All Chapters of The Alpha's Greatest Regret: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

84 Chapters

0021. Deliberate Wound

BENJAMIN'S POVI found Callum in the game room that night. He was at the poker table with a deck of cards and a half-empty glass of whiskey. The room smelled like old wood and dust. One of the ceiling lights flickered — it had been doing that for weeks and nobody had fixed it. He looked up when I came in.“You’ve got that look again.”“What look.”“The one where you’ve been watching clinic windows for three hours and pretending you weren’t.”I didn’t sit down. I stood near the door, hands in my pockets, the flickering light buzzing overhead. “John Marlow. How long has he known her?”Callum shuffled the deck. The cards made a soft, rhythmic sound against his palms. “Does it matter?”It mattered. He’d been there for three years while I’d been sitting in my office staring at a crack in the wall. He knew how she took her coffee. He knew when she needed to eat. He knew what made her laugh when she was too tired to stand.“Benjamin.” Callum set the deck down. “You’re doing that thing again.

0022. He Bleeds For Attention

ALICE'S POVI made it to my quarters before my legs gave out.The door clicked shut behind me. The lock turned. My bag slid off my shoulder and hit the floor. I sat on the edge of the bed and pressed my hands flat against my knees and tried to breathe.He’d hurt himself to see me. He’d cut his own skin open and walked across the compound bleeding just to ask me about John. It was manipulative and desperate and exactly the kind of thing the old Benjamin would never have done — the old Benjamin wouldn’t have needed to.He’d had me. He’d had my signature on divorce papers and my invisible presence in his pack house and my quiet suffering in every corner of his life. He’d never had to chase me. He’d never had to try.Now he was trying. Now he was bleeding on my examination table, asking questions he had no right to ask, looking at me like I was someone worth cutting himself open for.I thought about John. His steady hands. His patient silence. The way he’d held my hand through anniversari

0023: Not My Concern

ALICE'S POVIt was cold enough that I'd pulled my collar up before I made it through the guest quarters door.I had my first patient in my head — eight years old, family history of autoimmune markers, mother already anxious before I'd said a word. I was heading over to the clinic when I saw Lisa standing near the courtyard gate.Lisa had been waiting. Her arms were crossed, her chin came up when she spotted me. Just enough to tell me she'd been standing there long enough to get cold.I didn't slow down."Ms. Watson." She stepped into my path. “I heard the Alpha had an accident last night. A knife wound.” She paused. “You treated him yourself.”I kept walking. “I was available.”“There was a duty physician on call.” She fell into step beside me. Her heels clicked on the frozen stone. “The night nurse told me you insisted on handling it personally. How convenient for you.”I didn’t stop. I didn’t look at her. “If you have a medical concern, Mrs. Scott, direct it to the clinic.”“My conc

0024: Unforgivable Return

BENJAMIN'S POVThe wolf had been under my coat since before I left the pack house.I'd meant to decide how to carry it. I hadn't. I put it inside my jacket against my ribs and walked across the compound and into the clinic hall.Three days since she’d stitched me up. Three days since she’d looked at the wound and known exactly what it was.The door to her office was open when I arrived. Alice was at the counter, reviewing a file, her back to me. She didn’t turn around.“I need you to check the wound,” I said.“There’s a duty physician on call for follow-ups. I’m with a patient in ten minutes.”“It’ll take two minutes. I just need you to tell me if it’s healing properly.”She turned. Her eyes went to my side, to the bandage visible through my shirt. “Sit down.”I sat on the examination table. She pulled on gloves with quick, practiced movements. The snap of latex was the only sound in the room.She lifted the edge of the bandage. Her fingers were steady, they’d been steady while she st

0025. Six Years, Then This

ALICE'S POVThe door clicked behind Benjamin, and I stayed where I was with my hands flat on the examination table.The vinyl was cold against my palms. The seam under my right thumb was rough and familiar — I'd been pressing on it without noticing, probably since he walked in. The light was unchanged. Everything in the room was exactly where it had been before he arrived, and I was very tired.My hands were also holding the wolf.I looked down. The worn fur was compressed between my left fingers. I hadn't noticed I was gripping it.I sat down on the table where I'd stitched him up three days ago — the same angle of light, the same cold vinyl, his blood coming warm through my gloves while the pull of the mate bond ran strong enough that I'd focused on the pull of the suture and the angle of the needle to keep my hands where they belonged.I didn't reach for that distance this time. I held the wolf against my chest and let the door in my head open.-----FLASHBACKSound came back first.

