78 Chapter 78 FAMILY VACATION
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Everything about this place screamed order and vigilance. I could almost feel the weight of invisible eyes following my every move, guards posted where I couldn’t see them.
“After the last kidnapping attempt, I followed some new leads. We’ve identified a rogue network operating on the outskirts. It’s not the whole picture, but it’s enough to tighten the borders and remove the immediate threat to you. For now.”
I rolled down the window, my voice firm before he could say a word. “I’m here to see Alpha Kieran. It’s urgent.”
They exchanged glances. I caught the faint twitch at the corner of one guard’s mouth-a
trace of unease.
Celeste’s voice sharpened. “Now.”
“You’re letting me go to him,” I said slowly, as if speaking it aloud might cause the offer to
vanish.
Celeste made a sound of protest, but Kieran didn’t even glance her way. “Not now,
Celeste.”
His eyes lingered on me, unreadable. “There’s one more thing.”
My first instinct was to push back, to tell him that this was my visit, my time with Daniel, and I didn’t need his looming, overbearing presence shadowing every interaction.
The guards hesitated. I may not have been Luna, but I was once married to their Alpha. Celeste was a glorified stranger, and if what happened at her party was any indication, I doubted many of the pack members actually liked her.
The last thing I needed was another altercation with him in front of Daniel.
Fuck. How could I argue with that logic?
“It’s about my son,” I said sharply. “You know, your future Alpha?”
Had I ever been in this room? There had been so many parts of Kieran’s life I hadn’t been privy to.
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For a long moment, the silence between us felt almost tangible-layered with old
resentments, tangled history, and something else I didn’t want to acknowledge, let alone
name.
I stepped into his office, feeling Celeste’s glare on my back like a hot brand.
Then-surprise, edged with something unreadable. “Sera?”
The last time I’d been in this room…
The gates of the Nightfang Packhouse loomed ahead the next day, their wrought-iron curves glinting under the bright morning light.
The guards at the checkpoint stiffened as my car approached. They recognized me instantly, and one stepped forward, his hand lifted in a signal to halt.
“The Alpha’s in his office,” the older one finally said. “But he’s…occupied.”
His entire posture changed-shoulders squaring, jaw tightening, eyes sharpening like a blade honing its edge. “Inside,” he said.
Heat crept up my neck, not from embarrassment but from the sheer nerve of him thinking I couldn’t handle myself.
For a moment, I thought I’d misheard him.
“I’m going with you,” Kieran repeated, his voice like smooth granite-unyielding and final.
After all, I wasn’t their Luna. I was just the woman who trapped their Alpha in marriage
with my pregnancy.
What could possibly go wrong?
“Daniel.”
Suddenly, Kieran’s massive office seemed too small, like the walls were closing in on us. “Sit,” he said, moving around to the other side of his desk.
“I’m going with you.”
Still, I couldn’t stop myself. “Do you think I can’t handle a trip without you?” I asked,
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arching a brow.
My heels clicked on the polished stone floor, the sound sharp in the heavy silence that followed me. I ignored the glances from passing wolves, their whispers tucked behind wary expressions.
After a beat, the older guard muttered into his comm, then waved me through.
“Ma’am, we can’t just―”
“Oh, of course,” she drawled. “Always the dutiful mother. Convenient. But Kieran doesn’t owe you anything-” She turned to the guards stationed outside Kieran’s door.
Her voice dripped with false sweetness. “You make such a show of severing ties, yet here you are, running back when you need something. What is it this time, Sera? Another crisis only you can dramatize?”
“Leona called me,” I began. “She’s worried about Daniel. She says he’s been… withdrawn. Guarded. I called him myself. He…” My voice wavered for half a breath before I forced it steady. “The nutshell is that he misses home. Misses me.”
The corridors of the Nightfang Pack’s main building always felt colder than I remembered -like the walls themselves had been built to keep out warmth, not just the weather.
Celeste stepped out from an adjoining hallway as if she’d been waiting for me, her heels clicking in a deliberate, mocking rhythm. She looked perfectly poised in a sapphire dress that set off her eyes like poisoned jewels.
But now, I was back.
Kieran stared at me for one breathless, heated moment. And then he nodded.
“How?”
Her lips curved in a smile that was all mockery. “Well, well. Didn’t we agree to be strangers, dear sister? Yet here you are, haunting these halls like an uninvited ghost.”
Unfortunately for her, I was still in no mood to engage.
The place was buzzing softly-voices in rooms, footsteps in the distance-but the hallway leading to Kieran’s office was quiet.
