The Alpha's Regret After I Canceled Our Marking Ceremony

Caine had a secret diary that he always kept locked in his desk drawer.

In seven years of being together, I had never once looked at it.

Not until the day he told me the Ice Plains had called an emergency Alpha summit.

Caine rushed off in a hurry, but forgot to lock the diary away.

I respected his privacy and hadn't planned to read it.

But while I was tidying his desk, the diary slipped off and fell to the floor, and a pale pink note fluttered out.

A line of elegant handwriting ran across it.

"Caine, do you still remember our promise? I'm waiting for you on the Ice Plains."

The name signed at the bottom was Leora.

She was Caine's first love.

I held that note and stood there for a long time, then opened Caine's diary.

The most recent entry was dated three days ago.

"Leora and I made a promise when we were eighteen, that one day, no matter what, we would hold a marking ceremony of our own under the northern lights on the Ice Plains."

"All these years, I thought she'd forgotten. I didn't expect she still remembered..."

"Leora has never asked me for anything before. This is the one thing she's asking of me, and I have to do it."

"As for Eileen, I won't let her find out."

"When I come back, I'll act like nothing happened. I'll take care of Eileen. I'll love her."

I stared at those lines, a creeping chill spreading from my fingertips.

After a long moment, I managed a bitter smile.

What was I supposed to do now, Caine?

I already knew.

I pulled out the chair and sat down, then kept flipping backward through the diary.

It turned out that during our entire seven years together, Caine had never lost contact with Leora.

He had even set her up with a villa on the far south end of the pack territory.

We lived on the far north end.

He'd gone to great lengths to keep Leora and me from ever crossing paths.

Caine had written the following in his diary.

"Leora made me vegetable soup today. It still tastes the same as before. Really takes me back."

"Passed a flower shop on my way home and saw the tulips Leora loves. Bought her a bouquet."

I turned the pages in silence, and then my hand stopped.

"Leora suddenly felt sick to her stomach today. I panicked and called in a healer, only to find out she'd just eaten too much."

"Leora's still the same as always, a little glutton. She actually made herself sick from overeating."

My fingertip traced over the date.

That was the same day he'd written so fondly about Leora and her little appetite.

Meanwhile, my father had been burning with fever from an old wound that had gotten infected.

I'd begged Caine in tears to fetch a healer.

And Caine had said he had something more important to deal with, then rushed out the door.

I read every single page, every single line.

Every detail radiated how much he cared.

And every word drove itself into the sorest place in my heart.

What I could accept the least was the most recent month of entries.

Caine had meticulously documented every detail of the marking ceremony he was planning with Leora.

He had considered every aspect of the ceremony, beginning with its format.

The style of the gown came next.

Then there were the flowers.

For each detail, he had worked through several different versions.

He wrote that the ceremony was the only thing he could give Leora. He couldn't give her anything else.

So he had to do it right and give Leora the most unforgettable ceremony possible.

I still remembered asking Caine where he wanted to hold our ceremony. He'd said he didn't care.

When I asked what kind of gown he liked, he'd said he didn't care.

He had barely glanced at the invitations for both packs before giving me his answer.

"Eileen, I trust you. Whatever you decide is fine."

He'd even pulled me into his arms, his voice gentle and apologetic.

"I've been so busy lately. I'm sorry you've had to handle everything."

I'd thought he really was just too busy.

I'd thought he genuinely didn't care about the details and only wanted the ceremony completed.

That was what I'd believed until today, when I saw his diary.

Because Leora couldn't decide on a gown style, he'd hand-sketched twenty different designs for her.

So it wasn't that he didn't care.

It was just that the person he cared about wasn't me.