Ex-Mate Wants Me Back (Seraphina and Mortimer) novel Chapter 79

Chapter 79

Seraphina’s POV

“You need a hand with the move?”

“No. I don’t have much. Two suitcases and I’m out,” I said, giving Trista a firm shake of my head.

When I first signed that contract with Mortimer, I was delusional. I thought I could actually spark the mating bond, that we’d find some soulful harmony.

But somewhere deep in my DNA, my survival instinct stayed awake. It kept my emotions on a leash.

I flirted with the edge of that bond for three years, but I always kept a professional distance.

That’s why, even though I decorated that house with my own hands, my actual footprint there was tiny.

A few days ago, I’d already started boxing up anything that smelled like me. I’d been erasing my existence from his life in stages.

“Fine. I’m clocking out. Call me if you hit a snag.”

“Will do.”

Later, at the pet hospital, I felt a weird, unanchored twitch of guilt.

It felt like a ghost-chain tightening around my chest.

But then I caught myself and scowled.

“What am I feeling guilty for?” I muttered to the empty room. “It’s not like I’m moving a stray into his pack territory.”

Dash, who didn’t need the isolation cage anymore, looked up from his wet food.

He padded over and gave my leg a soft, furry nuzzle, like he was confirming that my little rebellion was the right call.

The pure, uncomplicated devotion from a dog was the perfect fix. It let me flush that bizarre, aggressive text from Mortimer right out of my head.

The pet hospital had a massive five-hundred-square-meter yard for the boarders.

Dash was healing fast, so I let him run wild for a good thirty minutes, watching him reclaim his spark.

Once we were done, I headed back to Shadowfang to start my shift.

In the breakroom, I scrolled through the photos I’d taken of Dash and posted a quick update to my feed.

“Newest addition to the family. Isn’t he a handsome guy?” 1

I locked the phone and didn’t look back.

I pulled a stack of critical files from the shelf-heavy cases that needed surgical roadmaps-and let the work swallow me whole.

Around 8:00 PM, I started my rounds.

My phone erupted in my pocket. “Seraphina, where are you?”

“Inpatient wing. What’s the situation?” I asked, my voice dropping into professional mode.

“The VIP suite on the top floor. Patient is crashing. Get up there!”

“On my way.”

The VIP suite? That was Rolf.

2

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+15 Bonus

He’d been recovering perfectly. How the hell does a stable patient just crash out of nowhere?

I felt the wolf-instinct-Lily start to bristle under my skin. I broke into a run, heading for the penthouse level.

The room was a pressure cooker when I burst in.

The night orderly was standing in the corner, face as white as a sheet, knees visibly knocking.

On the bed, Rolf was fighting for air. His breathing was jagged, his face contorted in a mask of agony. He was letting out these thin, pathetic whimpers-the sound of a dying pup.

I lunged for the bed, shoving Lily’s panic into a corner so I could focus.

“Seraphina, he’s got an arrhythmia. Blood pressure is spiking, O2 sats are tanking…”

“EKG and ultrasound results, now!”

“Intracardiac thrombus. It’s a clot.”

I felt my jaw tighten. “Inject heparin. Move!”

I went into command mode, steering the team through the chaos.

Within minutes, Rolf’s vitals started to level out.

The violent storm in his chest subsided, and he drifted into a shaky stability.

But as I stepped out of the room, my mind was racing.

The surgery had been flawless. There was no medical reason for a massive clot to form this many days post-op.

If the surgery wasn’t the problem… then the aftercare was compromised.

My eyes drifted to the orderly.

The man looked like a “good, simple worker,” but the air around him was thick with the scent of raw, unfiltered terror.

When he caught my eye, he flinched. The guilt was written all over his pale face. He looked almost as wrecked as the guy on the bed.

I knew this guy. He was a regular at the healing center, experienced, solid. He wasn’t the type to make a rookie mistake.

And Rolf’s meds weren’t oral; there was no way to “mess up the dose.” The nurses on this floor were elite.

So who was pulling the strings? And how did they get to him?