Seraphina's POV
My head felt like absolute garbage when I woke up. You know that feeling when you're sick and everything's foggy? Yeah, that, but worse. My mouth tasted disgusting, like I had been french-kissing an old sock.
I blinked slowly and found my cheek pressed against the familiar rough fabric of my pillowcase. The bed creaked as I tried to move, and instantly I knew I was back in my lovely attic prison.
I tried to sit up, and immediately regretted it. Pain shot all across my back as memories came flooding back—Lira, the whip, the pain. But suddenly, my nose twitched. Something smelled different, like medicine.
Someone had treated my wounds again? Who? It could certainly not be Lira or her father. Did the pack doctor finally decide to show me mercy?
I looked down and froze. I was wearing a guy's shirt, backwards, with my back completely exposed. The shirt was way too big for me and smelled... really good. Like, embarrassingly good. It was the kind of scent that made you want to just bury your face in it.
Okay, that's weird. Whose shirt was this?
I was still trying to figure out when I turned my head and nearly had a heart attack. A gasp escaped my lips when my eyes fell on him. There he was—Alpha Adrian—sitting in the old wooden chair beside my bed, just casually scrolling through his phone like this was totally normal.
"What the hell are you doing in my room?" I scrambled backwards so fast I probably looked ridiculous.
The movement made my back scream in protest, but I was too freaked out to care. What the hell was he doing in my room? Was he here to kill me? Was I going to die in this cramped attic on this creaky old bed?
He looked up from his phone, and our eyes met. For just a second, something weird happened. I felt like this strange pull in my chest, drawing me toward him. But then reality crashed back down.
Get it together, Sera. This guy hates you.
I snapped out of whatever spell that was cast on me and glanced at him warily. "Are you here to kill me?"
Instead of answering, he stood up. God, he was tall. And the way he moved was just fluid and predatory. It should have been terrifying, and it was, but there was something else, too, that I didn't want to think about.
"Stay back!" I warned, grabbing the first thing I could find on my nightstand. I pointed it toward him threateningly, trying to look as fierce as possible. "You might be some great and ruthless Alpha, but if you're going to kill me, I'm not backing down without a fight!"
He stopped and looked at whatever I was holding. Then, I swear, his mouth almost twitched into a smile. "You are going to fight me with that?"
I looked down at my weapon, and instantly my face turned beet red. Of all the things I could have grabbed—a lamp, a book, even my old hairbrush—my brilliant survival instincts had led me to snatch up a half-empty tube of cherry-flavored lip balm.
Really, Sera? Threatening a deadly Alpha with cosmetics? What's next, offering to exfoliate his face?
My inner voice mocked me as I quickly threw the lip balm aside, my cheeks burning with embarrassment. "I was just... testing your reflex," I explained, trying to sound like this had been my plan all along instead of a mortifying accident.
Smooth, Sera. Really smooth.
Meanwhile, my hand frantically searched the nightstand again, and this time I grabbed something that actually felt promising. I looked at the old, rusty nail scissors in my hand and pointed them at him with renewed determination.
"Now this—this is a real weapon!" I declared, trying to inject some authority into my voice despite my racing heart.
He looked at my weapon, and slowly, a cold smile crept across his face. It was the kind of smile that said he found my resistance amusing rather than threatening. It made my stomach drop.
"Much better," he said, but he was definitely amused now. And why wouldn't he be? Even a mouse wouldn't be scared of me.
Just as I was contemplating what to do next, he climbed onto the bed. The old wood creaked under his weight, and suddenly my tiny room felt even smaller.
"I'm serious, stay back!" I warned, scooting back until I could feel the wall behind me. "Don't underestimate me!"
He laughed—actually laughed—and it was low and rough and did weird things to my stomach. Scared, I scooted back even more and was about to press myself against the wall when suddenly, he grabbed my wrist. "Don't," he warned, his eyes darkening slightly. "Your back..."
"Why do you care?" I interrupted, trying to stab him with the scissors, but he caught that hand too.
Now he was close, really close. I could feel his breath on my face, and those dark, chocolaty eyes were looking right at me like he could see everything I was thinking. I found myself drowning in them despite every logical thought screaming at me to look away.
My heart was pounding so hard I was sure he could hear it. There was this tension in the air, thick and electric, like something was about to happen. My whole body felt hyperaware of how close he was, how warm he was.
My stomach did this fluttery thing, and it felt like tiny electric shocks running all across my skin.
What the hell was happening to me? This was not the time for weird body reactions!
But even with all these confusing sensations, fear still dominated everything. This man hated me. He wanted me gone. My heart was beating so fast I thought it might explode.
"You... why are you getting so close to me?" I managed to whisper.
I felt flustered under his intense gaze, like he was seeing parts of me I didn't even know existed. Instead of answering, he leaned closer. My brain went into full panic mode, with my eyes slamming shut.
Oh god, what was he doing? Was he going to kiss me? Kill me? Both? This was so not how I imagined dying. Well, actually, I never really imagined the dying part in detail, but still—
That's when I felt his forehead touch mine gently. "No fever," he murmured, sounding relieved. That's good."
My eyes snapped open. He'd been checking if I had a fever? That made no sense. Why would he care?
"Is this your kink or something?" I blurted out, my brain apparently deciding that now was the perfect time to lose all its filters.