"Alpha Voren and Luna Seraphine look good together. Too bad they can’t be together. Alphas have some serious code against exes," one of the patients who had already been treated before Ravyn got there said. She was sitting up on her medical bed, her voice carrying easily through the sound of the rain.

The woman next to her jumped right in, like she had been waiting for an opening.

"From what I picked up, those codes can be broken, but the consequences are ugly. I don’t think Alpha Voren would risk all of that for his best friend’s ex-wife. That’s a whole different level of trouble."

"But they are divorced," the first woman pushed back, folding her arms like that settled everything. "I used to hate her, I won’t even lie about that. But now? After everything she did today? I feel like I owe that woman my life. She deserves good things, especially happiness."

"And Alpha Voren hates women." The second patient raised an eyebrow, her tone flat, like she was pointing out something obvious that everyone kept ignoring.

The first one wasn’t having it. She waved a hand like she was brushing the whole argument off the table. "There are always exceptions. There is always going to be that one woman who walks in and knocks every wall down. Look at our own Alpha. The man is terrifying to everyone except co-Luna. She is literally his only soft spot."

A few feet away, Doctor Raymond had just pushed himself up from the ground where he had been crouched, picking up what was left of the broken cure. His knees ached. His back ached worse. But none of that mattered the second his eyes landed on Ravyn’s figure from the window, standing in front of the ward, back turned, rain already starting to soak through his clothes.

Raymond’s stomach dropped.

He straightened up fast and pointed at the two women without even looking at them fully. "If you two are well enough to sit there gossiping like this is a social club, then you are discharged. Get out of here before you cause me problems I don’t need today."

Ravyn had already heard more than enough. It wasn’t even the first time somebody had tried to push this idea on him. That Voren looked at Seraphine differently. That he treated her like she was something special.

Ravyn had heard some version of this more times than he could count and every single time, he filed it away under nonsense and moved on.

Because he knew Voren. And he knew that for Voren, everything came down to money. It had always been that way. Voren was calculated and cold and he did not do things without a reason that benefited him first.

Whatever he was doing for Seraphine, whatever it looked like from the outside, there was a transaction at the bottom of it, and then there was the other thing.

After everything Voren had been through, no woman was getting through those walls. Not a single one. The only exception to that would be a fated mate, and that was exactly why Voren had been pushing so hard to restore the mate bond. He needed something supernatural to even crack the surface, and no ordinary she-wolf was doing it on her own.

So no. Seraphine was not breaking anything.

Ravyn let out a slow breath and stared out at the rain.

They looked good together.

Right. Sure they did.

Seraphine did not belong anywhere near someone at Voren’s level. She did not deserve that. The way Ravyn saw it, she was exactly where she should be, dating some human named Leon. That was the right size for her.

Which meant, if anything, Daisy sat higher in the world than Seraphine now. At least in terms of who married someone on a higher level. And that thought sat fine with Ravyn.

As for Voren, there was no version of that happening. Voren would never go near someone Ravyn had already discarded. Seraphine was a Chapter that was closed, pages already yellowed. She was beneath him emotionally, even if she was a financial giant, and that was not cruelty, that was just the order of things.

He told himself all of this standing in the rain and by the time he was done, he had almost convinced himself completely.

Almost.

He scanned the area and his jaw tightened. Voren was already gone.

The car wasn’t there. The spot where it had been parked was just wet gravel now.

Ravyn stood there for a second with rain running down his face and he thought hard. There had to be a way to get Seraphine back here. The cure wasn’t finished.

The process had been interrupted and without her it couldn’t be completed and yes, he was the one who pushed too far, he could admit that quietly, inside his own head where nobody could hear it. He had pushed and she had broken and now everything was a mess.

But the bigger problem was the cure. That was what he needed to focus on.

He mind link and pushed the warriors at the gate.

Has Alpha Voren passed through yet?

The answer came back fast.

No Alpha. The rain came down too heavy and some trees went over the roads. We are trying to clear everything but with all that is going on out here it is slow work. They have not come through.

Something in Ravyn’s chest loosened just slightly. He exhaled.

Where is Alpha Voren right now? Is Sera with him?

He caught himself. The name came out before he could stop it and he pressed his mouth flat. He had wanted to say Seraphine. Formal. Clean.

But the short version slipped out the way it always did and at least she wasn’t standing next to him to pull a face and correct him in that dry, unbothered way she had. That sharp little lift of her chin like she was already bored of the conversation before it started.

Alpha Voren is out there trying to clear the road himself. Luna Sera is in the car.

There was a pause. Short, but Ravyn felt it.

Then the warrior’s next words came through and they were different. Something in the tone changed completely.

Oh no.

Ravyn frowned, rain dripping off his jaw. What? What is going on?

It’s... it’s Luna Sera. The...

That was all it took.

Ravyn did not make a decision. His body made it for him. One second he was standing there soaked through and confused, and the next he was shifting, the change ripping through him fast and hard, bones realigning, the world dropping lower as he came down onto four legs.

He was running before the shift even finished, paws hitting the wet ground hard, eating up the distance between him and the pack gate.

The rain was a wall. Everything was loud and blurred and cold.

He reached the gate and he stopped.

And what he saw in front of him cracked something open inside his chest that he had spent years making sure stayed sealed.