Chapter 13: Focus!

~Elara~

The words caught me completely off guard.

Kaelan had a betrothed? Of course he did. He was a prince, apparently. An heir to a throne. Men like that didn't stay single. They had political matches and arranged marriages and polished women like this one.

I shouldn't have cared. In fact, I didn't care. Kaelan meant nothing to me. Whatever we had shared was dead and buried, and I had no interest in digging it up.

"Congratulations," I said with obvious disinterest. "I'm sure you'll be very happy together."

Seraphina's eyes narrowed. She studied me with the kind of intense scrutiny that made me want to check if I had something on my face.

"You spent the night in this house," she said slowly. "Ate at their table, and slept under their roof. Yet you speak to me as if we are equals."

I shrugged. "We're both women standing in a corridor. Seems pretty equal to me."

Her nostrils flared, delicately, of course. Even her anger was elegant.

"You are a human," she said, and the word dripped with contempt. "A nobody. You have no bloodline, no status, no place in this world. The only reason you are here is because Rhys has a weakness for strays, and Kaelan is too polite to throw you out."

I felt the beginning of anger rising in me, but I told myself to hold it in.

"My daughter is sick," I said quietly. "She needs help. That's the only reason I'm here. Trust me, the moment she's well enough to travel, we'll be gone. You can have your princes and your palace and your precious bloodlines all to yourself."

Seraphina smiled, but it was not a nice one.

"Your daughter," she scoffed. "Yes, I heard about her. A half-blood child, they say. How unfortunate. Though I suppose that's what happens when humans breed outside their species. The offspring are always... defective."

She definitely hit a nerve with that one. I was officially pissed off by that word ‘defective’.

I felt my temper rise. My nails dug into my palms hard enough to draw blood. I took a step forward, every instinct screaming at me to grab this woman by her perfect hair and show her exactly what happens when someone insults my child.

"Listen to me very carefully," I said, and my voice came out nothing like my usual tone. "You can say whatever you want about me. I don't care. But if you ever, ever speak about my daughter like that again, I will—"

"You'll what?" A voice interrupted from behind.

We both turned to see Damien walking in slowly towards us.

I recognized him immediately, even though I had only seen him briefly at dawn. He was the one who had called my daughter fascinating and then looked at me like I was a puzzle he wanted to solve.

But last night he had been clothed. Now he was not. He was shirtless; fresh from a morning run, apparently, because his skin glistened with a light sheen of sweat.

His chest was broad and sculpted, the kind of chest that belonged on magazine covers or Renaissance sculptures. His muscles rippled beneath his skin as he moved. His abs were defined with perfect ridges leading down to the waistband of his low-slung sweatpants.

And his nipples…

God, why am I looking at his nipples?

They were pronounced; darker than the surrounding skin. It was the kind of detail I absolutely should not be noticing about a stranger.

What the heck is wrong with you, Elara? Focus!

I jerked my gaze up to his face, heat flooding my cheeks.

He was smirking. Of course he was smirking. He knew exactly what he looked like. He must know exactly the effect he had. Men who looked like that always did.

"Seraphina," he said, his tone pleasant. "Terrorizing our guests so early in the morning? That's not very hospitable."

Seraphina's expression smoothed back into sweet. "I was merely introducing myself and getting to know the human your brothers dragged in from the rain."

"Mmm." Damien hummed, moving closer."Funny," he continued, still smiling that lazy smile. "It sounded less like an introduction and more like you were insulting a four-year-old child who happens to be unconscious upstairs."

Seraphina laughed half-heartedly. "I was simply stating facts. The child is half-blood. We don't even know what kind of wolf the human threw herself at. Besides, everyone knows that half-bloods are—"

"Careful." Damien's voice dropped, losing all its playfulness. His golden eyes went cold. "Be very, very careful about the next words that come out of your mouth, Seraphina."

The atmosphere in the corridor changed. It felt tense, like something was about to happen.

Seraphina's eyes twitched but she said nothing. For all her arrogance, she recognized a warning when she heard one.

Damien held her gaze for a long moment, then the tension broke, and that easy smile slid back into place like it had never left.

"Run along," he said, waving a dismissive hand. "I'm sure you have important future-queen things to do. Like practicing your royal wave and choosing which servants to terrorize. Whatever it is you do with your time."

Seraphina's eyes flashed with fury, but she was smart enough not to push. She shot me one last venomous look, then turned on her heel and walked away.

I watched her go, my hands still shaking with suppressed rage.

"You're welcome, by the way."

I turned back to Damien. He was leaning against the wall now, arms crossed over that ridiculously good looking chest, watching me with open amusement.

"I didn't need your help," I snapped.

"No?" One eyebrow rose. "Because it looked like you were about two seconds away from committing assault on the future Queen of the Thornwood territory. Which, while entertaining, would probably complicate your stay here."

I opened my mouth to argue, then closed it. He wasn't wrong.

"She called my daughter defective," I said defensively.

"I heard."

"If she ever says anything like that again—"

"She won't." He promised, his voice certain. "I'll make sure of it."

I blinked at him. "Why do you care?"

The question seemed to catch him off guard. He tilted his head, studying me with those distracting golden eyes, and for a moment the amusement in his face was gone. In its place was something so intense that almost made me breathless.

"I don't know," he said slowly. "That's what's interesting."

We stood there, staring at each other, not saying anything. I couldn't tear my eyes away from him, no matter how much I tried. It was almost as if there was something trying to pull me to this replica of my baby daddy.

"You know," he said, pushing off from the wall and moving toward me, "Seraphina isn't wrong about one thing."

I tensed. "What's that?"

He stopped in front of me. I could feel the heat radiating off his skin. I could see the individual droplets of sweat clinging to his collarbones and count the faint freckles scattered across his shoulders.

"You are out of place here," he said. "A human in a wolf's den. Surrounded by creatures you don't understand, playing by rules no one's explained to you."

My chin lifted stubbornly. "Is that supposed to scare me?"

"No." His eyes dropped to my mouth, lingered there for a moment before coming back up. "It's supposed to impress me. Because despite all of that, you're still standing here with your spine straight and your tiny inexistent claws out, ready to fight anyone who threatens your daughter."

He leaned closer, never breaking eye contact. His breath ghosted across my cheek.

"You're the most beautiful woman I've ever seen in my entire life," he murmured. “I would fight a million alpha princes for just a moment of your attention. So I completely understand why Seraphina feels threatened."