Mated to My Fiancé’s Alpha King Brother

Chapter 71

Seraphina’s POV 1

The silence in Damien’s office stretched between us like a taut wire, heavy with unspoken secrets and questions that I wasn’t sure I

wanted answered. He stood with his back to me, staring out at the harbor through the floor-to-ceiling windows, his shoulders rigid with

tension.

“Damien,” I said softly, my voice barely above a whisper, “you’re scaring me. What’s this about?”

He turned slowly, and the expression on his face made my breath catch. There was pain there, and something that looked almost like

hope, but also a terrible intensity that made my wolf Ayla whimper in my mind.

“I need you to think back, Sera,” he said, his voice rough and strained. “Five years ago. The night before your eighteenth birthday.”

My heart stopped. Literally stopped beating for what felt like an eternity before it resumed with painful, erratic thuds against my ribs. “What… what did you say?”

“The Moonlight Grand Hotel,” he continued, his silver-blue eyes never leaving my face. “There was a masquerade ball, and you were wearing a green dress that matched your eyes.”

The blood drained from my face so quickly that I had to grip the back of the chair in front of me to keep from swaying. “How do you… how could you possibly know that?”

Damien took a step closer, his movements careful and deliberate, like he was approaching a wounded animal that might bolt at any moment. “Because I was there, Sera. I was the man you spent that night with.”

“No.” The word came out as barely a whisper, denial automatic and desperate. “No, that’s not possible. You don’t understand-I would

have known. I would have recognized you when I first saw you in this office.”

“Would you?” he asked gently, his voice filled with a kind of aching tenderness that made my chest tight. “We both wore masks that

clearly.

with the silver-blue eyes. The way he’d made me feel safe and

he was suddenly kneeling in front of my chair, his hands hovering just inches from

he said, his voice thick with emotion. “Our son, Sera. He carries my bloodline. He’s not just some random child you’re raising-he’s a Nightshadow. He’s

them stop. “But how… I don’t understand. If you knew,

twisted with self-recrimination. “Because I’m an idiot,” he said bitterly. “Because I

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When Anna showed up with my pendant, claiming to be the woman from that night, I wanted so badly for it to be true that I

in confusion, swiping at my

a moment, Damien looked surprised. Then his expression shifted to something that was

you don’t know about it,” he said softly. “You were asleep when

that required my immediate attention. But I didn’t want to wake you,

after what we’d shared.

his pocket and pulled out something that caught the light from

beautiful, hanging from

thumb tracing over the pendant’s surface. “It was my way of telling you

meant something to me.

would try to find

a million pieces as I stared at the pendant. “I never saw it,” I whispered,

alone, and you were gone, and there was nothing

note or your number or something, but

like a curse on his lips. “She

when she came to

tears coming harder now, “I thought… I thought you just

some naive girl who’d read

in his hands, his thumbs gently wiping away