Mated to My Fiancé’s Alpha King Brother

113 Chapter 113

Damien’s POV 1

The world tilted.

Those eyes. Even swollen shut, even surrounded by bruises and cuts that made my stomach lurch, I knew

those eyes. The elegant arch of her brows. The small scar on her left temple from when she’d fallen off her bike as a child.

*Sera.*

My hands went slack around her throat. She dropped back to the ground with a soft thud that seemed to echo like thunder in the sudden silence.

“No.” The word came out strangled. Broken. “No, no, no. This isn’t-this can’t be-”

I fell to my knees beside her, my hands hovering over her battered face. Afraid to touch. Afraid that if I did, she’d disappear like some cruel hallucination my desperate mind had conjured.

But she was real. The soft whisper of her breath. The familiar curve of her lips, split and swollen but still *hers*. The way her hair curled at the ends, even matted with blood and filth.

“Sera?” I whispered, my voice cracking like I was fourteen again. “Baby, is that you?”

Her only response was another barely audible murmur. “Adrian… where’s Adrian…”

The sound of her voice-hoarse, broken, but definitely *hers*-hit me like a physical blow. My chest seized. My lungs forgot how to work.

Lucas appeared at my shoulder, his face pale with shock. “Alpha, that’s not… that can’t be…”

“It’s her.” The words came out flat. Final.

I reached out with trembling hands to touch her face. Her skin was ice cold, waxy with fever. Dark circles shadowed her closed eyes. Her lips were cracked and bleeding.

How had I not known? How had I looked at her-at *Sera*-and seen nothing but a rogue?

Because she didn’t smell like herself. The realization hit me like a sledgehammer. Where her scent should

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have been-that unique blend of jasmine and rain that was pure Sera-there was nothing. Just the harsh

chemical burn of wolfsbane and the lingering stench of death.

“What did they do to you?” I breathed, my fingers tracing the air above a particularly nasty cut on her cheek.

“Oh god, baby, what did they do?”

More importantly-why couldn’t I sense Ayla? Every wolf had a distinct presence, a spiritual fingerprint that

as clearly as any physical scent. But when I reached out with my enhanced senses,

for Sera’s wolf…

Nothing.

terrifying silence where

seems like the wolfsbane,” Lucas said quietly, following my train of

we couldn’t scent

my vision. Pure, incandescent rage that made my bones ache with the need to shift. To hunt.

this to my

I growled, my voice dropping to a register that made

ears. “Find every last piece of shit who laid a finger on her, and bring

“Yes, Alpha.”

revenge could wait. Right now, she needed medical attention. Needed safety. Needed

care of her instead of standing here drowning in

I could manage. She was so light. Too light. Nothing but skin and bones wrapped in torn rags that used to be

my arm, exposing the purple finger-shaped bruises

mumbled again, her brow furrowing with

safe,” I whispered against her matted hair.

My little boy had been asking for his mama every day. Crying himself to sleep because she wasn’t there to read him bedtime stories. How was I

son and tell him that his

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before it could take root. She was alive. Breathing. Whatever they’d done to her, whatever poison they’d pumped into

We had to.

barked

man jumped like I’d hit him with a cattle

Sera toward the road, his

“The hospital?” he asked.

replied, my jaw tight. “She needs

to

a halt beside us, engine still running. I climbed

was shallow,

hands.

the soldier behind the wheel. “Fast as

“We’ve

wolf suppression. ETA ten

hear her response, but Lucas

fluttering. For a

Maybe-

her voice barely audible over the engine noise. “Please don’t…

was dreaming. Or having flashbacks. Reliving whatever hell they’d put her

her forehead. “You’re safe now. No one’s going

promise.”

of mate was I? What

its white walls gleaming in the

the emergency entrance with a gurney and two nurses, her silver hair