0026: Trying Won't Bring Him Back

ALICE’S POVThe wolf was warm.That kept mattering more than it should. Just fabric. Stuffing. It holds whatever heat you give it. But Lucian had held it, and then I had, and the warmth in it now was both of ours, layered, and I couldn't make myself put it down.I didn't know how long I'd been sitting there when the knock came.Two taps. John's voice through the door. Alice. Your light's still on.I couldn't answer. My face was wet and my throat had that specific ache you get after real crying — after it's already moved through you — and I didn't trust myself to make a sound without the whole thing coming apart again.The door opened a few inches. He stood in the gap with his hand on the frame. His expression was careful."Can I come in?"I nodded.He crossed the room and sat on the floor beside me. His shoulder was a few inches from my knee. He didn't touch me. He didn't ask what was wrong. He'd learned, through every anniversary and every long night since, when not to.The heating u

0027:He Stayed For Remy

Alice’s POVBenjamin didn't leave.He pressed himself against the far wall — out of the way, not in the way — and watched every move I made. That's a distinction most people don't understand until they've been in a room like that one.When Remy's mother arrived first, her face white, her hands already shaking, he moved to her without being asked. He walked her to the corner of the bay and spoke in a low, steady voice I could barely hear over the monitors."He's in good hands," I caught. "Dr. Watson is the best. She'll do everything she can."I didn't have time to process that. Epinephrine, oxygen, vitals. Remy's father arrived still in his work clothes, breathless, and Benjamin intercepted him too. He kept both parents at the edge of the room. Kept them from rushing the table.Ten minutes of focused, controlled work. The swelling eased. Remy's breathing steadied. His color came back from grey to pink, that small specific journey that never stops meaning something to me."He's stable."

0028: Defending The Wrong Woman

BENJAMINE’S POVThe letter that arrived in my office was dated three days ago.I set it on the desk. Didn't stand. Didn't reach for the phone. Just sat with the letterhead and the careful wording and the name that wasn't anywhere on it. Lisa never left fingerprints. She started fires and walked away clean.Preliminary inquiry. Questions have been raised.Three days. She hadn't even waited. The complaint died and she'd found a quieter door the same week. Not an accusation. Just questions, in the right offices, to people who had no reason to say no. She'd always known how to make procedure cut.I picked up the phone and dialed."My office. Now."She came in fifteen minutes later. Heels on stone. No knock — she'd stopped knocking months ago and I'd stopped noticing. Everything about her pressed and deliberate, exactly as she wanted it. She looked at me the way she always had. Like she already knew the ending."Benjamin. This is unexpected."I held up the letter."Did you do this?"She gl

0029: Unwanted Protection

ALICE’S POVHe didn't knock.I had the morning's files open and the same cup of coffee at my elbow I'd poured at seven and never touched — cold now, a skin gone over the top of it. I knew his step before I looked up. He just appeared in the doorway. Jaw set. A letter in his hand, the paper already creased where his grip had closed on it.I set down my pen. "Alpha Kane."He crossed the room and laid the letter on my desk. "This came through pack correspondence this morning. A formal inquiry from the Northern Medical Coalition. Someone has raised concerns about your credentials."I picked it up. Read it. The language was bureaucratic, built to threaten without ever putting a name to the threat. Questions have been raised. Preliminary inquiry. Standard procedure.I'd held letters like this before. I knew exactly what they were. You learn to read them the way you read a wound that's been dressed too neatly — for what someone is trying to hide under the clean part."My credentials are genu

0030: The Kiss

ALICE’S POVJohn was in the clinic when I found him. He had the patient files spread across the exam table, sorting them into stacks for whoever took over after he left. Two days from now."Come with me," I said.He looked up. "Where?""Anywhere that isn't here. You're leaving in two days. I'm not going to spend them watching you alphabetize charts.""The charts need alphabetizing.""They'll survive."He closed the top folder. The corner of his mouth moved. "If they're still a mess Monday, it's on you."I picked the park on purpose. Ground that didn't mean anything yet.It was cold and clear. The sun was out and the air still bit. Some pups were running through the dead grass by the fountain. We sat on the bench by the pond and the cold came up through the wood and through my coat and settled in."Tell me about your mother," I said.He turned. "My mother?""You're going home to her. You've mentioned her maybe twice in three years."He didn't answer right away. Then he leaned back, put

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