Alpha's Regret: The Seventh Time was Forever

Chapter 299: Ravyn was stronger

"You’re wrong," Voren said after thinking it over for a second. The smile that crossed Seraphine’s face didn’t reach her eyes at all.

It was one of those fake smiles you give when something isn’t funny but you still have to nod along anyway. Like all the puzzle pieces finally clicking into place, leaving you with nothing but a quiet, unsurprising realization that you probably should’ve seen this coming from a mile away.

"I didn’t see any real chance between us until I came to get you from the pack," he continued. "The second Corvine told me you had gone there, I called Ravyn. Once he confirmed it, something inside me just couldn’t let you stay around him."

"Honestly, I didn’t even know what that feeling was until Bloodfang suddenly took a liking to your wolf. The moment we kissed, hope rushed through me again, but I was ready to take things slow."

"If you hadn’t been at the hospital taking care of Marigold that day, this whole situation would’ve dragged out even longer because you still weren’t letting me in."

Seraphine shook her head slowly. "Voren, what you’re asking for isn’t simple at all."

"Marigold loves you," Voren interrupted, like that one fact wrapped everything up perfectly. Like a five-year-old’s love was some kind of unbreakable contract that ended the whole conversation. "I honestly don’t understand what’s so complicated about it."

Seraphine swallowed hard. The whole thing felt heavy in her throat. Not because she didn’t love Marigold back, she did, in that scary, immediate way that didn’t make any logical sense, but because there were still things, she thought Voren didn’t know about.

Heavy things that sat right on her chest and made his clean, neatly packaged offer feel impossible to accept.

Becoming Marigold’s legal mother would automatically tie her even closer to Voren, and they had already crossed so many lines.

the Bohemian Grove," she said quietly. "I owe him everything. My

beside her on the

throat,

asked you to marry him, you’d just do

a life. That’s how I’ve always handled things, and I’m

Voren’s face. She watched him think it through, that sharp, calculating side of him that understood power plays

she had died from the wolfbane poisoning that night, would he even be here

turned fully toward her, and when he spoke again,

took care of that night. Whatever debt you think

clearly cost him something to show. "You don’t owe

to love him out of obligation. He wanted her love, the way she had

with the spell on her memory, Voren wanted her to fall for him all over again, so he had no

no strings attached to that part at all. When we do find her, we’ll have two kids, Marigold and yours. And we can have more kids after that, as many as your body

As ridiculous as it seemed, the offer hung there between them, wide

crossing her legs under her and creating a little physical space between herself and the warmth of that promise before

not that simple," she said

He wasn’t upset or annoyed. He just sounded like he genuinely wanted to understand where she was coming from instead of trying to