Alpha's Regret: The Seventh Time was Forever

Chapter 279 – Marigold A.

The words landed somewhere deep in Seraphine’s chest and twisted.

"How old is she?" The question came out before she had fully decided to ask it, her voice dropping into that careful, controlled register she used when she was holding something fragile together from the inside.

Her mind was already moving, pulling at threads, lining things up, refusing to let hope run too far ahead of logic.

The one thing she had asked the moon goddess for, the single thing she had carried like a stone in her pocket every single day, was to find her daughter before the full moon.

But after what happened with all the children she rescued during the Santiago ordeal, she wasn’t going to fall apart over a phone call. No, she wasn’t going to do that to herself again.

"Her records say she’s five, but Sera, her hair reminds me of Alpha Ravyn."

The breath that moved through Seraphine was slow. Her daughter would be turning seven in a few months but then again, there could be a mistake with the date.

Perhaps she should go and look out for that birth mark Kylie told her about. Besides, Seraphine had never once turned her back on a child, and she wasn’t starting today.

"Okay." Her voice steadied. "Let me get clearance from my boss and I’ll head over. I’m leaving now."

She was already on her feet before the call ended.

✦••┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈••✦

Leon looked up from his desk when she pushed the door open, and his eyes moved immediately to her face, reading it quickly and accurately.

"Leo." She kept it short. "There’s a child at Whitfield’s Private hospital who needs me. Can I take my last hour? I’ll cover it tomorrow, first thing."

He looked at the surgical schedule on his screen, the list that was never quite as short as either of them would like, and then back at her. Whatever he saw in her expression settled the question faster than any argument could have.

hand once. "Just make sure

you." She was

to her ear before she hit the

She kept her voice low as she pushed through the door into the afternoon air. "A child needs

"Nicole." Corvine’s voice grew stern, that particular careful flatness dropping over it.

a five-year-old

before he responded. "Call me

down a car and

all of them looking out the window without seeing any of it. She had already talked herself down from the edge of hope twice by the time the

a doctor. That was all. That was the only thing she was

she spotted Seraphine she was already moving, cutting across the lobby with the urgent energy

her, steering her toward a cluster of doctors near the

genius doctor," Nicole announced to the group, spreading her hands with a dramatic

moved across the faces in the

"Callum?"

almost bashful smile that crossed his face was so out of place on a grown man that it would have been funny under

voice was careful, measured. "Yeah. We can talk

Pack business.

gave him one small nod and moved

compared to the hallway but the energy inside it was

hair catching the overhead light,

don’t know what to do. You have to come. Please, I’m so

to the girl on

small. Perfectly still. Unconscious but somehow peaceful looking in a way that felt almost deliberate, like sleep rather than crisis. Her lashes were dark against her cheeks and her hands rested open

hair was a storm of midnight waves, a crown of untamed beauty

pulled at Seraphine from across the room, steady, growing stronger with every step she took closer, like a compass

her life, but she