LOGINShare
0006: He is a Mistake
publish date:
2026-05-01 17:32:26ALICE’S POV
I should have taken Lucian home.
I should have picked him up, carried him away from this festival of false joy and false hope, and tucked him into bed with a story, a kiss, and a promise that tomorrow would be better.
But I didn’t. Because Lucian wanted to see the fireworks. And I couldn’t deny him anything anymore.
So we stayed.
The fireworks were beautiful—explosions of gold, silver, and blue lighting up the dark sky, reflecting in Lucian’s eyes as he stared upward. He didn’t cheer like the other children. He didn’t clap or gasp or point. He just watched, silent and still, his expression unreadable.
“Lucian? Are you okay?”
He didn’t answer.
The crowd began to disperse as the fireworks ended. I looked around for Benjamin, but he was nowhere to be found. Still with Lisa, probably. Still with his real family.
“Come on, baby. Let’s go home.”
“I want to wait for Daddy.”
“Lucian—”
“Please, Mommy? You said he promised. You said he would be here.”
The hope in his voice was the cruelest thing I’d ever heard.
We waited.
He found us when the grounds were nearly empty. His shirt was untucked, and the faint smell of wine reached me before his footsteps did. He stopped when he saw us, and there it was—genuine surprise. The kind that meant he had genuinely forgotten.
“You’re still here?”
“You told us to wait,” I said. “Lucian wanted to see you.”
He looked at our son, then looked away.
“I got held up.”
“I know.” I reached for Lucian’s hand. “Come on, baby. Let’s go home.”
The drive home was silent. Lucian fell asleep against the window, his cheek pressed to the glass, tear tracks drying on his face before I could wipe them away.
I watched him in the rearview mirror.
Laundry still on the line. Lucian’s nebulizer needed cleaning. The healer’s appointment on Thursday—I still had to confirm it. Still had to call.
The endless list moved through me like water through a dry riverbed. It was the only reason I kept moving.
He stirred when I laid him down. His small hand caught my sleeve before I could step back.
“Mommy?” His voice was thick with sleep and the tears he’d cried quietly so I wouldn’t see. “Does Daddy really love us?”
I smoothed his hair back from his forehead. “Of course he does, baby.”
“Then why does he always believe the mean lady?” His eyes held mine, far too serious for a child his age. “Why does he never believe us?”
I didn’t have an answer.
I left the door open a crack so the hallway light could reach him.
Benjamin was still in the living room when I entered. He stood by the window, staring out at the moon.
“He finally fell asleep,” I said quietly. “You can go now. Back to Lisa. Back to whatever you consider more important than your dying son.”
Benjamin turned. His expression was harder than I’d ever seen it.
“I regret this.”
“What?”
“This arrangement. This… bargain. It was a mistake.” He shook his head. “Every time I try to do what you want, it just creates more problems. More drama. More trouble.”
“Trouble?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “You think your son asking you to believe him is trouble?”
“What happened at the festival was completely avoidable. If you hadn’t antagonized Lisa—”
“I didn’t antagonize her. She approached me. She insulted me. She insulted our son.”
“That’s not what she said.”
“Of course it’s not what she said!” I was shouting now, months of suppressed rage finally boiling over. “Lisa lies, Benjamin! She’s been lying since the day she came back, and you’re so blinded by your obsession with her that you can’t even see it!”
“Don’t talk about her like that.”
“Or what? You’ll leave?” A bitter laugh escaped me. “You’re already leaving. You’ve always been leaving.”
Benjamin’s jaw tightened. “Lisa has never done anything to you. You’re just jealous because she’s everything you’re not.”
The words hit me like a physical blow. I staggered back a step.
“Is that really what you think?”
“I think you trapped me into a marriage I never wanted. I think you used my worst moment against me. I think you’ve spent four years trying to keep me from the woman I actually love. So yes—that’s what I think.”
“And Lucian?” My voice was barely a whisper. “What do you think about him?”
Benjamin was silent.
