The Luna He Rejected: An Alpha's Regret

CHAPTER 28

Seraphine’s POV

The car had been quiet for the last hour, the only sounds coming from the low hum of the engine and the occasional soft breathing of the children in the back. The mountain road stretched endlessly ahead of us, dark and winding. Every so often, the headlights would catch the edge of a tree or the glint of rock, but otherwise the world outside felt swallowed by night.

I sat with my arms crossed, staring out the windshield, my mind turning over every possible scenario we might face when we reached Ironmoor. The note Isolde had left at Raven’s house kept replaying in my head. Come alone. It was to simple and obvious, that meant it was dangerous.

From the backseat, Marcus suddenly spoke up.

“I just received an update,” he said, his voice low. “One of our people found something in the east guest quarters.”

He leaned forward between the front seats and held out his phone. On the screen was a photograph.

It was Raven.

He was sitting on the floor of what looked like one of the smaller guest rooms in the packhouse. His hands were bound in front of him, and there was a bruise blooming along his jaw, but his eyes were open. He was alive. The photo looked recent.

On the back of the image, written in neat handwriting, was a single sentence:

Any interference from the Alpha, the Beta, or the children will make his stay considerably less pleasant.

The car went very still.

I took the phone from Marcus and stared at the message. Isolde’s intent was clear. She wanted us to argue. She wanted us to waste time debating who should go in first, who should stay back, who should protect the children. She wanted division before we even arrived.

I handed the phone back to Marcus and spoke calmly.

“We’re not playing that game.”

Caden glanced at me from the driver’s seat. “What are you thinking?”

“We walk through the main doors together,” I said. “All of us. As one group. No splitting up While we keep her attention on the front, Marcus takes a small team and extracts Raven quietly from the east wing. We don’t give her the argument she’s expecting.”

Marcus nodded slowly from the back. “That could work. She’s counting on us reacting emotionally. If we stay coordinated, we take that away from her.”

Caden was quiet for a moment, then gave a small nod of agreement. When he looked at me again, there was something in his eyes I hadn’t seen much of lately, respect.

Before anyone could say anything else, a small, sleepy voice came from the middle row.

“Dad?”

The single word hit the inside of the car like a stone dropped into still water.

Emery had woken up just enough to speak. His head was still resting against the seat, eyes half-closed, voice thick with sleep. He had called Caden “Dad” without thinking, the way a child speaks to a parent they’ve always known.

Caden’s hands tightened on the steering wheel so hard his knuckles turned white. I felt the sudden, massive shift in him through the bond, a rush of emotion so strong it almost stole his breath. His shoulders went rigid, and for a second, he looked like he had forgotten how to drive.

I reached over without thinking and placed my hand on his arm, grounding him. My touch seemed to pull him back. He exhaled slowly, the tension in his body easing just slightly, though I could still feel the storm raging inside him.

He didn’t say anything. He couldn’t. Not right now.

From the backseat, Marcus’s voice came quiet and steady. “Thirty minutes to the border.”

Luna stirred beside Emery. Her wolf had been close to the surface for the last hour, but now it pushed forward more clearly. She sat up straighter, her small hands resting on her knees.

“They’re waiting for us,” she said softly.

A minute later, the headlights swept across the familiar stone markers that signaled the edge of Ironmoor territory.

Evan, who had been quiet the entire drive, suddenly pressed his palm flat against the window. His wolf surged forward so strongly that I could feel the resonance of it moving through the entire vehicle. It wasn’t aggressive. It was something deeper, a dominant, resonant song that seemed to vibrate in the air around us.

I felt it in my chest. So did Caden. So did Marcus and Kevin. Even little Emery’s wolf responded to it, though he was still half-asleep.

We were no longer approaching as outsiders.

We were returning.

And every wolf in this car knew it.

Caden kept driving, his hands steady on the wheel again, but I could still feel the echo of Emery’s sleepy word lingering between us. Dad.

It had changed something.

The road ahead was dark, but for the first time since we left, I felt like we were exactly where we were supposed to be — moving forward together, no matter what waited for us at the end of it.