Alpha's Regret: The Seventh Time was Forever

Chapter 287 - You should stay at my place tonight

"Sera—" Corvine started, but Seraphine was already shaking her head before he could finish. She wasn’t in the mood for excuses. Not tonight.

The connection she’d felt with Marigold the moment their eyes locked wasn’t something she could explain away, and that feeling was the only thing keeping her hopes alive right now.

"Some things don’t change," she said, her voice steady, quieter than she expected it to come out. "Eye color. Hair color. Those things travel in blood. You can’t fake that."

Something new moved across Corvine’s face. The tight line of his shoulders dropped just slightly, like a weight had been lifted clean off them.

"You know, I told Ravyn to actually look at the girl when she when you were unconscious." He exhaled slow, like the memory still sat wrong with him. "He wouldn’t. Couldn’t bring himself to. And truthfully, she had this full head of hair, thick as anything, just like his. Not long, she was a newborn, but still. A hairy little thing."

The corner of his mouth twitched upward, almost fond. "Her eyes though, were yours, Sera. Yours, or maybe even prettier, if that’s even possible."

Seraphine’s breath caught somewhere in the middle of her chest. "Voren," she said, almost to herself. "Has a daughter." The goosebumps crawled up her arms before she even finished saying it out loud.

Corvine’s whole face closed off fast. "Hold on." He pulled over at the shoulder of the road. "The five-year-old you’re talking about — you’re saying she’s Voren’s?"

Seraphine nodded. "And she calls me mom." Her voice dropped on those words, like they were almost too heavy to carry out loud. "She told us she saw me in a dream."

Corvine went quiet. His jaw worked like he was chewing through the information, trying to figure out which part surprised him most. "Goddess." He dragged a hand down his face.

knew there was something between the two of you the second I saw you together, I just couldn’t name it." He looked up at her, something urgent

she wanted to admit. "I would have entertained that idea," she said carefully, "if Tallulah hadn’t confirmed everything herself. But Corvine... Voren wasn’t at the moon festival. The last time I even saw him was before I went up on that hill

down, her throat tight with something she wasn’t ready to put a name

beat, then his voice came back softer. "It’s alright, Sera. Love

them. "But you’re past that now. What matters is what’s right in front of you. Check for the birthmark, or just do a DNA test and get

to his place. Day after tomorrow. I want to spend some real time

whole face broke into something warm, the kind of smile that reached all the way up to his eyes. "Sounds

he shut us both out cold. changed the venue because of you. I couldn’t figure

sense. He was protecting her. He didn’t want you anywhere near that house

turned the thought over slowly in her mind. The more she pulled at it, the more threads

dropping to

The helplessness that followed wasn’t something she

know for sure." She looked at him, something raw and open in her eyes. "Corvine, that little girl is... there’s no right word for

her gaze and said nothing. He didn’t need to, pulling back onto

✧༺♥༻✧

wall before she even got both feet

already buried in it. It was the kind of day that doesn’t ask your permission before it

kept drifting back to Marigold’s eyes and a conversation she’d been replaying since the night before. It just kept sending patients, kept pulling her from one operating room to the next until the hours blurred

that kicks in when your

back-to-back, then a fourth that ran long, leaving her legs aching, her neck stiff, and her eyes feeling like sandpaper by the time it was

one, still in her scrubs, hair pulled back messy, the sharp antiseptic smell of the OR clinging to her skin when her phone buzzed in her pocket. She already knew who it was before she