“He’s your son,” I said. “He’s your son, Benjamin. Whatever you think of me, whatever you believe about that night—Lucian is innocent. He didn’t ask to be born. He didn’t ask for any of this.”
“I never wanted this child.”
“I never wanted him,” Benjamin continued, his voice cold and flat. “He was a mistake. Everything that started that night was a mistake. I should never have—”
He stopped abruptly.
I knew why.
Even before I turned around, I knew what I would see.
Lucian stood in the doorway, his face ghostly white. His eyes were wide with shock, and his small hands trembled at his sides.
“Daddy?”
Benjamin’s face went pale. “Lucian, I didn’t—”
“You don’t want me?”
“Lucian, wait—”
But Lucian was already running. He bolted out the front door into the night, his small form quickly swallowed by the darkness.
“Lucian!”
Latest chapter
The Alpha's Greatest Regret 0076: Played Victim Flawlessly
LISA'S POVIf Alice went to the human for good, Benjamin would break. And a broken man goes looking for the last person who ever made him feel chosen. I'd done that math years ago, and I'd only been waiting to spend it.I caught John on his way back from the clinic and fell into step beside him, like we were going the same way."You should fight for her," I said. "Properly. Because if you don't, she's back in his bed inside a week — the man who let his own son die and couldn't get the words out to her face until somebody caught him at it."John didn't slow. "Stop. Right there." His voice stayed even. "I'm not chasing Alice because you told me to.""I didn't say—""I'm doing it because I love her. That's the only reason. Not revenge, not strategy, not some script you handed me." He looked at me, not unkind, just done. "So you can stop working the angle. There isn't one."I should have minded that. I didn't. "Then we want the same thing. Good."He didn't answer. He kept walking, and I le
The Alpha's Greatest Regret 0075: The Ultimatum
JOHN'S POVI waited until she was alone.The sketchbook was gone from her hands by then. I could still see it anyway — her fingers resting on his wrist, and how she hadn't pulled back."You're using me to feel normal while you figure out whether he gets another chance."She looked up from the file on her desk. "John—""I'm not angry." I kept my voice even. "I'm done being patient. There's a difference.""I'm not using you.""You are." I shut the door behind me. "I saw you. In the clinic. You put your hand on him like it cost you nothing." The next thing was already loaded — the man who didn't look at you for four years, the man who let your son — I heard it all the way to the end and set it down. None of that was mine to throw. "Three years I've been trying to get you to do that with me. That's all. That's the whole thing."She didn't answer. She set the file down, slow and careful, the motion buying her a second."I'm not asking you to feel something you don't," I said. "I'm asking y
The Alpha's Greatest Regret 0074:Fix It
BENJAMIN'S POVWe sat on the edge of the clinic bed with the sketchbook open between us.Alice turned the pages slow. Lucian had drawn all of it — her asleep at her desk, the pen still in her hand, her head tipped against a stack of papers. Me, off at the far edge of the room in almost every one, small and far away, like he’d had to go hunting for me in the corner of his own memory.The three of us at breakfast, all of us at the one table, even though I could count on one hand the mornings I was ever really there.He’d drawn the mornings I missed like they’d happened anyway.Alice’s breath caught on that page. She didn’t say anything.“He always drew you bigger,” she said quietly, a few pages later. A drawing of the two of us, her small in one corner, me taking up most of the page.“Why.”“You were the one he watched the door for.”I looked at the page. My hand found the edge of it and stopped.She turned another. The training yard — stick figures with swords too big for their hands,
The Alpha's Greatest Regret 0073: Almost Closed The Gap
