Page 71 of Fat Arranged Mate
Our cottage appears through the trees, windows dark.
Wrong. Sera always leaves a light on.
"Sera!" I call, bursting through the door.
Silence answers.
The living room is chaos—chairs overturned, papers scattered across the floor. Blood—fresh, hers—smears the doorframe. A struggle.
My wolf howls inside my skull, rage and terror colliding into something primal and unstoppable. The kitchen table lies on its side, one leg shattered. On the floor beside it, her phone—its screen cracked, a missed call notification blinking. Me, calling from the road.
Too late.
I drop to my knees in the wreckage of our temporary home, surrounded by evidence of the life we pretended to havewhile discovering the one we could. Her scent fills my lungs—lavender and antiseptic mingled with fear and blood.
She's gone.
Chapter 25 - Sera
Consciousness returns to me in jagged pieces.
First, pain—a relentless throb at the base of my skull that pulses with each heartbeat. Then, sensations—cold metal against my wrists, rough wood beneath my legs, stale air filling my lungs. Finally, awareness—I'm bound to a chair in a room I don't recognize.
I keep my eyes closed, feigning continued unconsciousness while my other senses map my surroundings. The antiseptic smell suggests medical supplies nearby. There’s the soft whirring of a generator or heater. Two people breathing—one close, one near what sounds like a door. Neither is Dylan.
Dylan.
Memory floods back—the cottage door splintering inward, a figure rushing me in the dark. Reaching for the phone, desperate to call for Dylan. The sickening crack of something hard against my skull. Darkness.
"I know you're awake." Diane's voice, clinical and cold.
I open my eyes, blinking against harsh fluorescent light. We're in what appears to be the back room of a hunting cabin, converted into a makeshift medical space. Plastic sheets cover the windows. A metal table holds medical supplies—gauze, antiseptics, syringes. Restraints bind my wrists to the chair arms, ankles to the legs.
"Where am I?" My voice emerges raw, throat parched.
"Somewhere safe," Diane says, adjusting an IV stand beside her. She's traded her nurse's scrubs for practical pants and a black shirt. "Safe for us, that is."
The second person comes into view—a man in Guardian gear, hand resting on his holstered weapon. I don't recognize him.
"What do you want?" I ask, testing the restraints subtly. Tight, but not circulation-cutting tight. Promising.
"Answers." Diane pulls up a stool, sitting directly in front of me. "Starting with who you really are."
I force a confused expression. "What are you talking about? I'm Sera Winters—"
"No records exist for any Sera Winters we can find born in the last fifty years." She cuts me off, voice flat. "No marriage certificate. No employment history. Nothing."
My heart rate spikes, but I maintain the bewildered facade. "There must be some mistake. Dylan and I have been married for—"
"Stop lying." She leans forward. "We've been watching you since your second week here. The questions at the clinic. Your interest in our patients. Your husband's convenient appearances during hunts."
The man by the door shifts impatiently. "Just give her the silver and be done with it. Sheriff wants this wrapped up while they deal with the husband."
Deal with Dylan.
Terror spikes through me, sharp and cold.
"Where's Dylan?" I demand, abandoning pretense. "What have you done with him?"
