Chapter: 27

He braced his hand on her arm, and I had to grip the edge of the glass door to stop myself from flying across the room and ripping his hand off her and then off his body.

"So that's it?" Ethan's cutting voice stalled their steps. "You can't even bother to acknowledge your family?"

Sera turned back to us with a sardonic laugh. "Family?" She pointed to me, and for some reason, my breath hitched. "He's not my family anymore." Her finger slid from me and waggled between Celeste and Ethan. "And you two? Never really be to begin with."

Celeste bristled. "You absolutely have no grounds to be this much of a bitch all the time."

"Save the lecture, princess," Sera snapped back without missing a beat. "I just survived an hour of hell. I'm not sticking around for yours."

Celeste choked back a shocked gasp, and her tightened grip on the back of my shirt snapped me out of my momentary shock.

"Don't talk to her that way," I growled, stepping forward, blocking Celeste from Sera's view.

Sera didn't flinch. Instead, she took a deliberate step toward me, her chin lifting. "Or what, Kieran?"

My eyebrow rose to my hairline. Who was this stranger, and what had she done with the meek, demure Seraphina I'd been married to for ten years?

The man reached out and grabbed Sera's hand. "Hey," he said in a calm voice. "Let's all just-"

"Stay out of this," I growled, glaring at their joined hands. "This is a family affair. No one needs you meddling-whoever the fuck you are."

The man chuckled and took a step forward, standing next to Sera. "I'm Alpha Lucian Reed of Shadowveil pack and the President of the organization that owns this building we're standing in."

I finally had an identity for this meddlesome stranger, and I didn't like it one bit. But if he thought his credentials were going to make me cower, he had another thing coming. Every male in here was a fucking Alpha.

"And like Sera said," he continued, "none of you are truly her family. She belongs to none of you. In fact, we might find that down the road, I become more like family to her than any of you."

My brain short-circuited, not quite processing what he just said. Sera, too, looked at him, her eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

He smiled at her and brought her hand to his lips. "I plan to court her," he announced to the room, but his gaze was trained on her. "So I'd better start protecting her interests now."

Okay, I was wrong earlier. This right now was the most rage I'd ever felt in my life.

The room froze. Even Sera's breath hitched. Then, with a smirk that made my vision pulse red, Lucian turned and strode out, pulling her behind him like a goddamn prize.

The soft thud of the door of their training room seemed to vibrate through me.

"What the hell?" Celeste's whisper cut through the silence.

She leaned into me, her hand rubbing up and down my chest. "Can you believe them? What kind of stunt is she trying to pull?"

But I wasn't hearing her, not really.

All I could see as I stared at the door was Lucian and Sera's intertwined hands. All I felt was this confusing thing-this primal, irrational fury-burning through me like acid.

Gavin's voice echoed in my head, the conversation from last week slamming back into focus: