The line wasn’t dead. Voren could still hear his father breathing on the other end, but the silence after those words felt heavy, like it pressed down on the whole room and changed the whole mood in it.
Voren’s expression didn’t fall apart. It just went very, very still.
His eyes moved over to Seraphine, who was watching him through the pain now, reading his face even though she could only hear one side of the conversation. It was enough for her to know sothing big had just changed.
Voren tightened his grip on the phone and stepped away from Seraphine a bit, though he stayed facing her. His voice stayed low but firm.
"Dad." Voren’s back teeth clenched together so hard it actually hurt. "I asked you for the antidote. Not a lecture."
Vladimir Ashkael was the kind of man who didn’t change his mind easily once he’d made it up. Voren knew that better than anyone he’d spent his whole life running into that solid wall. And right now, his father had dug his heels in on the wrong side of this conversation and didn’t look like he was planning to budge anyti soon.
"If it’s for her," Vladimir said, his voice carrying that final tone old Alphas get when they’ve already decided the talk is over, "then I’m not giving it to you."
Voren turned away so Seraphine wouldn’t catch his expression. He pressed his free hand flat against the wall and tried to breathe through the frustration building up inside him.
He had seen his father helpless back when they thought they were going to lose him. Voren had changed so much after the heartbreak, refusing to eat and drinking alcohol like it was water.
He knew his father was only afraid to see him go through that dark state again, and he respected him in that deep, complicated way sons respect fathers who are both their biggest teacher and their toughest obstacle. But right now, that respect was wearing pretty thin.
"Who exactly did you think I was calling about?" He kept his voice even and controlled.
There was a pause on the line. Then his father’s voice ca back, a little less sure but still firm. "Your mother and I figured it was for Jasmine."
Voren almost laughed but caught it before it slipped out. "Jasmine is a lone wolf, Dad. She never belonged to a pack, so she didn’t cut ties with one. The curse doesn’t hit her the sa way it affects a she-wolf who left her pack.
"You already know that. If this was about Jasmine, would I have waited this long to call you?"
The silence at the end of the line was starting to get uncomfortable as his father thought it over. Voren used that quick mont of quiet to glance toward Seraphine.
She wasn’t in the room anymore, but he could see her through the bathroom glass door. She had gone in there.
He really needed to get off this phone.
"Dad, she’s hurting right now. While we’re standing here going back and forth about it. So I’m gonna ask you one more ti, will you give the redy or not?"
What ca back wasn’t an answer.
"She’s there with you?" His father’s voice got noticeably colder. "Voren. What is going on with you? I didn’t raise you to go picking up another man’s trash—"
"Don’t." The word ca out of Voren quiet but heavy, like sothing that had been building pressure for years and finally found a way out.
It wasn’t loud. It was worse than loud, the kind of calm that ant he had nothing left to lose. "Don’t you dare finish that sentence."
"Voren—"
"She is not trash." Now Voren’s voice rose, low and intense, rolling up from sowhere deep inside him. "She has never been trash, and if I hear those words co out of your mouth again, I don’t care who you are to ."
The line went silent.
Voren let out a slow breath, closed his eyes for just a second, and when he opened them, his voice had settled back into sothing closer to steady. "I’ve loved Sera since we were kids. I never stopped. Not even once. Not through any of it. If you won’t help , I’ll find another way."
The words cracked just a little at the end, just enough for soone paying close attention to notice.
His father was paying close attention.
Vladimir Ashkael had spent decades reading people, reading his son, and telling the difference between plain stubbornness and sothing much deeper.
Another long pause stretched out across the line. Then the older man’s voice returned, and this ti the hardness had faded. What replaced it sounded like concern trying to hide behind careful words.
"You don’t understand what you’re stepping into," he said quietly.
"Then explain it to ." Voren shot back right away. "Help understand. Because right now all I’m getting are reasons that don’t add up."
Silence again. This one lasted longer, the kind that ant soone was deciding how much truth to share.
Then Vladimir spoke.
"This redy," he started, picking his words with care, "it doesn’t work like regular dicine. It only kicks in under certain conditions. It only activates when it’s given by soone who genuinely loves the person who’s suffering. Soone they can easily mate with." He paused. "Do you understand what I’m saying?"
Voren didn’t reply. He heard it loud and clear.
"Seraphine is your best friend’s ex-wife. She carries all that history, and so do you. You’re an Alpha, and the Alpha code exists for good reasons. It wasn’t thrown together lightly. What you’re talking about...this road you want to go down...you will pay a price for it. The code won’t just ignore it because your feelings are real."
"I’m ready to pay the price," Voren responded with no hesitation at all.
"Voren—" his father was saying when Voren cut in.
"She’s worth it dad," he said it plain and simple, like a man who’d done the math a thousand tis over the years and always ca to the sa conclusion.
"And unless you want to see killed by my wolf, you better let it out because if the pack would ever have a Luna, Seraphine is it."
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