Alpha's Regret: The Seventh Time was Forever

Chapter 283 - Who is Marigold’s mother?

Voren looked genuinely thrown. Like the sight of her like this was a variable he hadn’t accounted for and didn’t know what to do with. It almost would’ve been funny, Seraphine thought distantly, if she wasn’t so tired.

She’d had plenty of practice at this. Smiling when things were not fine. Keeping her voice even. Giving people exactly the version of herself they were comfortable with. She’d gotten so good at it that sometimes she forgot she was doing it at all. Apparently, she’d slipped.

"Nothing." Her free hand moved to his, trying to work his fingers loose from her arm. "Can you let go?"

Her eyes slid sideways, scanning without meaning to — the staircase door, halfway down the hall on the left. Exit signs always glowed red like small promises.

Voren caught it. His grip didn’t tighten, but it didn’t release either. He’d followed her gaze and understood exactly what it meant. If he let go, she was gone.

"Not until you tell me why you’re crying."

Seraphine looked back at him. The bitter thing that moved across her face wasn’t quite a smile, but it wore a smile’s shape. Her voice came out quieter than she intended, not soft, just stripped of whatever energy she’d been using to hold the question back.

"You know everything about my life." The words were measured, careful, like she was laying them down one at a time. "Every piece of it." Her eyes held his, steady despite the wet at their edges. "But yours? Sealed. Locked. Like it doesn’t exist unless you decide to open the door."

She knew how Voren operated. She’d watched him long enough to know that if she gave him the space to redirect, to deflect, to turn the conversation into something else entirely, he would. So she didn’t give him the space.

"Who is Marigold’s mother?" The question came before the air had even settled. "Where is she? Why is there no mention of her anywhere?" Her eyes searched his face, quick and urgent. "And what happened between the two of you that made you —"

The questions stopped.

A whole lineup of them, stacked and ready. But something in his face made her words

that careful nothing he wore in public. This was different. Darker. Like a sky that changes color before a storm rolls in and you realize you misjudged how close

why any of these questions should have you this upset."

Still there, firm even. Her eyes flicked sideways, the hallway had started to notice them. A nurse slowed down without quite stopping. A man by the vending

feel the weight of being looked at prickling across her skin but Voren felt none of it, apparently. Or if he

we were at the pack," she continued, watching how his jaw tightened. "And the outlands. You dug. You watched. You asked questions about

not letting him look away for long. "And the entire time, you gave me nothing. Not one real thing about yourself. Not about Marigold —" she stopped,

swallowed. The muscles in

the rumors. The ones that followed Voren’s name around like weather

at arm’s length not because he was guarded but because he genuinely didn’t care enough to let

Or at least she’d let herself believe them because it

arm and something raw sitting just beneath the surface of his face, she wasn’t

second time. Her voice didn’t waver, but it had gone quieter. "And it isn’t Jasmine." That much

caretaker, not a parent. The difference was visible

her arm again. "And

He didn’t.

was holding something he was afraid

something through behind his eyes, and she didn’t know what it was,