voren said, and the warning underneath it was quiet but there was no missing it.

On the other end of the line, Ravyn smiled thought it carried no warmth whatsoever. This was the woman who used to be at his beck and call, hanging on to his every word and now, he had to use unfavorable means just to get her to training. "I know that."

"Good. I’ll get her there."

ended, and Daisy

word, her breathing measured, her face arranged into something carefully blank. Now that the line was dead, she turned to Ravyn with the

startled slightly. He’d genuinely forgotten she was there, and the fact that he’d forgotten told him something about where his

pursed her lips, the lie already taking shape, and he spoke before she could deliver it. "If you lie to

a beat. "Your voice woke me up.

exhaled, slow and controlled.

her dead when the cure isn’t even close to finished. Did

enough to answer that honestly, and the reality

in the effort of actually knowing her, and had never thought he needed to. But after yesterday, after standing there watching her hold completely still while Daisy spoke at her without ever once lifting a hand to defend herself, he understood that something was running underneath what she showed everyone. She was

going to find out who’s behind it and why."

impossible, but she wrapped her arm around him and pulled him back down anyway. "You promised you’d take me to training yourself.

she knew Seraphine would be there, something was already building quietly at the back of her mind, cunning and not entirely kind. The pack members would handle it. They always did. They would put Seraphine exactly where they believed

✾❀✾

out, the way small children do when they’re caught in that soft, confused space between one dream and being fully

the room, Damon was already there, standing quietly beside

"What happened?" Ravyn asked.

in