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 scorpion in my bag, and

jolting upright like a current

straightened, folded her hands in front of her, and looked completely at peace with everything happening around her. "I

to her bench without a single glance over her shoulder and settled herself back down with the unhurried

complete silence, absolutely, not a sound

a door pulling shut on a room he’d been standing just outside of

he watched her face carefully, wondering what he ever saw in her to choose her over

all she did was stand on top of the mountain and scream her love for

one who gave him a son and for that, he could overlook it all,

the room. "Everyone, find

it’s safe yet. Partners were found and claimed with none

from the bench. "Bryan, will you train

whole face opened up like sunrise. He was already moving toward her before

with the group and observe today. You train with your peers at the academy." He looked up.

clean finality that doesn’t leave a single gap to negotiate

Daisy the way he had would’ve bought him something with Seraphine, some degree of goodwill, some small opening he could begin to work with. It was becoming very clear it hadn’t bought him nearly as much as

regret

waiting a long time to ask that question out loud. Ravyn pushed back against it immediately, the refusal rising in him before he’d even fully

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

to reach her wolf,’ Axel revealed, and something in his tone had quietened now, more 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

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