Chapter 561 – Go see her in the dungeon
After the revelations at the coronation, Ravyn was never the same again. Revenge was a dish best served cold, and Seraphine had served it so perfectly that the taste of it still sat bitter on his tongue every time he breathed.
Most of the Alphas cleared out as soon as they finished dealing with the snow, leaving only the ones who’d been hurt bad enough to stay in the hospital.
The pack house sat quiet even with a handful of guests still hanging around, mostly relatives of those hospitalized, and that quiet only made the emptiness inside Ravyn feel heavier, like the walls themselves were pressing in on him.
The pack house that had once felt like home had turned into nothing more than empty space as he wandered through it, passing the remaining guests like they didn’t even exist.
Written all over his face was the deep exhaustion, the regret that sat heavy in his eyes, the broken pieces of a man who’d finally been forced to look straight at everything he’d done and all the ways he’d screwed up.
Ravyn’s whole world had crashed so hard because he’d refused to see the signs that had been right there in front of him the entire time. Bryan was gone, and so was Damon, the guy who used to be everywhere you turned.
Damon had been dedicated just like Corvine, always on top of things, always reliable, and Ravyn hadn’t suspected for even a second that the man had been working for Seraphine behind his back.
Just the thought of Seraphine sent transparent tears slipping down his cheeks before he could stop them. If only he’d listened to his parents when they tried to warn him.
Six different times she’d refused to sign those divorce papers, so who would have ever guessed she would finally put her name on them the seventh time?
He could still remember how broken she’d been when he revealed that Bryan wasn’t her son. That brokenness mirrored his own pain.
Now those memories felt like sharp knives being dragged slowly across his chest, cutting deeper the longer he let them play out in his head.
Ravyn regretted all of it down to his bones. If only he had shown even the slightest bit of real care when it still mattered.
Remembering how he had completely neglected his wife in the hospital for months straight while parading Daisy around the pack like some kind of prize, he had to admit that Seraphine’s actions were justified from every angle.
She had every reason to hate him, every reason to walk away without looking back, every reason to never give him another chance. And yet accepting that reality still hurt more than he wanted to admit, the pain sitting heavy and constant in the middle of his chest.
That didn’t mean he was going to give up on her, though. He didn’t even mind the idea of having to share her with Voren if that was the only way. All he wanted was a little piece of Seraphine left in his life somehow, even if it was only a memory he could hold onto late at night.
Settling onto the floor in the room that had once belonged to Bryan, he pulled out his phone and dialed his father’s number with fingers that wouldn’t quite stop shaking.
"Ravyn, I’m busy."
Those three words struck harder than he expected, landing like a slap he hadn’t braced for. He could have argued, but not now.
After all, he had never given his parents the respect they deserved when it counted, so why would they listen to him now when he was the one falling apart?
He lowered the phone slowly and let the full weight of regret wash over him, the feeling so strong it nearly knocked the air out of his lungs, before a knock sounded on the door. "Come in."
His voice came out hoarse and rough, barely recognizable even to himself. The door pushed open and Gray and Riven stepped inside, both of them stopping short when they got a good look at him.
Seeing Ravyn sitting there looking completely defeated, they lowered themselves onto the floor beside him without saying a word at first.
They were still friends because after Seraphine had caused them to lose everything, Ravyn had given them the chance to start over, and they hadn’t forgotten that.
Right now, they were supposed to tell him they were heading back to the city to manage Walkers Global Enterprise but seeing Ravyn like this made the words stick in their throats.
They didn’t know what to do with the broken version of their friend sitting on the floor in front of them. The silence between the three of them stretched until it became almost unbearable, thick enough to feel.
Ravyn kept staring at the floor, his eyes fixed on nothing while memories of Bryan continued tearing through his mind one after another, each one sharper than the last.
Minutes passed before Gray finally spoke, his voice careful and quiet.
"Ravyn, it’s okay to make mistakes, but don’t stay down on the floor like this. Your pack looks up to you, and you can’t let them down when they need you steady."
Ravyn’s mouth pulled into a bitter smile that didn’t reach his eyes.
"You don’t understand, Gray. If I had known that Bryan wasn’t mine, I would have made it up to Sera a long time ago. I saw all of Daisy’s flaws clear as day, but each time I convinced myself that she gave me an heir and that somehow made the rest of it okay."
His throat tightened hard. The last part of his words got swallowed by the tears he couldn’t hold back anymore.
"And I killed my own child because of him. Do you have any idea how that feels? How it sits in your chest every single day and never lets up?"
His chest heaved as the words finally came out raw. He had tried to bury that memory under anger and pride and everything else that had happened since, but there was no burying it anymore.
The sight of Bryan would always remind him of what he had done to his own child, so he had let Seraphine keep him.
For some reason Riven felt that Ravyn needed to wake up to the harder truth, and the frustration that had been building in him for hours finally pushed through.
"Man, sulking like this won’t change a single thing. It also means that if you hadn’t realized Bryan wasn’t yours, you never would have let Daisy go in the first place. Can’t you see how she destroyed you from the inside out? You used to be second only to Alpha Voren, carrying so much authority that people actually listened when you walked into a room, and you almost even overtook him in everything that mattered. But ever since Sera left you’ve been slowly losing your respect and your power, and everybody can see it."
Riven’s voice carried that frustration plain as day. "The bitch is out of your life for good, so put yourself back together before there’s nothing left of you to save."
"She’s still carrying his child," Gray added carefully, but Ravyn’s smile turned cold and ugly in a way that made both men go still.
The expression on his face made them uncomfortable in a way that had nothing to do with the usual tension. There was something different sitting in his eyes now, something darker. Something that had nothing left to do with simple grief.
"I killed my child with Sera. So why should I allow Daisy to give birth to my child after everything?"
Both friends looked at each other, confusion clear on their faces. "What are you talking about?"
Ravyn slowly lifted his gaze toward them. The corner of his lips lifted in a way that didn’t look like any kind of real smile. "Go see her in the dungeon."