Alpha's Regret: The Seventh Time was Forever

Chapter 286 - Can you describe my daughter for me?

Jasmine’s smile arrived a half-second after it should have. "Yes." She smoothed the edge of her expression carefully. "We should."

The look she turned on Seraphine after was harder to categorize. She stood there for a moment, hands folded in front of her, working something through internally before she spoke. "Doctor Sera." Her voice was polite, measured. "What do you like to eat?"

Seraphine glanced at her. "Call me Sera." She reached for the spoon on the tray. "And I’m not picky. Anything is fine."

She scooped up the first spoonful and held it out toward Marigold. "It’s getting cold. Open up."

What happened next surprised everyone in the room, including Jasmine, who Seraphine suspected had been managing Marigold’s eating habits long enough to have lost some hope about them. Marigold ate.

Not reluctantly, not with the drawn-out negotiation of a child who treats every bite like a concession. She just ate. Opened her mouth, chewed, swallowed, opened again.

Seraphine kept the rhythm steady and unhurried, not making a production of it, just spooning and waiting, spooning and waiting like she used to do for Bryan.

The plate was empty before anyone said anything about it.

Seraphine looked at the clean bowl, then at Marigold. "There. Do you want more?"

Marigold nodded, solemn and certain. "I’ll eat more." Her eyes fixed on Seraphine with the quiet, unblinking focus of someone about to name their price. "If you come home with me."

Before Seraphine could figure out how to answer that, her phone buzzed in her pocket. She bent a little, pulled it out, and answered.

"Sera." Corvine’s voice was dry and unhurried. "Should I come upstairs?"

up from

at Marigold and smiled. "I’m leaving now. But I promise you’ll

across Marigold’s face happened slowly. The brightness didn’t disappear all at once but dimmed the way a light dims when the power starts to go, still there but lesser. Her small hands settled in her lap. Her

mommy would want

words hit Seraphine somewhere low and unexpected, right below the sternum, sharp enough that she actually felt it physically. She

her, calm and unhurried, like this

no qualification. The confidence in it was extraordinary, not arrogant exactly, just completely unbothered by

held his gaze for a moment, one eyebrow lifting just

let out a sigh of relief, but the moment Seraphine was close to the

her small frame

moved through Seraphine’s chest, warm and sudden and a little frightening in how strong it was. She walked back to the bed without deciding to, sat down, and pulled

a switch flipped somewhere in the back of her skull. The headache she’d been quietly carrying for the last few minutes was just gone. Not faded. Not dulled. Gone. Like someone had

back and looked at

with herself for reasons

time, it wasn’t just the absence of

was more than that. More specific. Like every restless, circling thing

a moment

at Marigold’s face, and the need to understand this child, who

you soon." Her voice came out quieter than

strand would be enough. Just enough to

same moment, different in quality but equally precise. Seraphine’s hand stilled, and she smoothed Marigold’s hair gently instead, just a simple,