Ex-Mate Wants Me Back (Seraphina and Mortimer) novel Chapter 42

Chapter 42

+15 Bonus

Chapter 42

Third Person’s POV

Professor Bauer was the officiant who had presided over Mortimer and Seraphina’s mating ceremony.

“I…” Mortimer opened his mouth, dropping his voice to a low, hesitant murmur. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to make things difficult for you. I just…”

Looking at the absolute confusion and total detachment on Seraphina’s face, Mortimer felt like his insides were tied in a chaotic

knot.

“I just feel like… things between us… seem different from before.” When he said it, his voice carried a tremor of uncertainty that he had never shown in his life.

Hearing this, Seraphina froze for a split second. And then, she laughed.

“Haven’t we always been exactly like this? What exactly is different?” she asked, genuinely baffled.

Mortimer instinctively wanted to argue. He frantically searched his brain for any hard evidence of this so-called “difference,” only to realize with a crushing sense of defeat that she was right. Nothing had changed.

They were still acting like two polite, distant roommates. They were still living completely separate lives.

Everything was playing out step-by-step according to the terms of the buyout contract they had signed. 1

On paper, there wasn’t a single flaw to point out.

But his instincts were screaming at him like a blaring siren. There was an indescribable, suffocating sense of wrongness wrapped around his chest, and he couldn’t shake it off.

“Boom-”

A massive crack of thunder exploded in the sky, brutally shattering the heavy, oppressive silence between them.

Right on cue, Mortimer’s phone started ringing again. It was Vivian’s obnoxious, custom ringtone.

At this point, Seraphina found the timing so completely absurd that she almost wanted to laugh. She bit her lower lip hard just to suppress the self-deprecating smirk threatening to show on her face.

Mortimer, on the other hand, reacted like he had been stabbed with a needle. The second he heard the audio, his brows knitted into a tight, dark scowl.

“You should answer that. That thunder was pretty loud. Miss Davis is probably terrified,” Seraphina said flatly.

With that, she pushed open the door to the guest bedroom.

“Sera… wait, I-” Mortimer started. But a second later, his vision was completely cut off by a cold wooden door shutting firmly in his face.

Vivian’s ringtone was still screaming shamelessly through the quiet hallway.

The longer it played, the hotter the nameless, destructive fire burned in Mortimer’s chest.

This time, he didn’t even bother glancing at the screen. He just slammed his thumb onto the mute button, standing in the dark hallway as the faint glow of the screen slowly died in the palm of his hand.

Back in her room, Seraphina spent some time scrolling through apartment rental listings on her laptop before getting ready to wash up for bed.

Suddenly, a knock sounded at the guest room door.

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Chapter 42

+15 Bonus

She opened it, saw Mortimer standing there, and blurted out automatically, “What are you still doing here?”

The second the words lefther mouth, Mortimer’s expression visibly iced over.

“Where exactly do you think I should be?” he asked, his voice tight and raspy.

Seraphina genuinely thought that by now, Mortimer would be doing ninety down the highway straight to Vivian’s mansion.

She didn’t say a single word, but Mortimer read the answer perfectly in her eyes.

He let out a bitter, exasperated laugh.

A massive wave of defeat washed over him.

But in the end, he just took a deep breath, forcefully shoving his volatile, restless Alpha pheromones back under his skin.

“I saw your hair was wet when you came in.”

Mortimer turned his head, deliberately avoiding her eyes. His tone was stiff, carrying an awkward, forced kind of care. “This kind of weather triggers old injuries. I brewed a healing tonic-verbena mixed with dried ginger. Go drink it.”

The shock exploded in Seraphina’s eyes.

She wasn’t just stunned that Mortimer-a spoiled, top-of-the-pyramid Alpha who usually needed Pack omegas to lay out his ties-had actually stepped foot into a kitchen. She was completely floored that he had brewed a werewolf-specific medical remedy for her.

It was completely out of character for the cold, self-centered Alpha she knew.

Seeing her frozen in the doorway, Mortimer urged her in a low voice, “Go. It’ll lose its potency if it gets cold.”

Seraphina snapped out of it, quickly hiding her inappropriate shock, and nodded. “Okay. Thank you.”

When she got to the dining table, a white porcelain mug was sitting there, steam curling off the surface.

Seraphina sat down and took a small sip.

The spicy, bitter herbal mix slid down her throat, instantly warming and smoothing out her pheromones, which had grown sluggish from the freezing rain.

Mortimer leaned against the kitchen counter, trying to sound completely ensual. “Where were you earlier? How did you get so soaked?”

Seraphina’s hand paused on the mug.

Her hair got wet when she was running out of the Pet Clinic.

But she had zero intention of sharing that piece of information.

She knew damn well that Mortimer had absolutely no interest in dogs.

In his elite, arrogant worldview, fragile little lives like that probably didn’t even have the right to “exist.”

Subconsciously, she was terrified of letting him find out about Dash.

She lowered her eyelashes, smoothly throwing out a fake alibi. “I just took a detour and patrolled the Pack borders on my way back.”

Mortimer didn’t suspect a thing. He just gave a low hum of approval.

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