Alpha's Regret: The Seventh Time was Forever

Chapter 281 – The code

The word dropped into the room like a stone into still water.

Nobody moved. Nobody breathed. Even the background noise of the hospital corridor seemed to cut out completely, leaving behind a silence so complete and so sudden that it had weight to it.

Seraphine’s file slipped from her fingers, but she didn’t move, didn’t speak. Her eyes stayed locked on the little girl’s face, and she stood there, going through every detail the way she did when she was looking at a scan that wasn’t adding up. Slowly, carefully, refusing to jump to the conclusion that was sitting right in front of her.

The girl looked like Voren. Not in the vague, generous way people described resemblances to be polite. In the specific, undeniable way where you could line up the features one by one and find them. The jaw. The shape of the nose. The way her brows sat, slightly heavier than you expected on such a small face.

But those eyes.

Wide and blue and sitting in that face like they belonged to someone else entirely.

Seraphine’s chest tightened because she could swear that from certain angles, the girl looked like Ravyn or maybe, she was hallucinating because she desperately wanted Marigold to be hers.

She thought about Ravyn again, the time from when they were younger, about the years before Voren had cut his hair short and come back from the city looking like a different version of himself.

Back then, standing next to each other, the two of them had been close enough in appearance that people occasionally confused them. Same bone structure. Same height. Same darkness in their coloring.

Marigold had Voren’s everything.

saw in the mirror every single morning. The

tight in the specific way of someone

with the particular patience of a child who has already decided they are right and is simply

she said, clear and steady, like she

she reached her hand out toward Seraphine. No hesitation. No uncertainty. Just a small

that. She could see it. Whatever this was — a

feet

the girl’s hand, though she didn’t plan to. She just did. And the warmth that moved up through her palm and spread into her chest was not something she had

was something she never felt with Bryan, but she just accepted he was her child because she had

back from Marigold’s forehead

came out softer than she

up at her with those innocent blue eyes and didn’t blink. "I saw you in my dream." Her voice had that particular quality of absolute childhood certainty, the kind that hasn’t learned yet to doubt

room went

wrapped around his daughter’s back, went completely still. His grip tightened slightly, and something moved behind his expression that he closed off before it could become readable. He knew

was happening in this room, he was not as lost in it as everyone