The Alpha's Greatest Regret のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 21 - チャプター 30

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

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

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

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

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