Ex-Mate Wants Me Back (Seraphina and Mortimer) novel Chapter 62

Chapter 62

Third Person’s POV

+15 Bonus

Vivian kept whimpering, her voice thick with a cloying, needy kind of grief. “I know Seraphina took it the wrong way. Maybe I’m just too used to leaning on you, Morty… Inever meant to challenge her. I never meant to mess with your contract.”

She crawled closer, crouching at Mortimer’s feet Ike a stray pup looking for a hand-out. She reached out, her fingers inching

toward his thigh.

Mortimer recoiled. It was a visceral, physical rejection.

Vivian’s eyes flashed with a dark, jagged resentment for a split second before she doubled down on the waterworks. “Morty… do you think I’m just a useless burden too?”

Mortimer kept his head down, letting the fever-dream haze swirl in his skull. He didn’t say a word.

Seeing the “fragile girl” act losing its edge, Vivian’s sobbing trailed off into a frustrated, messy silence.

“Morty…”

“If she took it the wrong way, it means we’ve overstepped,” Mortimer said suddenly. His voice was a shredded rasp, but it was

hard as flint.

Vivian’s head snapped up. She looked like she’d been slapped.

“You’re going to find your own mate eventually. You shouldn’t be coming to me for everything. It’s not just my mate-your future partner won’t appreciate it either.”

Mortimer’s tone was clinical, borderline cruel. “From now on, if you need anything, call Tade. He’ll handle it.”

The shock in Vivian’s eyes curdled into something manic. The obsession baked into her DNA started to breach the dam.

“You’re sick of me? You’re kicking me out of the pack?”

Her face went paper-white. Her voice hit a shrill, distorted frequency. She started shaking her head, a rhythmic, neurotic twitch. “I knew it. I shouldn’t be alive. A broken omega like me deserves to die in the dirt. I’m a burden. A damn burden. I should… just kill myself…”

Mortimer saw the instability spiking in her aura. He fought through a wave of vertigo and grabbed her shoulders. “Vivian! Snap out of it!”

But Vivian was gone, lost in a toxic hallucination. “I made you fight with her. I broke your home. A homewrecker like me should just bleed out…”

Her eyes went bloodshot, fixed on the floor.

Then it happened. Her hand underwent a jagged, partial shift-nails exploding into five silver, razor-sharp wolf claws.

“Damn it!” she shrieked. She brought the claws up, aiming straight for the pulse point on her own wrist.

“Vivian!” Mortimer didn’t have time to think. He lunged, his bare hand clamping over the lethal claws just as they swung down.

The sound of metal-hard bone slicing through skin was a dull, wet thud.

Deep, crimson blood sprayed across the floor, soaking the wolf-claws and dripping through Mortimer’s fingers in heavy, rhythmic beats. It bloomed across the white carpet like a sick joke.

The smell of blood snapped Vivian back. She let out a piercing scream. The claws retracted, turning back into soft human hands. “Morty! Oh god, Morty!”

She tried to grab his hand, but he jerked away.

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Chapter 62

+15 Bonus

The pain was a white-hot hammer against Mortimer’s skull.

He tried to summon Barton, tried to trigger the Alpha healing factor to seal the gash, but the fever had left his wolf sidelined and exhausted.

Vivian was screaming, clutching at his arm, her grip only making the wound bleed faster.

Mortimer hissed through his teeth, ready to shove her off for good, when the front door clicked open.

Seraphina walked in.

The tableau was a nightmare: Vivian on her knees at Mortimer’s feet, their hands tangled together, heads close. From the doorway, it looked like a desperate, intimate embrace.

Mortimer looked up. The second he locked eyes with Seraphina, a wave of pure, unadulterated panic crashed over him.

He shoved Vivian aside with enough force to send her sprawling and scrambled to his feet, swaying as he moved toward his

mate.

“It’s not what it looks like…” The explanation was thin and frantic. He sounded nothing like an Alpha.

Seraphina didn’t move. Her expression was a flat line. Her eyes tracked downward, landing on the massive pool of blood soaking into the sofa cushions. Her brow gave a tiny, almost imperceptible twitch.

“Who’s bleeding?” Her voice was so calm it felt like it belonged in a different room.

The second the words left her mouth, Mortimer thrust his mangled hand toward her. “It’s me,” he rasped.

He took a stubborn step forward, making sure she saw the damage, his voice dropping into a low, needy whisper. “I’m the one

who’s hurt.”

Seraphina looked at the palm of his hand.

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