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“Remove her. She’s trespassing.”
“Like I said, I’m here for Daniel.” My voice came out louder and sharper than I’d intended, and I fought back a cringe.
And now, I’d have to imagine it with him there-his presence impossible to ignore, his voice carrying across the sound of the ocean, his eyes finding mine when I least expected
Halfway down the hallway to Kieran’s office, my steps faltered, and my chest tightened. Ah, there it was. I didn’t know who that show of faked penitence she’d put on yesterday was for, but at least, here with just us two, she was being herself.
“Then unoccupy him,” I said.
Two days to prepare myself-not for the island, not for Daniel, but for the reality of being in close proximity to Kieran with no mode of escape but the big blue ocean.
“I don’t need-”
A faint, humorless smile tugged at his mouth. “I think it’s better if we don’t gamble with Daniel’s safety. And you forget, he’s my son too-I miss him. I’m not stopping you from seeing your son. Why should you stop me?”
That admission startled me. “Then-”
SERAPHINA’S POV
That shut him up.
A private island. Me, my son…and my ex-husband. A nice family vacation.
I didn’t slow down. “Move, Celeste. I have no time for you today.”
“I’ve been making arrangements for you to visit the island,” he cut in. “Security was the issue, but…” He tapped his fingers lightly against the desk. “Things have changed.”
Kieran’s eyes flickered, just barely—a flash of something I couldn’t read. Satisfaction? Relief? Triumph?
But I also knew he wasn’t entirely wrong. After all, if it weren’t for him, gods know what
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would have happened to me.
But after ten years, it all slid off my back like water off polyester.
I looked up at him, instinctively bracing myself for what he would say.
Relief rushed through me so fast it felt almost dizzying. I lowered myself into the chair opposite him, my posture still guarded but my pulse easing. “Thank you.”
Two days.
My hands tightened on the steering wheel, knuckles pale. I hadn’t been here since before Kieran and I got divorced, but even when I occasionally had reason to visit, I was treated with disdain-cold stares and sharp barbs-by the pack members.
“You’re…what?”
I didn’t.
It was downright maddening the way just the mere sound of my name from those sensual lips of his brought back a rush of the memories I’d tried so hard to suppress.
I stood there for a moment, processing his words. I had expected resistance, another fight
to justify my intention to visit my son. But instead, there was…agreement.
I sat back, crossing one leg over the other, trying to look far more relaxed than I felt. “Fine,” I said, though the word was more a reluctant exhale than agreement.
He closed the door behind us, shutting out the echo of Celeste’s irritation.
“I didn’t think you’d seek me out,” Kieran said, leaning against the edge of his desk. “Especially after…” His jaw flexed, remembering. “…last time.”
One of them took a step toward me-then stopped as the office door swung open. The long driveway stretched ahead, the main Packhouse rising at the end like a fortress of stone and glass.
“This isn’t about need,” he said, his gaze locking with mine, unwavering. “It’s about making sure nothing happens to you. Or to Daniel. I’m not trusting anyone else with that.” Kieran stood there, tall and sharply cut in a dark shirt, his expression cool until his gaze
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landed on me.
‘I’m here for Daniel,’ I told myself as I stepped out of my car, my resolve outweighing my hesitation. ‘Nothing else matters.’
I kept walking. My patience had been ground down to dust long before this conversation. “Believe what you like. I’m here for Daniel.”
“I want to see my son,” I said. No hesitation. “Not on a screen. Not over a call. I want to be there with him. And I don’t care about the security risks or whatever; I’ll do whatever it
takes to-”
“Yes.” His voice was quiet, but certain. “If that’s what you want, I’ll see it arranged. The sooner the better.”
“I already know,” he said finally. “My mother told me, too.”
He studied me for a beat too long, as though weighing the risk of whatever I was about to say. “About what?”
The office smelled faintly of leather and paper-orderly, controlled, with not a single thing out of place. It was very Kieran.
Kieran leaned back in his chair, his gaze searching my face.
I was already imagining the salt-scented air, the low hum of waves against the dock, the quiet of a place far removed from the mainland.
I folded my arms across my chest like that would stop my heart’s attempt to beat out of my chest. “We need to talk.”
A traitorous patch of heat bloomed in my chest, and it took all my willpower to slam a mental door on the emotions fighting to surface.
She pushed off the wall, falling into step beside me. “No time, or no courage to admit you’re here because you can’t stay away from him?”
He nodded once. “I’ll finalize the arrangements by tonight. We leave in two days.”
For Daniel-nothing else. I forced myself to remember that.
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