Mated to My Fiancé’s Alpha King Brother

40 Chapter 40

40 Chapter 40

Seraphina’s POV 1

The morning sun streamed through the floor-to-ceiling windows of Nightshadow Industries, casting everything in a golden glow that should have felt hopeful. Instead, as I settled into my desk chair, I found myself bracing for whatever fresh hell Anna Blackwood had

planned for today.

I didn’t have to wait long.

“Good morning, bestie!” Anna’s sickeningly sweet voice cut through the peaceful morning atmosphere like nails on a chalkboard. She

sauntered over to my desk in a tight red dress that looked more appropriate for a nightclub than a corporate office, her platinum blonde

hair bouncing with each calculated step.

“Sleep well?” she asked, though her tone suggested she didn’t particularly care about my answer. “You look a little tired. Rough night?”

“Actually,” I said, looking up from my computer screen with a smile that was all teeth and no warmth, “I had a wonderful evening. Very…

therapeutic.”

Anna’s perfectly plucked eyebrows drew together in confusion. “Therapeutic?”

“Oh yes,” I continued cheerfully, turning my full attention to her now. “Sometimes a girl just needs to work out her frustrations, you

know? Get rid of some toxic influences in her life.”

Something flickered across Anna’s face-uncertainty, maybe even a hint of fear-but she quickly masked it with her usual superior smirk.

“I have no idea what you’re babbling about, Sera. Maybe you should focus on your work instead of whatever fantasy life you’re living in

your head.”

the sound sharp enough to make her take a small step backward.

your dear friend

instantaneous and delicious. Her

that supposed to mean?” she asked, though

returning my attention to my computer

good friends, after all. I’m sure she tells you

into me, could practically hear the gears turning in her head as she tried to figure out what game I was playing. After a long moment, she

room.

the muffled sound of her voice rising in pitch as she apparently tried calling Valerie. Once, twice,

from the break room twenty minutes later, her perfect makeup couldn’t hide the pale undertone of her skin. Our eyes met across the office space, and for the first time since I’d known her, Anna Blackwood

10.30

40 Chapter 40

desk for

and slightly unnerving. For years, Anna had made my life miserable with casual cruelty and

wolf as I organized Damien’s afternoon schedule, “what exactly happened to me the

wolf stirred in my mind, her presence more solid and aware than it had ever been before. *I’m not entirely sure, she admitted, her mental voice thoughtful. *But

“Awakened?”

Ayla paused, and I could feel her confusion mixing with my own. *It felt like… like some part of us that had been sleeping

remembering how my nails had lengthened into deadly claws, how I’d lifted Valerie off the ground with supernatural ease. The memory should have terrified me. Instead, it filled me with a strange sense

to my bloodline?” I asked.

Ayla’s mental voice grew quieter. *Your adoptive parents never told you anything about where you came from,

some orphan

now…”

Knights had taken me in when I was eight years old, old enough to remember fragments of my life before. But those memories were hazy, dreamlike, as if someone had deliberately tried to

“Seraphina?”

beside my desk, her elegant face creased with concern. “Are you

the elevator chimed and Damien stepped onto the floor. Even after everything we’d shared, everything that had been revealed between us, the sight

of his gaze made my pulse quicken. There was something different about the way