Alpha's Regret: The Seventh Time was Forever novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Seventh Paper
Beta Perrin brings the seventh divorce agreement while Dorian celebrates with Pippa outside. Rosalind signs at once, stands for the first time in months and drops her ring into Dorian's glass before the pack. At the door she hears Pippa whisper: that's seven.
"Luna, Alpha Dorian has sent another divorce agreement."
The Beta stood at the foot of the bed with the folder held in both hands.
His voice was careful, because the last six times Rosalind had torn the pages in half and handed him the pieces.
She lay propped on three pillows with a blanket up to her chest.
She had lain there for five months, ever since the night she held the vent door shut and breathed in the gas meant for the whole pack.
Two hundred and twelve wolves had walked out of that hall alive because of her.
Her husband had come to her room once since, stood in the doorway for a minute and left.
Music came up through the floor of the pack house. Someone laughed, and it was Dorian.
"He's down there with Pippa," the Beta said. "He's telling the pack she'll be co-Luna by the Winter Moon."
"I heard the glasses," Rosalind said.
"This one says he will reconsider the divorce if you accept her beside you." He swallowed. "He has told the pack you will agree. He says you love him too much to go through with it."
That made seven papers.
Rosalind looked at the folder, and then at the window, where the lights of the Gathering Hall shone on the snow below the bluff.
The kitchen wolves had lit her candle at the long table again tonight, the way they did every night.
Dorian had ordered them to stop twice, and every night the candle was lit anyway.
She held out her hand. "Pen."
The Beta did not move. "You don't have to answer tonight, Luna."
"Pen, please. Perrin."
He took one from his jacket and put it in her palm.
She opened the folder, turned to the last page and signed her name at the bottom.
She did not read the pages above it.
The pen scratched once across the paper, and then the room was quiet.
She closed the folder and held it out to him.
Then she smiled at him, gently, because none of this was his fault.
Perrin took it with a hand that shook. "You signed."
"I signed."
"He's going to say you were bluffing."
"Then I'll go and tell him in person." She pushed the blanket off her legs. "Help me up."
"You haven't walked in weeks."
"Then you'll have to hold me up."
He got an arm around her and she stood.
Her legs shook, and her chest burned, and a cough tore out of her that she rode out with her forehead against his shoulder.
When it passed she took her long wool coat from the hook and put it on over her nightgown.
They went down the stairs one at a time, and the music got louder with every step.
The great room was full of wolves holding glasses.
Dorian Hartwell stood by the fireplace in a dark coat with his scarred left hand around a glass of wine.
Pippa Lowell stood close beside him, her cheeks pink from the fire.
The music stopped when the first wolf saw Rosalind on the stairs.
Three hundred faces turned toward her.
Pippa was the first to move.
She crossed the room, took the cream shawl off her own shoulders and wrapped it around Rosalind's.
"You'll catch cold," she said softly. "You shouldn't be out of bed."
"Thank you," Rosalind said. It was kind of her, and she took the shawl.
Dorian's grey eyes took her in from her bare feet to her hair.
"You came down," he said. "Good. I hoped you'd see sense."
"I came to give you this."
She held up the signed pages so the whole room could see her name.
He laughed.
"That's quick," he said. "You've never signed one before. Who put you up to it?"
"No one."
"You can't mean it. You'd die without me."
"I nearly died without you," Rosalind said. "You never came to check."
Nobody in the room said a word.
Dorian's smile went thin. "Don't make a scene in front of the pack."
"You told the pack I'd accept her." She looked at Pippa, then back at him. "I don't."
She worked the gold ring off her finger. It came loose easily, because she had lost so much weight.
She walked to the fireplace, held it over his glass of wine and let go.
It dropped in with a small plink.
Red wine slopped over the rim onto his scarred hand.
Dorian looked down at it, and then at her.
"Go back to bed, Rosalind," he said. "You'll be crawling back before the week is out."
"This is the seventh," she said. "I won't be crawling back."
So she left.
She turned and walked to the front door with Perrin at her elbow.
The cold hit her face as the door opened.
Behind her, Pippa spoke in a voice that wasn't meant to carry past Dorian's ear.
It carried anyway.
"That's seven," Pippa said. "It's done."
Dorian laughed. "What is?"
Pippa didn't answer him, and Rosalind didn't turn around.
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