The Alpha's Regret Came Too Late
That the month had been exactly what she said it was—her due, thirty days, nothing more—and that if I said stay, she would look at me with those composed eyes and explain, with the same patient clarity she brought to everything, that she had always known what this was.
I had been afraid of what it would mean if she said no.
So I had said nothing, and she had said goodbye, and now I was standing in an empty hall holding a silver ribbon and ordering my Beta to search unmaintained border roads, and the fear of her saying no seemed, in retrospect, like a very small thing to have weighted so heavily.
I opened my hand and looked at the ribbon again.
"Alpha." Raines, at the door. "The trackers are