Chapter 278: Chapter 278 – She’s my sister now. That’s enough for me

"I already told her." Corvine’s voice was easy, unbothered, the tone of someone who had long since made their peace with a thing. "And she looked me in the eye and told me she doesn’t feel that way about me."

The corner of his mouth lifted, something almost fond in it. "And unlike somebody in this room, I actually listened, accepted it, and moved on." He smiled, though it didn’t quite reach his eyes. "She’s my sister now. That’s enough for me."

Something unknotted in Voren’s chest without permission.

He had been carrying that particular worry around for longer than he wanted to admit, turning it over, looking at it from different angles.

The way Corvine was always there. Always the first call, the first presence, the one Seraphine actually relaxed around. It had sat in him like a splinter, small, invisible, consistently irritating.

He kept his face completely still. "Then there’s nothing left to discuss."

He turned toward the door but Corvine didn’t let him. "Voren."

Voren stopped but didn’t turn around.

"Don’t make the mistake of thinking you have unlimited time." Corvine’s voice was measured, no heat in it, which somehow made it land harder.

"She’s not the kind of woman who waits around while someone figures out whether she’s worth the risk." He paused deliberately for close to ten seconds before letting out the rest. "You have my support. But only if you can promise me one thing. That you won’t turn into your best friend."

The words hit the back of Voren’s neck like cold water.

He stood there for a second, completely still. Corvine didn’t know everything. If he knew the full picture, the parts Voren had never said out loud to anyone, would he still be standing there offering support? Would any of this look the same?

"It’s not as straightforward as you’re making it sound." His voice came out quieter than he intended. "She looks at me and sees a business partner. That’s the whole of it."

✧༺♥༻✧

Seraphine had the proposal spread across her desk by the time Voren came back in, several pages turned, a pen in her hand that she had clearly been using to mark things. She didn’t look up immediately.

"The next of kin section is blank." She tapped the page with the pen. "That’s a significant gap for a document this size."

Voren pulled the chair across from her and sat down, settling into it with the kind of ease that came naturally to someone who had spent years walking into rooms and owning them without trying.

"That gets filled in later. It’s intentional for now." His eyes moved over her face briefly. "Have you eaten? It’s past two and I know your schedule at the hospital—"

"I’m not hungry." Her voice was professional and clean, every edge of warmth carefully tucked away. "Mr. Ashkael."

The name landed like a door closing.

Voren went quiet. He breathed in slowly through his nose and let the air back out the same way, steadying something in himself.

Without Marsha’s influence, Seraphine was exactly who she had been before any of this. Composed. Distant. Cold. Professionally cordial in a way that left no room for anything else.

He had known this version of her existed, but he just hadn’t expected it to continue after all they went through together at the pack and the outlands.

"If there’s nothing else you need to go over," he said, his voice even, "I’ll get out of your way." 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

Seraphine didn’t stop him. Didn’t even glance up from the document.

He was three steps from the door when her voice came, crisp and matter of fact, like an afterthought that wasn’t really an afterthought. "You don’t need to bring things like this personally. Your assistant can handle deliveries. That’s what assistants are for."

Voren’s back teeth pressed together hard. "Noted." He pulled the door open. "As you wish."

Voren kept his pace even all the way to the elevator. Kept his expression exactly where he needed it to be. Only when the doors closed and he was alone did he let out a long, controlled breath toward the ceiling.

He had thought he was the complicated one. He had spent years being aware of his own sharp edges, the way he ran hot in private and cold in public, the moods that swung without warning.

But Seraphine had him entirely beaten. The woman could sit across from him with tears still faintly dried on her face from twenty minutes ago and look at him like he was a line item on an invoice.

That took a particular kind of discipline that was almost impressive if it wasn’t also so thoroughly infuriating.

✧༺♥༻✧

Weeks passed.

The kind of weeks that fill up fast — surgeries and late nights and the slow steady work of building something new from the ground up. Seraphine moved through it all with the focused momentum of someone who had a list and was working through it, one thing at a time.

She was at the hospital, a patient file open in front of her, her pen moving in the margins, when her phone lit up on the desk beside her.

She saw the name and went still.

Nicole.

Her hand didn’t move toward it right away. She sat there for a moment, the memory of the last call playing back without being invited. The name alone was enough to pull that messy entanglement of Ravyn and Voren in the coffee shop back up but Seraphine picked up.

"Nicole, I hope—"

"Sera." Nicole’s voice cut straight through and whatever Seraphine had been about to say dissolved immediately.

There was an urgency in it that wasn’t dramatic or performed. It was the real kind, tight and clipped, the voice of someone moving fast and not wasting words.

"I need your help. There’s a little girl. She was just brought in, rare condition, none of our doctors know how to approach it. I’ve gone through everything I have and I’m out of answers."

Seraphine was already straightening in her chair, the file in front of her sliding to the side.

Then Nicole’s voice dropped lower. Close to the phone, barely above a breath.

"She’s our kind, Sera."