Mated to My Fiancé’s Alpha King Brother

69 Chapter 69

69 Chapter 69

Damien’s POV 1

By the twe reached my estate, the night had settled into that deep, quiet darkness that comes in the hours

before dawn. The house loomed before us, all stone and shadow, its windows dark except for the security lights

that automatically illuminated our path.

“Thank you for the hospitality,” Caleb said, extending his hand with genuine warmth. “And for the ride. That

was... illuminating”

“More than you know,” | replied, shaking his hand briefly. The anger I'd felt earlier had transformed into

something else entirelya€”a

mixture of hope and dread that sat in my chest like a living thing.

“Guest room is second door on the left upstairs,” | told him. “There should be everything you need.”

Caleb nodded and disappeared into the house, his footsteps echoing briefly in the marble foyer before fading as

he climbed the stairs. |

stood in the entrance hall for a long moment, staring up at the chandelier that cast prismatic shadows across the

walls.

Everything Caleb had said kept circling through my mind like a relentless tide. The description of the woman

from that night&€” emerald

eyes, dark hair, petite build, that underlying strength. It was Sera. Every detail matched perfectly.

I made my way to my study, knowing sleep would be impossible. The room felt hollow despite its rich

furnishings, the leather-bound

books and expensive art doing nothing to quiet the storm in my head. | poured myself three fingers of whiskey

and settled into my chair,

staring out the floor-to-ceiling windows at the city lights twinkling below.

RSEraty

Her nechoed in my mind like a prayer, like a curse. How could | have been so blind? The mate bond I'd felt

the moment | saw her in

my office, the way my wolf Alex had recognized her immediately it all made sense now. She wasn't just my fated

mate by scosmic

coincidence. She was the woman from that night, the mother of my child, the missing piece of my soul that I'd

been searching for across

five long, empty years.

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And Adrian. God, Adrian with his silver-blue eyes that matched my own, his natural charisma that drew people to

him like moths to

flame.

| drained my glass and immediately poured another. The whiskey burned, but it was nothing compared to the fire

in my chest.

How had the pendant ended up in Anna’s hands? The timeline made sense nowa€”Anna working as a cleaning

lady at the hotel, finding

the pendant after I'd left in such a rush for that emergency pack meeting.

And Sera... Sera had probably never even seen it. She'd been asleep when | left it on her nightstand,

unconscious from exhaustion and

the intensity of what we'd shared. 1

Five years. Five fucking years we'd been in the scity, breathing the sair, and I'd been too blind to

recognize what was right in front of me. Worse, I'd hired the woman who'd stolen our chance at finding each

other sooner, given her a position of trust based on a

lie.

The irony was bitter enough to choke on.

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69 Chapter 69

| pulled out my phone and scrolled to Sera’s contact information. My thumb hovered over the call button. What

would | say? How could |

explain that | was the father of her child, that I'd been searching for her for years, that every moment we'd spent

together had been building toward this revelation?

No. Not like this. Not over the phone in the middle of the night when she was probably sleeping peacefully in her

small apartment, Adrian curled up in his bed down the hall. She deserved better than a rambling confession

delivered through a device.

Instead, | opened my laptop and began reviewing everything | knew about Sera Knight. Her employment file, her

address, her schooling records. Looking for any trace of the woman I'd held in my arms that night, any hint of the

connection I'd felt.

There wasn’t much. She’d appeared on official records about five years ago when she’d moved to Silver Moon

Harbor, pregnant and

alone. Before that, there were scattered mentions of a Seraphina Knight from a small town called Whispering

Valley, but the trail grew

cold quickly.

Dawn was painting the sky pink and gold by the texhaustion finally claimed me. | fell asleep in my chair, still

fully dressed, with my

laptop open to Sera’s employee photograph and an empty whiskey glass at my elbow.

The sharp buzz of my phone draggedfrom uneasy dreams. Lucas’s nflashed on the screen, and |

answered immediately despite

the crick in my neck from sleeping in the chair.

“Tellyou have something,” | said without preamble.

“Good morning to you too, sunshine.” Lucas’s voice carried that slightly manic edge he got when he'd been up

all night working on

something important. “And yes, | have something, though I'm not sure how useful it's going to be.”

| straightened in my chair, suddenly fully awake. “What did you find?”

“First, the bad news. The hotel's digital storage system had a massive failure about three years ago. Most of the

older footage was

corrupted or completely lost. What we managed to recover is... patchy at best.”

My heart sank. “And the good news?”

“The good news is that I've got a guy who specializes in data recoverya€”the kind of guy who can pull deleted

files off a computer that’s

been through a blender and struck by lightning. He managed to piece together a few minutes of footage from

the hallway outside your

room that night.”

“Send it to me. Now”

| went to the office immediately. The video file was small, barely two minutes of grainy, black-and-white footage.

| hit play and leaned

forward, squinting at the screen.

The hallway was empty for the first thirty seconds, just the familiar perspective of a security camera mounted

high on the wall. Then a figure appeared in the frame, moving slowly down the corridor with a cleaning cart.

The person was clearly wearing a hotel uniform, and even through the poor quality of the video, | could make out

the distinctive blonde hair and the stocky build that screamed “Anna.” She stopped outside what | knew was my

room, fumbling with her keycard for several seconds before the door opened,

The timestamp showed she’d entered at 6:23 AM, roughly two hours after I'd left for the emergency pack

meeting,

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69 Chapter 69

| watched her emerge twenty minutes later, the cleaning cart lighter than before but with something clutched in

her hand that caught the hallway’s fluorescent lights. Even through the grainy footage, the golden glint was

unmistakable.

My pendant.

She looked around quickly, as if checking to make sure no one was watching, then slipped whatever she was

holding into her uniform pocket and continued down the hall with her cart.

The video ended there, cutting to static.

My wolf Alex was snarling in my mind, demanding blood, demanding justice. The rage that built in my chest was

so intense it made my

vision blur around the edges.

| was still staring at the frozen final frof the video when | heard the familiar click of high heels in the hallway

outside my office. A moment later, my door opened without a knock, and Anna swept into the room like she

owned it. 1

“Good morning, darling,” she purred, her voice dripping with artificial sweetness. She was wearing a dress that

was at least two sizes too small and a shade of pink that could be seen from space, her blonde hair teased into

what could generously be called a style.

She perched herself on the edge of my desk, crossing her legs and leaning forward to givewhat she probably

thought was a seductive view of her cleavage.

“I missed you last night.” she continued, trailing one finger along the edge of my desk.

| stared at her, marveling at the sheer audacity of her performance.

“Anna,” | said quietly, my voice so level and controlled that Alex whimpered in my mind.

“Yes, sweetheart?” She batted her eyelashes and tilted her head, probably thinking she looked coquettish rather

than deranged.

“Get out of my office.”

The change in her expression was instantaneous. The fake sweetness evaporated, replaced by confusion and the

first hints of panic.

“What? Damien, honey, what's wrong? Did | do something to&a€"”

“Get. Out.

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