Alpha's Regret: The Seventh Time was Forever

Chapter 125: Chapter 125 – I would never kill my own blood

Ravyn’s teeth pressed together so tightly that the muscles along his jaw stood out beneath his skin. A storm of frustration brewed inside him, because no matter how many times he replayed the situation in his mind, he still could not understand how something that started out so small had exploded into such a disaster.

The entire mess felt unreal, and the fact that Seraphine had pushed things this far left him both irritated and unsettled.

”How could I have known she would take something so trivial and turn it into this?” Ravyn finally snapped, his voice carrying a sharp edge as he leaned back in his chair. His fingers drummed restlessly against the desk while he tried to keep his temper under control.

”I honestly never expected her to be this unreasonable. She’s still alive, so why would you do something like that without telling me first? If you had said anything at all, I would have stopped you before things went this far.”

He tried to guide the conversation away from himself, hoping the blame would settle somewhere else instead of landing squarely on his shoulders. Gray lowered his head slightly, the guilt in his expression impossible to miss even though he tried to hide it.

”I know,” Gray admitted quietly, rubbing the back of his neck while regret crept across his face. ”I acted without thinking about the consequences, and now everything we built is gone. She reported both of us to the council, and we already know what comes next. Within a few days our titles will be stripped away, and once that happens there will be nothing left to hold on to.”

The heaviness in his voice filled the office like a thick cloud, and the hopelessness behind those words crushed the small amount of optimism Ravyn had been clinging to.

For a moment he stared at them in disbelief before shaking his head slowly. ”Sera... how could she be so heartless?” he muttered, the name slipping from his lips almost automatically.

Despite everything that had happened between them, part of him still struggled to accept that she had become someone capable of destroying people so completely. After a brief pause he straightened his posture, a determined look appearing in his eyes. ”Don’t worry about this anymore. I’ll go talk to her and sort it out.”

Before he could continue, Riven raised a hand and stopped him immediately.

”Please don’t bother,” Riven said, his voice calm but heavy with resignation. ”We already tried that. We called her earlier and begged her to reconsider, but she made her conditions very clear.”

Ravyn frowned slightly. ”What conditions?”

Riven’s lips curved into a bitter smile that held no real amusement. ”She said she would restore our companies and our titles if we traded our lives in exchange.”

The silence that followed felt suffocating.

Riven leaned back in his chair and let out a quiet breath, his eyes filled with a mixture of disbelief and sadness. ”She always had a way of setting impossible conditions whenever someone crossed her, but I still cannot understand how she changed this much,” he continued slowly. ”Sera used to be such a sweet girl.”

Gray turned his head and exchanged a long glance with Riven before asking the question that had been sitting on the edge of his mind the entire time.

”If that’s true,” Gray said carefully, ”then why did you cheat on her?”

Riven frowned instantly, his brows drawing together in irritation. ”I told you already that I never cheated on her,” he replied firmly. ”Daisy has always been the woman I loved, but my parents kept trying to push Seraphine into my life no matter how many times I refused.”

He paused for a moment as the memories resurfaced, his expression growing darker.

”Seven years ago during the Moon Festival, I had already planned to tell my parents the truth,” he continued, his voice low and bitter. ”Daisy was pregnant at the time, and I wanted to marry her properly so we could raise our child together.”

Gray leaned forward slightly, curiosity pulling him deeper into the story. ”Then what happened?”

”What happened,” Ravyn said with a bitter laugh, ”was that Seraphine drugged me and climbed into my bed that night.”

Both men stared at him in shock as he continued speaking.

”She made sure to get pregnant from that night, and once my parents found out, they forced me into a marriage I never wanted,” he explained, his voice thick with resentment. ”That woman destroyed everything I had planned with Daisy. She stole the life that belonged to Daisy.”

His eyes hardened as he continued the story. ”I refused to let my son grow up outside the pack house, and since Seraphine happened to go into labor early around the same time Daisy did, I made sure things worked out the way I needed them to,” he said coldly. ”I killed Seraphine’s daughter and replaced her with Daisy’s child.”

Gray and Riven both froze. ”Sera delivered prematurely, so the timing made everything easier,” Ravyn continued as though he were describing a business transaction rather than a crime. ”I handed Daisy’s son to Seraphine and allowed her to raise him as her own.”

He paused briefly before adding with a hint of irritation, ”The only mistake I made was telling her the truth about what I did. I was angry during an argument, and the words slipped out before I could stop them.”

Riven stared at him as though he had suddenly grown another head.

”You killed your own child?” Riven asked slowly, disbelief pouring through every syllable. ”No matter how much I might hate a woman, I would never kill my own blood.”

For the first time since the conversation began, Ravyn felt something twist uncomfortably in his stomach. A sour taste crept up his throat, and he swallowed hard to keep the bile down.

”That’s all in the past now,” he muttered impatiently while waving a hand as though the subject no longer mattered. ”What exactly do you want from me?”

Gray hesitated for a moment before speaking again.

”Well... since everything we lost happened because of you, we figured it would only be fair if you helped us start over,” he said carefully. ”We came here hoping you would give us positions in your company.”

The words had barely finished leaving Gray’s mouth when Ravyn froze completely.

During the past few months he had learned one painful lesson about Seraphine that he could not afford to forget. Whenever she decided someone deserved punishment, she did not stop at the target alone.

Anyone who offered that person help quickly found themselves dragged into the same storm.

That was exactly what happened to Voren after he tried to stand by Ravyn. Ravyn had no intention of becoming her next victim.

”That... would not be a wise decision,” Ravyn said slowly while forcing a polite expression onto his face. ”If I bring you into this company, Sera will come after me as well. I cannot risk destroying everything I have left.”

Riven raised an eyebrow, studying him carefully. ”Listen to yourself,” Riven said with a faint smirk. ”You sound exactly like Voren now.”

He leaned forward slightly, amusement flickering in his eyes as he asked the question that hung heavily in the air.

”Are you actually afraid of your ex-wife?”