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

never saw each other’s faces clearly. And five

so hard to suppress came flooding back. The mysterious man with the

front of my chair, his hands hovering just inches from mine as if he wanted to touch me

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

down my face, and I couldn’t seem to make them stop. “But how… I don’t understand. If you knew, if

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

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that night, I wanted so badly for it to be true that I ignored all the signs

at him in confusion, swiping at my tears with the back of my hand. “What

surprised. Then his expression shifted to something

about it,” he said softly. “You were asleep when I left. I had to go-there was an emergency

attention. But I didn’t want to wake you, and I didn’t want you to think I was just abandoning

after what we’d shared.

into his pocket and pulled out something that caught the light from the windows-a golden pendant in

beautiful, hanging

left this on your nightstand,” he continued, his thumb tracing over the pendant’s

me. That you meant something to me.

try to

as I stared at the pendant. “I

I swear to you, I never saw it. I woke up alone, and you were gone, and there was nothing left

maybe you’d left me a note or

“Anna,” he said quietly, the name like a curse

it when she came

these years,” I said, the tears coming harder now, “I thought… I thought you just didn’t

was just some naive girl who’d read too much

Damien said fiercely, finally reaching out to cup my face in his hands, his thumbs gently wiping away my tears.