Alpha's Regret: The Seventh Time was Forever

Ravyn moved through the room with a kind of restless urgency that made the air feel tight, grabbing the few things Bryan might need and stuffing them into a bag without caring whether anything was neatly arranged or not, because right now none of that mattered when the only thing that kept echoing in his mind was how weak the boy had become.

When he lifted Bryan into his arms, the difference in weight hit him harder than anything else had, the child feeling far too light, fragile in a way that made something cold settle deep in Ravyn’s chest, especially after everything he had tried had failed to get even a few bites of food into him.

Bryan had refused everything, and watching him grow weaker with each passing hour had pushed Ravyn into a quiet kind of panic he refused to show openly, though it kept pressing at him from the inside, growing heavier until it was almost suffocating, only easing slightly when Daisy finally showed up, even if her presence brought its own complications.

"Ravyn, please, let me go with you," Daisy said, her voice carrying both urgency and something softer underneath, something that might have sounded like sincerity if things between them hadn’t already been so strained.

Ravyn didn’t even hesitate, his expression hardening as he turned to her, his eyes cold, making it clear he had already made up his mind. "So you can sneak off to meet whoever it is you’ve been seeing behind my back," he shot back, his tone sharp enough to cut, "I still can’t believe I chose you over Seraphine."

The words landed exactly how they were meant to, and Daisy felt them sink deep, her throat tightening as she swallowed down the bitterness that rose instantly, because she couldn’t even deny that there had been a time when everything he was accusing her of had been true.

Back then, she had been convinced she had lost him for good the moment he married Seraphine, and believing his promises had felt pointless, almost laughable, so she had stopped trying to hold onto anything that tied her to him.

She had taken advantage of the freedom that came with it, especially after Ravyn had swapped Bryan, leaving her without the responsibilities that had once defined her life, and for a while she had leaned into that freedom completely, living however she wanted, doing whatever made her feel alive in the moment.

Things hadn’t stayed that way forever, though, because somewhere along the line, something between her and Ravyn had begun to grow again, slowly at first and then with enough weight that she had started to believe she could rebuild what they had lost.

The problem was that Zane had never truly let her go. He had always been there in the background, his calls coming at the worst times, always about money, always demanding more, always reminding her of a past she couldn’t fully escape no matter how hard she tried.

Even now, he still had that hold on her, and Daisy had been counting on the trip to the city as her chance to finally deal with him properly, to meet him in person, explain everything, and buy herself enough time to fix things with Ravyn.

Without her phone, Zane might think she was being intentional and storm the pack to expose her.

She had thought she could manage both without Ravyn ever finding out, but standing here now, with the way he looked at her, it was painfully clear that he had already drawn his own conclusions, and worse, that he was treating her like someone who couldn’t be trusted at all.

"Ravyn, please," she tried again, her voice softer this time, almost pleading as she forced herself to meet his gaze, "there’s no other man, I swear, I’ve just been talking to friends in the city."

"Save it," Ravyn snapped, cutting her off before she could say anything else, his patience already gone. "It’s too late for explanations, so stay here and take care of the pack while I figure out what’s wrong with Bryan, because right now it doesn’t even look like you can take proper care of him."

The accusation stung more than anything else he had said, but Daisy didn’t get the chance to respond before Ravyn turned away from her completely, placing Bryan carefully into the car as if he were handling something incredibly fragile, his movements much gentler now despite the anger that still lingered in his expression.

He slid into the driver’s seat without another glance in her direction, and the engine roared to life almost immediately, the car pulling away before Daisy could gather the words she needed to stop him, leaving her standing there with nothing but the fading sound of the engine and the weight of everything that had just happened pressing down on her.

Zane could call or send a message, unaware that Daisy’s phone was with Ravyn. Should that happen, Daisy knew she was doomed. No, she had to find a way to leave the pack and get to Zane before any call or message drops from him.

The drive didn’t calm Ravyn the way it normally might have, because his thoughts refused to settle, circling back again and again to Bryan’s condition, to Daisy’s behavior, and to the one person he had been trying so hard to avoid involving.

In the end, he reached for the one option he had left, activating the Bluetooth connection and calling Voren, knowing exactly how this conversation was going to go and still not having any better alternative.

"Voren, I need your help," he said as soon as the call connected, skipping any kind of greeting.

On the other end, Voren was already dealing with his own problems, sitting across from a client in a coffee shop and trying to keep his focus where it needed to be, which made Ravyn’s voice cutting into his moment feel like the last thing he needed.

"What is it now?" Voren asked, the irritation in his tone barely concealed.

"I need Sera’s help," Ravyn said without hesitation, "you have to talk to her for me."

That was enough to completely throw Voren off, the words catching him so unexpectedly that he choked on the coffee he had just taken a sip of, coughing as he struggled to recover while his client looked at him in confusion.

"What?" he managed, before turning to the client with an apologetic expression. "I’m sorry, give me a second."

He stood up and stepped away, putting some distance between himself and the table before lowering his voice as he spoke into the phone again. "Ravyn, I already told you to leave me out of whatever is going on between you and your ex-wife."

"I know, but this isn’t about that," Ravyn replied quickly, his grip tightening on the steering wheel as he spoke. "Daisy said Seraphine added something special to the serum she made for Bryan, and every version they’ve tried to produce without whatever Sera used just doesn’t work."

There was a pause on the other end, and Voren’s expression changed as the situation became clearer, because Bryan being involved made it harder to brush this off completely, even if he still felt uneasy about the whole thing.

"Ravyn," he said slowly, choosing his words more carefully now, "are you even sure Daisy actually created a working cure in the first place?"