Ex-Mate Wants Me Back (Seraphina and Mortimer) novel Chapter 46

Chapter 46

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Mortimer’s face instantly went pitch black, looking like he’d just swallowed a live fly.

“I’m driving you to the clinic” He refused to let go, a bizarre, almost frantic stubbornness burning in his eyes.

He stared at me, looking like he desperately wanted to say something, a flicker of pants hiding deep in his eyes-a panic I doubt he even realized was there.

My heart skipped a beat without warning.

Was he… actually caring about me?

But the exact second the thought surfaced, I ruthlessly suffocated it with a cold scoff.

Yeah, right.

Just then, a patrol of Pack guards walked past outside, their eyes landing on us with obvious curiosity.

Not wanting to make a scene, I had no choice but to bite the bullet and compromise, letting him drag me back toward the garage.

Mortimer rarely drove himself, and the chances of sitting in his passenger seat were practically zero.

Yet, in the span of two days, I had somehow occupied the spot next to him twice.

I pulled my lips into a self-deprecating smirk and kept a dead silence for the entire ride.

The Cullinan pulled into the private parking lot of the healing center. Just as we slid perfectly into the VIP spot, we ran straight into Vivian stepping out of a pack transport vehicle.

Naturally, she recognized Mortimer’s car instantly. She gathered her dress and practically sprinted over, miraculously forgetting her supposedly weak legs. “Morty!”

But the moment the door swung open and she saw me step out of the passenger seat, the bright, glowing smile on her face completely died.

She glared at me, her eyes suddenly dripping with unfiltered, toxic venom.

“Morty… the ‘business’ you had to take care of was personally driving her here?” She looked frantic, the tears she always kept on standby instantly flooding her eyes.

She bit her pale lower lip hard, clutching the fabric over her chest. Her voice grew sharp, crossing the line into a hysterical, theatrical whine. “You were never like this before… Did she force you to do this?”

She actually forgot to maintain her harmless, innocent facade in front of Mortimer, pointing an accusing finger straight at me.

A second later, her pheromones exploded into the air. The chaotic, foul-smelling scent made me frown in disgust.

Almost simultaneously, Mortimer frowned too.

“Vivian, remember your place.” Mortimer stepped forward, using his massive frame to completely shield me from her. “I don’t need to report my passengers to you.”

Vivian’s expression froze, a flash of genuine fear crossing her eyes.

She never expected Mortimer to actually rip her a new one just to defend me. But her ability to flip the script was faster than turning a page. In the blink of an eye, she reeled in all her hostility, slapping on her signature pitiful mask as fat tears rolled down her cheeks.

“I’m sorry, Morty, I didn’t mean to question you! I was just… I was just so scared. I thought you were going to abandon me, I—”

Before she could even finish her sentence, her eyelashes fluttered shut. Letting out an obnoxiously delicate gasp, she collapsed forward, aiming her fainting spell with laser precision straight into Mortimer’s arms.

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Chaptn 4

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Chapter 46

Third Person’s POV

“Vivian!”

Seeing Vivian drop straight backward toward the hard asphalt, Mortimer panicked.

Driven purely by reflex, he shot his hands out and caught her before she could smash her head on the ground.

Standing a few feet away, Seraphina watched the entire performance with eyes as cold as ice, not moving a single muscle.

Mortimer might have been blinded by his own panic, but as a top-tier medical professional, Seraphina read the situation instantly. The complete lack of genuine distress in Vivian’s fluctuating pheromones gave it away immediately-she was completely faking it.

But Seraphina had zero intention of doing Mortimer the favor of exposing.her.

She knew damn well that if she opened her mouth to call out the act right now, Mortimer would just twist it into another example of his Luna being a heartless, jealous bitch.

To save herself the exhausting, pointless drama, she didn’t say a single word. She just turned on her heel, ready to walk away.

“Seraphina!”

She had barely taken two steps before Mortimer’s low, raspy shout-heavy with extreme anxiety-barked from behind her.

Seraphina glanced over her shoulder. Mortimer had already scooped the “unconscious” Vivian up into his arms, carrying her bridal style.

His dark, intense eyes locked onto her. “Come look at her! She just passed out!”

“My specialty is cardiothoracic surgery,” Seraphina replied, her voice completely flat.

“But you’re a healer-” Before Mortimer could even finish his sentence, a violent, agonizing tear ripped through their mating

bond.

It felt like a pair of invisible hands was ruthlessly shredding the primal tether connecting their souls. 1

The sudden, extreme backlash of rejection drained the blood from both of their faces, turning them deathly pale.

Mortimer’s breathing abruptly hitched.

Inside his chest, his wolf was roaring in absolute, chaotic agony.

Seraphina took a deep breath, raising a hand to point directly at the massive architecture looming right in front of them. “That building right there is literally the healing center. The time you just spent harassing me in the parking lot was more than enough time to carry her inside and find the triage doctor on duty.”

The look in her eyes didn’t carry a single ripple of emotion.

That suffocatingly calm, totally detached gaze made Mortimer’s heart violently violently spasin.

In that split second, it felt like Seraphina had just stepped a million miles away from him.

Reality finally crashed down on him. Because of Vivian’s so-called condition, his reflexes had been conditioned to overreact. But he kept completely ignoring one glaring fact: Seraphina had absolutely no obligation to absorb his toxic anxiety.

“Sera, just now… I didn’t mean it like that. I just panicked…” He opened his mouth, his voice cracking with a pathetic, desperate edge.

“Go inside,” Seraphina cut him off effortlessly. She turned back around, not giving him a second glance as she walked straight

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Chapter 46

toward the main administrative building.

Mortimer stared at her retreating back, biting his lip so hard it almost bled.

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The dull, radiating agony deep within his soul was still spreading, yet he was stuck holding this “unconscious” woman in his arms. He forcefully strangled the overwhelming urge to drop Vivian and chase after his mate, instead turning and jogging toward the main lobby.

But miraculously, before he could even scream for a doctor, the exact second they crossed the sliding glass doors into the lobby… Vivian “woke up.”

“Morty…” she murmured, fluttering her eyes open with an incredibly practiced look of confusion. “What just happened to me?”

Seeing her awake, Mortimer let out a breath of relief. “You passed out out of nowhere.”

He immediately set her down on her own two feet, taking a quick, deliberate step back to put distance between them.

His brain was entirely consumed by the dead, freezing look in Seraphina’s eyes when she walked away, and the agonizing phantom pain still throbbing from the backlash of their mating bond.

“Ah… my somatic symptoms must be acting up again.”

Vivian hit the side of her own head with a look of deep frustration, her eyes swimming with manufactured guilt. “I must have just gotten too emotional. I’m so useless. I made you worry again, Morty…”

She bit her pale lower lip, looking absolutely devastated by her own fragility.

Mortimer just stared at her.

He knew she had saved his life, and he knew that trauma had supposedly caused this illness.

He used to willingly drop everything to cater to her demands. But right now, standing in this lobby, an uncontrollable, suffocating wave of pure exhaustion and annoyance violently surged in his chest.

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