Alpha's Regret: The Seventh Time was Forever

Chapter 243 - Do you regret it now?

Voren’s expression darkened in one fast, clean movement, like a light being switched off behind his eyes. ’You can’t let it happen,’ Bloodfang yelled in his mind. ’Not until the mate bond is restored.’

"It’s, complicated-" Ravyn started, and then, "Rav."

Daisy’s voice came in pitched with careful precision, her hand finding his arm with the ease of someone who had practiced the gesture enough times to make it look natural.

"Let them go. They’ve already apologized, and they’re all contributing to the cost of the cure anyway."

The look Ravyn turned on her from the corner of his eye was the kind that asks a question very quietly and is not comfortable with the answer it’s finding.

But he had his entire pack watching him. He had Bryan three feet away. He had things that still needed managing regardless of what was happening inside him right now.

His response came down over the gym like a drop in temperature.

Daisy was watching his face with every bit of focus she had, reading it the way she always did, searching for the softening that was not coming. He wouldn’t do it. Not here. Not in front of all of them. Not to her. He simply wouldn’t.

His voice, when it finally came, was as cold as bare skin pressed against January concrete. "Daisy, I think you need the exercise as well. And I’d strongly suggest you start praying that Seraphine is kind enough to tell you to stop."

The shame hit her faster than the actual words did. Her vision went white at the edges, the strength left her legs without any warning at all, and she went straight down, a clean, complete faint that the entire gym watched happen in total silence.

Seraphine was already on her feet. "I’ll check on her." It was the duty of a doctor to not neglect a patient but this time, she had her motives for doing so.

She crossed the floor without hurrying, crouched down beside Daisy, and leaned in close enough that what she said next was only ever going to reach her.

"No pressure at all, but I have a

her whole body jolting upright like a

of her, and looked completely at peace with everything happening around

a single glance over her shoulder and settled herself back

silence, absolutely, not a sound

and carrying a kind of finality, like a door pulling shut

he watched her face carefully, wondering what he

him hate Seraphine for no reason when all she did was stand on top of the mountain and scream

just one thing. Daisy was the one who gave him a son and for that, he

to the room. "Everyone, find a partner. Time

back to life, carefully, incrementally, the way sound comes back up in a space that isn’t quite sure it’s safe yet. Partners were found and claimed with none of the usual noise or jostling, everyone moving with the particular quiet of

stood up from the bench. "Bryan, will you

up like sunrise. He was already moving toward her before

smoothly into the space between them. "Bryan, sit with the group and observe today. You train with your

doesn’t leave a single gap to negotiate through.

the edges. He’d assumed that handling Daisy the way he had would’ve bought him something with Seraphine, some degree of goodwill, some small opening he could begin to

regret it

time to ask that question out loud. Ravyn pushed back against it immediately,

regret it.’ He let that sit for a beat, then added, with more resolve than the moment probably warranted, ’Don’t worry. I’ll build something with her slowly. She’ll come around to the investment. She just

careful, like he was delivering news he’d been sitting on for a while. ’She won’t allow it. She keeps the door completely closed. I’m not going to pretend otherwise, Ravyn. They don’t want anything to do

and carry it. There had to be something still there, some remaining thread of the Seraphine he remembered, the one who had loved this pack with everything she had, who