Voren went completely still. He stared at nothing for a long moment, turning the request over like a man who had just been handed a task that was going to cost him significantly more than it looked like on the surface.

Managing Seraphine was already the closest thing to a full-time occupation he’d encountered outside of actually running his own pack and companies in the city and now Ravyn was asking him to walk her voluntarily into the Centenary training gym, which was going to require either a miracle or a very specific combination of leverage and patience.

"Why?" he asked, his voice staying even, already building toward a refusal the moment the explanation didn’t hold up.

"I found out some things I need to address with her present. I promise I won’t piss her off."

Voren pressed his lips together and let that sit for a second. "It won’t be easy."

"I know. But she won’t hear me out on her own. You know that better than anyone. You’re the only option I have right now. Please don’t say no."

"Can you promise me she walks out of that gym in a better mood than she walks into it? Because your pack pays if she doesn’t," Voren said, and the warning underneath it was quiet but there was no missing it.

On the other end of the line, Ravyn smiled thought it carried no warmth whatsoever. This was the woman who used to be at his beck and call, hanging on to his every word and now, he had to use unfavorable means just to get her to training. "I know that."

"Good. I’ll get her there."

The call ended, and Daisy sat up in the dark.

She’d been listening to every single word, her breathing measured, her face arranged into something carefully blank. Now that the line was dead, she turned to Ravyn with the easy lightness of someone who absolutely had not just been cataloguing everything she’d heard. "Rav, are you really bringing Seraphine to training?"

Ravyn startled slightly. He’d genuinely forgotten she was there, and the fact that he’d forgotten told him something about where his head had been sitting for the last ten minutes. "Daisy. Did you hear all of that?"

She pursed her lips, the lie already taking shape, and he spoke before she could deliver it. "If you lie to me, I’ll know."

She rerouted without missing a beat. "Your voice woke me up. Did someone actually want Seraphine dead?"

He exhaled, slow and controlled. "You heard enough."

"Well, it’s very concerning, isn’t it? Someone wanting her dead when the cure isn’t even close to finished. Did she offend someone?"

Ravyn shook his head. He didn’t know Seraphine well enough to answer that honestly, and the reality of that landed on him differently than it had before.

He’d never put in the effort of actually knowing her, and had never thought he needed to. But after yesterday, after standing there watching her hold completely still while Daisy spoke at her without ever once lifting a hand to defend herself, he understood that something was running underneath what she showed everyone. She was carrying something heavy, but he just had no idea what.

"I don’t think so. But I’m going to find out who’s behind it and why." His jaw tightened. "Maybe that person gets to go first."

Daisy found that sleep had become completely impossible, but she wrapped her arm around him and pulled him back down anyway. "You promised you’d take me to training yourself. Get some rest."

Now that she knew Seraphine would be there, something was already building quietly at the back of her mind, cunning and not entirely kind. The pack members would handle it. They always did. They would put Seraphine exactly where they believed she belonged, and all Daisy had to do was be present for it.

✾❀✾

Ravyn slept, but not for long. Bryan’s voice pulled him out of it, not crying, just calling out, the way small children do when they’re caught in that soft, confused space between one dream and being fully awake.

By the time Ravyn got to the room, Damon was already there, standing quietly beside the bed.

"What happened?" Ravyn asked.

Damon shook his head. "Nothing serious. I came in from patrol and heard him calling for Sera."

Ravyn’s frown wasn’t really about the information itself. It was about the ease of it, the way Damon had said Sera like it was a name he’d been using for years. Comfortable. Familiar. Completely unthinking. "You seem pretty close to my ex-wife."

Damon kept his expression loose and relaxed. "She’s straightforward, that’s all. I watched her work. She’s just easy to be around. She told me to call her Sera."

It was a smooth answer. Too smooth for Ravyn to put down entirely. "I see. But your business has been climbing fast lately. Are you connected to her in some way?"

Damon met his eyes and gave him an easy smile. "My business grows because my team is good and the market is moving in our direction. If there’s nothing else, I’d really like to get some rest before tomorrow."

Ravyn wanted to press harder, but Bryan’s sleepy voice stopped him. "Mommy, don’t go. Please."

Ravyn crossed to the bed and gathered Bryan up, pulling him close. "It’s alright, pup. I’m here."

Bryan smiled without fully coming awake, already sliding back down under sleep. By the time Ravyn had settled him back against the pillow and made his way to his own room, the confusion had taken full root somewhere in the back of his mind and wasn’t going anywhere.

Seraphine had been away for a while and Bryan seemed completely fine in the beginning. So why did everything about it feel like she’d always been there?

By morning, the answer still hadn’t come, and Bryan had not stopped saying her name, not at breakfast, not on the walk over, not while Daisy tried three separate times to point his attention somewhere else. Each attempt went nowhere and came back empty.

"She’ll be at training," Ravyn finally told him. "You’ll see her there."

Daisy glanced at him. "Are you sure she’ll actually show up? She’s not even a pack member anymore."