The room felt suffocating as tension swirled like a storm, thick and inescapable.
Talia stood smugly before me, her words still hanging in the air like poison. “I just said the truth. Kael needs strength, not a mother who loses her head over every little thing.”
My vision blurred with tears and rage, the weight of her condescension breaking something deep within me. Before I could think, my hand flew up and connected with her cheek. The sharp crack of the slap echoed through the den, freezing everyone in place.
Talia gasped, her hand flying to her reddening cheek. “Did you just—”
“Yes, I did,” I spat, my voice trembling with unbridled fury. “And I’ll do it again if you dare speak about my son like you know anything!”
Lucian was on his feet in an instant, his eyes blazing with anger. His wolf rippled beneath the surface, evident in the hard set of his jaw and the growl in his voice. “How dare you, Seraphina?”
I turned to him, chest heaving, expecting—hoping—for him to finally stand beside me, to defend us. But his next words shattered me.
“How dare you lay a hand on your sister?”
His words struck like a whip, leaving me momentarily stunned. “Sister?” I repeated, my voice cracking. “That’s all you see her as? Not the woman who’s been undermining your mate and disrespecting your family at every turn?”
“Sera—”
“No,” I cut him off, stepping closer, desperate to make him see reason. “I’m your mate, Lucian. Your mate. The woman who bore your child, who has fought for this family every single day. Why are you defending her over me? Over us?”
He glared at me, his expression as cold and distant as it had been for months. When he finally spoke, his words sliced deeper than any blade.
“Because you’ve always been the problem, Sera. You lash out, you overreact, and you expect everyone else to clean up the mess. Maybe this bond was never real.”
The air left my lungs as if I’d been struck. “You… you don’t mean that,” I whispered, my voice barely audible.
Lucian’s jaw tightened, but he said nothing more, his silence screaming louder than any words.
Talia, still holding her cheek, let out a humorless laugh. “This is exactly what I mean, Sera. Always making everything about you. You’re exhausting.”
Something inside me snapped, the tether of restraint fraying to nothing. “Get out,” I said, my voice low and deadly calm.
Talia raised a brow. “Excuse me?”
“I said get out! Before I do something we’ll both regret,” I growled, my wolf surfacing, teeth bared in warning.
Lucian stepped between us, his hand raised in a pathetic gesture of control. “Enough, Seraphina. You’re embarrassing yourself.”
I stared at him, my mate, the man who was supposed to protect me, to stand with me. But there was nothing left to fight for in his eyes—only disappointment, as though I was the weight dragging him down.
Tears threatened to spill, but I refused to let them fall in front of him. “No, Lucian,” I said, my voice cracking. “You’re the embarrassment. To our bond, to our son, to everything we’ve built. And you don’t even care.”
"And you, Talia, shame on you for being an attention seeker whore!"
