0081:The Mark On Her Neck

BENJAMIN’S POVI went down to the clinic to find her. Morwen told me she'd already left — gone off with John — and she didn't know where the two of them had got to.So I waited at her door instead. I had something to say to her, and somewhere in that long day of scrubbing blood off my own jaw I'd made up my mind I wasn't going to lose my nerve before I got it out.She came back near midnight, right after Alec sent a message to let me know he saw her in town and if I knew about it. I had the smell of him on her before I even looked at her face —I already knew she let another man have his hands all over her, plain as anything to a wolf's nose, and mine had never once spared me a single thing it could tell me.Then I saw the mark on her neck.Small. Faint pink love bite that was barely there. The kind of mark you'd only catch if you knew just where to look, and I knew exactly what had left it.The bond came up under my skin and leaned toward her, not asking one thing about what I wanted.

0082: The Wall Paid For It

ALICE'S POVBenjamin had already walked away by the time I made myself stop touching the mark on my neck.The kiss with John hadn't meant much — or it had meant something, but a clean kind of something, with none of the weight I dragged around in Blue Moon. No ghosts. No bond. No thirty days sitting on every word I said. That was the whole point of going. I'd kissed John back because for one evening I'd wanted to be a woman who could choose the easy thing and not have it cost her anything and I’m not sorry for it.Benjamin's voice when he said those words earlier stayed with me longer than I wanted. Not the jealousy underneath — that was there too, close to the surface, barely held. It was the steadiness. He hadn't shouted. He hadn't accused me of anything I could argue with cleanly. He'd just named the real shape of what loving me would cost, and walked off before I could tell him it wasn't fair to ask that of anyone. Some small, worn-out part of me agreed it was exactly fair, beca

0083: Something Shifted When He Left

ALICE'S POVNine days left.I'd started counting before I got out of bed — the number just sitting there before coffee, before I'd even brushed my teeth. Nine days until the council's window closed, and I still didn't know what I'd put in the box marked answer.John's kiss sat between us, neither of us naming it since the morning after. He and Benjamin hadn't said a word to each other since the festival — a cold, careful orbit, both of them circling me instead of each other. I was tired of being something two grown men took turns being careful around.The clinic was busy enough that I didn't have much room to think about any of it. I was grateful for that.Lily showed up just after the lunch rush, slipping in through the side door the way she usually did, a folded piece of paper held against her chest like something precious."I made you something," she said, holding it out before I'd even fully turned around.A blue wolf, drawn in careful, uneven crayon, standing beside a smaller fig

0084: Even If She Leaves

BENJAMIN'S POVAldric had the morning's papers squared in front of him before I'd even cleared the doorway, and he didn't look up — not until I'd dropped into the seat across from him."This isn't on the agenda," he said."It is now." I sat without looking at him. "I want a permanent endowment for the pediatric screening program. Structured so no future council can touch it. Not this one. Not the next ten."Aldric set the pen down, slow. "In Dr. Watson's name and not yours or the pack?.""In the program's name." I held his eyes. "Her work — whatever happens between her and me doesn't get a vote in it. I don't want this tied to my title, my marriage, or what kind of mood I'm in on a given day. I want it tied to the children it's already saved."He looked at me a long moment — the look he got when he was deciding whether to push or let a thing stand."This is unusual," he said. "Permanent endowments outlast Alphas. Outlast councils. You're aware of what you're asking — this can't be und

The Alpha's Greatest Regret のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 81 - チャプター 84

0081:The Mark On Her Neck

0082: The Wall Paid For It

0083: Something Shifted When He Left

0084: Even If She Leaves