Alpha's Regret: The Seventh Time was Forever

Chapter 268 – Not the worst outcome

Seraphine’s mind moved fast, running the numbers on what would happen the second those pack gates swung open and Voren’s car rolled through. The warriors on night watch would clock it immediately.

Word would travel fast, and Ravyn would know before she even stepped out of the passenger seat.

She kept her voice even. "Voren, it’s late. Let me have Damon handle it." She turned slightly in her seat, turning just enough to look at him without making it obvious she was choosing her words carefully. "Raul left the pack years ago. I haven’t heard his name in a long time. The fact that he’s apparently back is what I can’t get my head around right now."

The brake lights lit up the road behind them as Voren pulled onto the shoulder and cut the engine down to idle.

He turned to look at her. Not the quick sideways glance he’d been giving her since they got in the car. A real look. The kind that expected something back.

"I need you to be straight with me about this." His voice wasn’t loud. "Because I am this close," his thumb and forefinger came up with barely a sliver of air between them, "to going directly to Ravyn and asking him to his face why the woman he’s demanding services from is walking around with a target painted on her back and nothing near enough protection to matter."

Seraphine held his gaze. She thought it through, turned it over, and then let out a slow breath.

"Fine." The word came out before she could dress it up in anything else. "But you stay out of my decisions. You don’t redirect me, you don’t override me, you don’t go around me. You’re in, but you’re not running it."

Something settled in Voren’s expression. He gave her one nod, turned the car around, and merged back onto the road without another word.

Seraphine pulled out her phone and dialed.

It rang once. Twice.

voice came through on the second ring.

found the man they sent." She kept it clean and short. "He gave up a name. Raul. I need you to find out

at the end of the line for

Damon’s voice came back slower this time, the word sitting in his mouth differently

made me look twice." He paused. "But

three words was

I need to know what he

exhaled shortly at the end of the line. Then,

call and dropped the

rolled into an empty space near the far end, away from the lights. He cut the engine and the quiet came in around them, the kind that sits heavy

He said it the way people say things that aren’t up for discussion. "So here’s what we’re doing. Either you come up to my room,

stared at the

genuinely could not believe the series of events that had folded her into this exact moment. Any other night. Any other version of this situation.

room." Her voice was steady. "Not tonight, and not any other

from the back of her mind, soft and almost pleading. He’s leaving soon. Once you’re back across the outlands line, I go

before Marsha could finish building the

unbothered, and Seraphine resisted the urge to argue with her wolf in

door locks. "Then we wait

reached for the door handle, but it didn’t

again. Nothing. Her eyes cut