Ex-Mate Wants Me Back (Seraphina and Mortimer) novel Chapter 169

Chapter 169

Third Person’s POV

“What is it?”

“Tomorrow is the weekend. The company arranged an executive team-building retreat, and everyone attending is bringing their families.”

He lowered his eyes, his long eyelashes hiding the flicker of guilt in his gaze. “Today, when I brought Dash to the office and PR posted the photos, it suppressed a lot of the rumors. The PR department suggested that we attend the retreat together tomorrow to take this opportunity to completely crush the gossip about our separation.”

Toward the end of his sentence, his voice dropped lower and lower, as if he were standing trial and waiting for a verdict.

Looking at his expression, Seraphina suddenly remembered how she used to cautiously find excuses just to get a little closer to him, absolutely terrified of being rejected.

Except, back then, she was desperately trying to nurture their relationship. He was just doing it for the Craig Corporation.

His Alpha’s sharp senses caught the microscopic fluctuation in her emotions-like a faint ripple spreading across the surface of the water before quickly returning to a dead, unbothered calm.

Her pheromones didn’t release a single ounce of warmth.

“Fine. I’ll cooperate with you,” she said.

Mortimer’s tightly knitted brows instantly relaxed. He let out a long, heavy breath, a genuine layer of joy rising in his eyes.

“Then I’ll come pick you and Dash up tomorrow.” He paused. “The ski resort has a dedicated one-on-one pet care facility. Bringing Dash along won’t be an issue.”

Seraphina’s fingertips subconsciously curled inward.

“A ski resort?” Her voice was so light it was almost inaudible/

“Yeah. The Cloud Peak Ski Resort. The grounds are even larger than the one in Alaska last time. It’ll be a lot more fun.”

A heavy hint of apology leaked into Mortimer’s tone. “Last time in Alaska, I didn’t stay and properly enjoy it with you. Treat this as my apology, okay?”

“Ski resort.” Those two words acted like a heavy sledgehammer, instantly shattering Seraphina’s disguised calm.

The floodgates of her memory violently collapsed, and freezing, desperate images began to furiously flash before her eyes: being callously abandoned by Mortimer… her heat suddenly triggering… being hunted by feral rogues who caught her scent… and the terrifying, world-ending avalanche that immediately followed.

It felt like a massive white beast was ruthlessly pressing suffocation, despair, and the suffocating darkness of near-death straight down onto her chest.

Her wolf, Lily, was violently triggered by the terrifying memories, beginning to frantically scratch and growl inside her mind.

“I smell his scent…”

Lily begged, her voice weak and filled with desperate longing. “Sera, I’m in so much pain. I need him. We can let him bite our scent gland again, let him remark us…”

“Shut up!” Seraphina commanded ruthlessly in her mind. “If we let him fully mark us again, I will never be able to leave him! Do you want to die on that snowy mountain a second time?”

“But… he’s our mate.”

1/3

Chapter 9-

+15 Bonus

Lily whimpered pathetically. “He shouldn’t be the one to hurt us. We shouldn’t leave him…”

Seraphina’s sudden silence caught Mortiiner’s attention.

He immediately noticed that her face had gone deathly pale.

Subconsciously, he took a half-step closer.

“Sera?” He frowned, his voice laced with concern. “What’s wrong? Why do you look so pale?”

Seraphina violently snapped back to reality, ruthlessly cutting off her internal link with Lily.

She shook her head sharply. “I’m fine.”

“But you really don’t look well.”

“I said I’m fine.” A clear trace of impatience bled into her tone. “You need to leave.”

Mortimer stood there and stared at her for a few more seconds. His Alpha instincts were softly ringing alarm bells, sensing something was deeply wrong, but ultimately, he didn’t push it.

“I’ll get going, then. If you’re feeling sick, make sure to tell me.”

“Yeah. Got it.”

With a light, crisp click, the door shut in Mortimer’s face. Seraphina immediately leaned her back against the heavy wood, her erratic breathing slowly sinking.

The Alpha scent still lingered heavily in the air, wrapped in the smell of cedar and snow. She tightly closed her eyes, trying to force that scent out of her lungs bit by agonizing bit.

She stood frozen against the door for several seconds before finally forcing her legs to move.

Her limbs felt like they were being dragged down by a dead weight; every single step was so heavy she could barely lift her feet.

The moment she collapsed onto the living room sofa, a sharp sting flared in her palm.

She looked down and realized her fingernails had dug so hard into her own skin that they had broken it. Tiny beads of blood were slowly seeping out.

The terrifying memory of crushing, suffocating snow was still racing through her veins.

She closed her eyes again, her chest heaving. Her heart beat wildly against her ribs, constricting painfully with every single pump as if an invisible hand was violently squeezing it.

Even though the door was firmly shut, the scent of cedar and snow still tangled around the edges of her senses.

She blindly grabbed her bag, dug out her pill bottle, and shook a few pills into her trembling hand. Shoving them straight into her mouth, she didn’t even grab a glass of water, simply dry-swallowing them down her tight throat.

Her mouth tasted like ash. She leaned heavily against the couch and waited a long, agonizing time, until the violent trembling within her pheromones was finally suppressed deep back into her scent gland. Only then did she slowly open her eyes.

Exhausted, she sank her consciousness deep into her soul, tentatively calling out to her inner wolf.

However, the only response she got was a faint, agonizing whimper.

Seraphina’s heart violently contracted. She realized that because of the fractured mating bond between her and Mortimer, Lily was currently weakened to the absolute extreme.

The terrifying void and spiritual backlash brought on by the shattering of their bond felt like a rusted, dull blade frantically hacking away at their shared soul.

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