All Chapters of The Alpha's Greatest Regret: Chapter 71 - Chapter 80

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

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,

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

BENJAMIN'S POVThree days. That's how long it took to build the festival, and I spent nearly every hour of them with Callum—hauling banners, fighting the vendor coordinator over heating for the outdoor stalls, signing off on the council's seating chart for the bonfire.I'd sent Alice an invitation the same way I sent one to every member of the pack. A name on a list. A formality. I told myself I didn't expect her to come.She came. But She came with John.They came through the front gate together, his hand around hers—not the loose grip of two people who work side by side, but something different, something in their body language that was meant to be seen clear across a courtyard. The pack noticed. I noticed first.I turned back to the bonfire and told a vendor his tent stakes were in the wrong row, and when he moved them I told him the new row was wrong too, and I didn't look at the gate again for the better part of an hour.The night carried on causally and I did my best to not react

JOHN'S POVAlice showed up with a whole pot of soup, which was its own kind of indictment."I didn't ask for room service," I said."It's not room service. It's just soup." She set it down without making a thing of it. "I figured you might still be sore.""My pride or my jaw?""Both."The chair creaked when I leaned back. I turned the cup once in my hands before I made myself let go of it."I'm sorry. For the punch. The drink was part of it. Not all of it.""That's not really an apology.""I know." I wasn't going to pretend it was. "I'm sorry it happened in front of everyone. I'm not all the way sorry that it happened."Her face didn't change. She sat down across from me. "The council was going to consider punishing you. For striking him.""I figured.""He didn't want it. He told them not to pursue it." She watched my face while she said it. "He said he was the one who triggered you first."I set the cup down. There was a generous way to take that, and I couldn't get my mouth to shape