Ex-Alpha's Regret: Siren's Comeback novel Chapter 5

POV: Seraphina

The news came two days later, not from my father, but from his Beta, a man who had known me since I was a child. His voice was strained, heavy with a respect he still afforded me, even as my own mate did not. "The Sunroot shipment, Luna. It's been… indefinitely postponed. Alpha Blackwood's orders."

The phone felt slick in my suddenly numb hand. Sunroot. The herb that protected our weakest pups from the winter sickness. It wasn't a luxury; it was a lifeline. This wasn't just a political move. This was personal. Damian was punishing my entire pack, threatening the health of children, to wound my father and control me. He was telling me, in the cruelest way possible, that our wellbeing was a privilege he could revoke at any time.

The last vestiges of hope, the tiny, foolish part of me that thought thirty days might be a chance to salvage something, died a swift and brutal death. There was nothing left to fix. There was only escape.

I ended the call and walked through the house in a daze. The air felt thick, suffocating with Sylvie's perfume. Her laughter echoed from the garden where she was playing with Nico. My son. He hadn't spoken a civil word to me in two days, flinching away anytime I tried to touch him, his eyes holding a suspicion that she had planted there.

I went to my room, needing a moment of peace, a connection to a time before my life had shattered. My eyes fell upon the small, carved wooden box on my vanity. It was the last gift my mother had given me before she passed. Inside was a single, intricately carved wooden wolf, worn smooth from the thousands of times I had held it for comfort over the years.

I reached for it, my fingers trembling, needing that tangible link to my past.

But the box was empty.

A cold dread washed over me. I looked around frantically, my heart pounding against my ribs. And then I saw it. It was on the floor, near the wastebasket. Or what was left of it. The wooden wolf was smashed into pieces. Its delicate legs were snapped, its head splintered from its body. It was utterly, malevolently destroyed.

I dropped to my knees, the breath knocked out of me as if from a physical blow. I gathered the broken pieces, a sharp edge digging into my palm, the pain a distant echo of the gaping wound in my soul.

Thirty days was a lifetime I no longer had.

I stood up, leaving the broken wolf on the floor. I walked to my desk, opened a secure messaging app on my laptop, and found a contact I hadn't used in years. My brother, Jax.

My fingers were perfectly steady as I typed the encrypted message. There was no hesitation. No second thought.

"Brother, please, I need you."

My thumb pressed down hard on the enter key.