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0166: The Blue Thread
Date de publication:
2026-08-16 17:26:46
Dernier chapitre
The Alpha's Greatest Regret 0167: Treating It As Murder
Benjamin's POVThe clinic door opened before I got my hand to it. John was standing there with the folder already out.He'd been waiting on me."You're early.""I didn't sleep."I took it from him and read it standing up. He stayed by his desk and watched me do it and didn't say a word.Both her wrists were bruised, both of them, all the way around, which means somebody had hold of her.The poison was the same one that killed the child.And nobody puts themselves in a box and buries it.The letter is in her handwriting. The words in it are not hers.And there was a piece of dark blue thread under the nail of her left hand.I read that last line twice and shut the folder."If this was anybody else," I said, "would you call it suicide?""No.""Would you put your name to it?""I haven't, and I won't."I folded the report and put it inside my coat."That's what I came for.""That's it? You've no questions?""I've plenty. None of them are yours this morning." I got the door open and held i
The Alpha's Greatest Regret 0166: The Blue Thread
John's POVThe door swung shut behind me and the bell was still going somewhere behind the hill.I should've gone to the meal. That child deserved every person who ever loved her sitting in one room, eating off the same table, telling each other what she was like, and there'll be people at that table tonight who remember the doctor didn't come.I went past the chairs somebody had shoved back against the wall, past the appointment book still open on the page where they'd crossed the whole day out.Morwen was already down the corridor. She had the clipboard and the pen, and she'd put her coat on the back of the door instead of hanging it up, which is what she does when she doesn't intend to be talked out of something."You don't have to do this today," I said."Neither do you."I put my hand on the sheet and stood there a second, and then I took it back off her."Then let's begin."We didn't say much for the first hour. Morwen wrote down every word in that flat steady hand of hers and n
The Alpha's Greatest Regret 0165: They Buried Her
ALICE'S POVThe bell started before it was dawn.One. Then another. Then another, and I lay there in the dark and counted every one of them. There was nothing else to do with myself. Today they bury Lily.I sat on the edge of the bed a long time after it stopped. This house has been quiet for sixteen days, and it was worse this morning than it's ever been. I said her name out loud in that room. Not because I expected anything back. I didn't want that child to go out of the world without one person saying it kindly.Then I got up and went to work. It's the only thing I've ever known what to do.The clinic was nearly empty. Somebody had pushed all the chairs back against the walls in the waiting room and nobody had put them straight again. The book lay open on the front desk, the whole page crossed out. Twenty-one cancellations, and two that hadn't bothered to cancel.Even being sick can wait a day, apparently.Morwen was at the front desk, going through files that didn't need going t
The Alpha's Greatest Regret 0164: Circle Around Cole
LISA'S POVI was awake before first light, and the first thing I did was open the wardrobe, tomorrow they put my daughter in the ground and somebody has to decide what she wears.The white one is still hanging there, embroidered at the sleeves, the hem left unfinished because she'd grown two inches in three months and I kept promising to take it to the seamstress. I never did. Now I never will.I ran a finger along the stitching, crooked on one side where she'd begged for the needle herself, her hands too small to hold the line straight, and I told her it was beautiful.I meant it.I folded the dress, put it back, and shut the door on it. Then I picked out what she'd be buried in instead — the blue one with the flowers, the one she chose herself and nobody argued her out of. She had it on the last time she waved at me, both arms up over the schoolyard fence.I sat on the edge of the bed a long while before I could get a proper breath. The house doesn't make a sound anymore. It hasn't
The Alpha's Greatest Regret 0163: Unburied Accusation
BENJAMIN’S POV I stood up there and watched them file out of my own hall in twos and threes, easy about it, saying goodnight — one man laughing at something in the doorway before he'd gotten as far as the step. Every one of them would sleep tonight believing something that wasn't true, because I'd stood in front of them and read it in my own voice.The floor was wet the whole length of the aisle from two hundred pairs of boots, and a woman came in with a mop before the room was even empty.Callum stayed. Marlow stayed. Drake was against the wall by the third window, hadn't moved off it all night. When the last of them had gone, he came down the aisle and stopped in front of the table."Nobody in that room turned a hair," he said."No.""I watched every face on the left side for the whole of it. So did your man on the door, I'd guess, since you put him there for it. Not a flinch out of anybody.""Then either they're better than us, or they weren't in the room.""Or they were sat there
The Alpha's Greatest Regret 0162: A Mother's Demand
BENJAMIN'S POVMarcus had his hand out for it before I was through the side door."Give it to the clerk. Let him read it out. It carries better from a man with no stake in the thing.""I'll read it.""Then read all of it, Alpha. They've had four days of you telling them the investigation continues, and there is not one person on those benches who believes that means anything."The hall was full in a way I'd never once seen it full — every bench taken, men standing shoulder to shoulder down both sides, more of them packed into the doorway who couldn't get in and stayed anyway. Somebody's baby started up and got carried out. The door banged. The whole room turned to look at a door.Alice was in the second row on the left where Callum had put her. Coat still on. Hands in her lap.I went up and I didn't sit down."Four days ago a woman from this clinic did not come to work," I said. "Today she is dead. She was found buried in the eastern woodland, and there was a letter with her. I said i
The Alpha's Greatest Regret 0003. Don't Get Used To It
ALICE’S POVBy the time I walked into the hospital room, I had composed myself completely. My face was set.Lucian was awake, sitting up in bed. His face brightened the moment he saw me."Mommy. You came back.""I came back." I lifted him into my arms. He smelled like baby shampoo, antiseptic, and
The Alpha's Greatest Regret 0002: Thirty Days of Dad
Alice’s POV"What?""Is this your new plan? To trap me again?" Benjamin’s voice dripped with contempt. "Did you run out of tricks, Alice? Is faking our son’s terminal illness really the best you could come up with?"I couldn’t breathe. The hospital hallway seemed to close in around me, the walls pr
The Alpha's Greatest Regret 0001:One Month Left
ALICE’S POVI hadn't slept. I'd counted his breaths instead.It had been four hours since Lucian collapsed at breakfast. Four hours since I’d screamed loud enough to wake every wolf on our floor of the western wing. Now the monitors did the counting for me — soft, steady, mechanical as my son slept
The Alpha's Greatest Regret 0006: He is a Mistake
ALICE’S POVI 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 could
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