ALICE’S POVThe sun came up and I was still in last night's dress.I hadn't changed. Hadn't slept, not really — just lay on top of the covers and ran the same three things until the ceiling went grey. John's hand over mine at the table. Benjamin in the doorway, Barry's weight on him, asking if I was going to choose John. The exact pitch of his voice when he asked.That it had mattered to me, hearing it that bare — that was the part I couldn't put down.I changed, put water on my face, and went in anyway. Barry was stable in recovery, and I needed to see him more than I needed sleep.John was already there. Coffee in hand. Two cups — he held one out the second I came through the door, easy, unhurried. The kiss. Benjamin's question. Nothing in his face about either.He fell in beside me down the corridor like we were two colleagues starting a Tuesday."How's Barry," he asked once we were inside, the door half shut behind him."Stable. The ribs held overnight. He'll need a week before he
The Alpha's Greatest Regret 0072: Not My Problem
BENJAMIN'S POVBarry made it to the compound on his own two legs — more than I'd have bet on when I first found him.A rogue had come down through the east woods and caught him on patrol, and it left a long tear down his forearm and something worse across the ribs, and he held the line long enough for the rest of us to put the thing down before he listed, his legs starting to fold under him, and he started leaning into me harder than he'd ever have let himself lean sober. Forty years old, three kids, a man who apologizes for bleeding on you. He apologized twice on the walk in."Save it," I said. "Stay awake."The night staff wasn't going to be enough — not for the ribs, not the way they looked. I needed Alice.So I went to her quarters first, Barry's arm slung over my shoulders, his weight shifting every time his legs tried to quit on him. Her door was shut, and I had her name half out of my mouth before I remembered she'd gone over to John's earlier in the evening.The door between
The Alpha's Greatest Regret 0071: I Said Yes To Dinner
ALICE’S POVI opened my door the next morning and Benjamin was standing there, holding breakfast.Croissants. A paper cup of tea that smelled like honey."What are you doing here?""I brought breakfast.""I can see that, Benjamin. I'm not blind. I mean why are you really here.""Ten minutes." He lifted the tray a little.My hand hadn't left the door.Across the compound, John's door opened. He stood there in yesterday's shirt, coffee mug halfway to his mouth, and he didn't drink from it. He looked at Benjamin standing in my doorway with a tray of pastries. Then at me. He went back inside and shut the door harder than he needed to.I let Benjamin in.He set the tray on the table by the window. "Have breakfast with me.""No.""Then walk with me. Throw it away."That almost got a laugh. *Almost.*"As you wish," I said, and reached for my coat.We didn't throw it away.Two patrol guards stood near the east gate, stamping their feet against the cold. I stopped in front of them before Benja
The Alpha's Greatest Regret 0018: Shattered By Kindness
ALICE’S POVI was at the nursing station when the girl came in first.The morning had been quiet. I had noticed that, without pushing past it.She was a few steps ahead of her mother, chin down, hands in her jacket pockets, shoulders drawn in. I noticed her height before I knew whose she was — tall
The Alpha's Greatest Regret 0017: Stay Out Of Her Way
BENJAMIN’S POVI heard her before I saw her.Her voice carried across the corridor— not the words, just the shape of them, the way she moved through a sentence without pausing to check if the other person was still following.I had been walking toward the administrative building. My feet stopped. I
The Alpha's Greatest Regret 0015. Back For Work Only
ALICE’S POVThe pines reached the car before the border did. Cold resinous smell through the cracked window. My lungs knew it before the rest of me decided anything. I kept my eyes on the folder in my lap for another thirty seconds. Then I looked up.Same road. Same stone wall where the territory s
The Alpha's Greatest Regret 0014: Watching Her Return
BENJAMIN’S POVThe letter came two weeks later.It came through formal inter-pack channels, stamped with the seals of the Northern Medical Coalition. Callum brought it to my office himself, his expression carefully neutral in the way that told me the contents were significant before I’d opened the
You may also like
The Pack's Doctor
Cooper672.8K viewsTHE BETA AND I
Cassandra M509.8K viewsAlpha Of Aberdeen
Cc Lopez976.0K viewsThe Forbidden Alpha
JP Sina677.3K viewsDarkthorne's Biggest Mistake
Caitlyn Brown152 viewsKNOTS & HEAT: A Collection Of Steamy Werewolf Tales
Debbie Star102 viewsThe Lycan king’s Purple Flame
Nightbloom 121 viewsSorry Ex, I Belong To The Cursed Alpha
Ambrosewrites97 views
