Voren looked genuinely thrown. Like the sight of her like this was a variable he hadn’t accounted for and didn’t know what to do with. It almost would’ve been funny, Seraphine thought distantly, if she wasn’t so tired.
She’d had plenty of practice at this. Smiling when things were not fine. Keeping her voice even. Giving people exactly the version of herself they were comfortable with. She’d gotten so good at it that sotis she forgot she was doing it at all. Apparently, she’d slipped.
"Nothing." Her free hand moved to his, trying to work his fingers loose from her arm. "Can you let go?"
Her eyes slid sideways, scanning without aning to — the staircase door, halfway down the hall on the left. Exit signs always glowed red like small promises.
Voren caught it. His grip didn’t tighten, but it didn’t release either. He’d followed her gaze and understood exactly what it ant. If he let go, she was gone.
"Not until you tell why you’re crying."
Seraphine looked back at him. The bitter thing that moved across her face wasn’t quite a smile, but it wore a smile’s shape. Her voice ca out quieter than she intended, not soft, just stripped of whatever energy she’d been using to hold the question back.
"You know everything about my life." The words were asured, careful, like she was laying them down one at a ti. "Every piece of it." Her eyes held his, steady despite the wet at their edges. "But yours? Sealed. Locked. Like it doesn’t exist unless you decide to open the door."
She knew how Voren operated. She’d watched him long enough to know that if she gave him the space to redirect, to deflect, to turn the conversation into sothing else entirely, he would. So she didn’t give him the space.
"Who is Marigold’s mother?" The question ca before the air had even settled. "Where is she? Why is there no ntion of her anywhere?" Her eyes searched his face, quick and urgent. "And what happened between the two of you that made you —"
The questions stopped.
Not because she ran out of them. She had more. A whole lineup of them, stacked and ready. But sothing in his face made her words dry up mid-air.
His expression had hardened. Not into the blank, unreadable wall she was used to, that careful nothing he wore in public. This was different. Darker. Like a sky that changes color before a storm rolls in and you realize you misjudged how close it was.
"I don’t see why any of these questions should have you this upset." His voice was controlled, but just barely. Not angry. Tighter than that.
Seraphine’s arm moved again, testing his grip. Still there, firm even. Her eyes flicked sideways, the hallway had started to notice them. A nurse slowed down without quite stopping. A man by the vending machine wasn’t looking at the vending machine anymore.
She could feel the weight of being looked at prickling across her skin but Voren felt none of it, apparently. Or if he did, he’d decided it wasn’t his problem.
"The whole ti we were at the pack," she continued, watching how his jaw tightened. "And the outlands. You dug. You watched. You asked questions about , about my business, about things that had nothing to do with whatever arrangent we had."
Her eyes stayed on his face, not letting him look away for long. "And the entire ti, you gave nothing. Not one real thing about yourself. Not about Marigold —" she stopped, catching herself. "Not about anyone in your life."
Seraphine swallowed. The muscles in her throat worked against it.
She thought about the rumors. The ones that followed Voren’s na around like weather follows a front, inevitable, loud, easy to believe.
The cold and calculating Alpha. A man who kept people at arm’s length not because he was guarded but because he genuinely didn’t care enough to let them closer.
She’d believed those things, more or less. Or at least she’d let herself believe them because it made him easier to keep at a distance.
Standing here, with his hand around her arm and sothing raw sitting just beneath the surface of his face, she wasn’t so sure anymore.
"Where is Marigold’s mother?" She asked the second ti. Her voice didn’t waver, but it had gone quieter. "And it isn’t Jasmine." That much she knew.
Jasmine moved around Marigold like a caretaker, not a parent. The difference was visible if you knew what to look for. "So who is she?"
She pulled at her arm again. "And let go."
He didn’t.
Not out of cruelty. She could see that much. His grip wasn’t punishing, but rather careful, like he was holding sothing he was afraid would shatter if he squeezed too hard and disappear entirely if he opened his hand.
The look on his face confird it. He was working sothing through behind his eyes, and she didn’t know what it was, and that bothered her more than she wanted it to.
"Don’t tell ."
The corner of Voren’s mouth moved slightly, his voice ca out clipped, the words asured like he was choosing them from a very short list. "You’re jealous."
Seraphine let out a sound that wasn’t quite a laugh. Short. Dry. The kind that cos out when sothing hits a nerve and pretending otherwise takes too much energy.
"Jealous." She repeated the word like she was turning it over, checking it for cracks. "Do I even have the right to be?"
Sothing sat in her eyes, not softness exactly, more like sothing that had been tense for a long ti finally going slack out of exhaustion. "Honestly, I don’t even know what any of this is."
She gestured vaguely between them with her free hand. The motion took in everything, the hospital hallway, his grip on her arm, the last several weeks, Marigold’s little voice reciting her father’s love like a catechism.
Another tear broke loose. She didn’t realize it until it was already halfway down her cheek. She felt it the sa mont Voren moved, his thumb lifting toward her face.
She turned away. A sharp, small movent, just enough to put her cheek out of his reach. She didn’t want to be wiped off like a problem he could fix with a gesture.
"You have a child." Her voice was steadier than she felt. "And you never once ntioned her. Not once." She looked back at him, the question sitting plain and open in her eyes, giving him every chance to just answer it, just tell her sothing true for once. "Why?"
Voren’s chest rose and fell. The patience on his face frayed at the edges, not disappearing, just thinning, the way fabric thins before it tears.
"Can you bla for that?"
Seraphine blinked. "Excuse ?"
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