All Chapters of The Alpha's Greatest Regret: Chapter 21 - Chapter 29

Chapter 21The banquet preparations was something that took over the household over the following days, as the servants were moving in constant motions through every hallway, the whole estate bracing itself for the welcoming of a very important guest who was rumoured to be coming in the next few days.Callie kept to the edges of it all, as she always did, helping where she was allowed and staying invisible where she wasn't.She didn't expect Liam to use the chaos as cover for something else entirely."We can't take the risk," he told Peter, cornering him in the study two days before the banquet, his voice low and urgent. "Think about it, Peter. She's been sneaking around at night, making secret phone calls, and now half the household is whispering about a missing comb she still hasn't properly explained. What if she's connected to something bigger? What if whoever she's been talking to intends to use this banquet as an opportunity, use her as a way in? What if she is part of those li

Chapter 23The banquet hall glittered with candlelight, the long tables set with silver and crystal for the guests King Cassium had brought to the estate. Callie hadn't been asked to attend as family. She'd been asked to serve.She didn't argue. She put on the plain dark dress the housekeeper handed her and carried trays of wine through the crowded hall, weaving between elders and nobles who never once looked at her face.It was almost easier this way, she thought. No one expected anything from a servant. No one stared, wondering if she was truly the criminal they'd heard about. She was simply invisible, and invisible didn't hurt.Then her foot caught on the edge of a rug.The tray tilted. A full glass of red wine sailed forward and splashed down the front of a pale silk gown.The woman wearing it shrieked and spun around. She was young, sharp-eyed, clearly someone important by the way three other guests immediately turned to see what had happened. "You clumsy little—do you know what

Chapter 25Soren stayed at the estate longer than he'd originally planned to stay. He had sent letters back to his territory so that his family would be aware of the delay. Alliance talks took time, and Cassium had asked him to remain through the week, with him, so they could finish it at once and go back together, and Soren was curious to find out more about this family especially that adopted daughter Callie, so he found himself agreeing without a second thought.He did not know what it was exactly, but something about her drew him closer and he was curious to know what was underneath all those walls she erected for herself.Due to having nothing important to do, and simply being a guest, Soren found himself with more idle hours than he expected, and he spent a good number of them simply watching and observing the inner workings of the estate.He noticed things that he noted down personally.He noticed that Callie ate alone most mornings, usually finishing before the rest of the ho

Chapter 27Callie had been asked, or rather told, to help carry linens up to the second floor, and she was coming around the corner of the east hallway with an armful of folded sheets when Rowena appeared from the opposite direction, hurrying, her attention fixed on a letter in her hands rather than the hallway ahead of her.They collided.It wasn't hard, not really, just the ordinary clumsy collision of two people not watching where they were going. But Rowena's ankle caught awkwardly against the leg of a side table, and she went down sideways, her shoulder striking the corner of the table's edge before she hit the floor.She cried out, a sharp, startled sound, and didn't get up."Rowena!" Callie dropped the linens and knelt beside her immediately. "Are you hurt? Let me see—""Don't touch me," Rowena gasped, curling around her arm, her face twisted in pain. "It hurts, it hurts so much—"Servants came running at the sound, and within minutes the hallway had filled with people, someone

Chapter 29Soren woke early the next morning, before the household had properly stirred, and sat for a long while at the small writing desk in his guest room, a blank sheet of paper in front of him that he'd been meaning to fill for days.He was no closer to finding her. The girl from all those years ago, the one who'd knelt in the dirt and stitched his side back together with steady, unhurried hands, asking for nothing in return. He had a name, and precious little else, and the name alone had gotten him nowhere in the months and years he'd quietly searched for her.He thought of her now the way he always did, in fragments rather than a whole picture. The exact color of her eyes had faded from his memory, blurred by blood loss and time. Her voice, though, that had stayed with him. Warm, unhurried, careful with him even when she had every reason not to be. And she had talked, during those three days he lay hidden and healing, about her family, her mother especially, with a kind of easy