The Alpha’s Rebellious Fiancee novel Chapter 20

Lyra (Seraphina)

The next morning, I was in the kitchen, trying to enjoy a peaceful moment with my tea and toast, away from Lucien, away from the tension, away from everything that made my heart feel like it was doing backflips.

Then he walked in.

Lucien.

Looking entirely too smug for someone who’d embarrassed me at a banquet and then acted like our almost-kiss was a smudge on his schedule.

He didn’t even greet me. Just walked in, grabbed an apple off the counter like he owned the world—which, okay, technically he would soon—and said, “You should come back to my quarters.”

I blinked at him, mid-sip.

I set the cup down. “Excuse me?”

“They’re questioning us,” he said, biting into the apple. “The guards, the elders, even the omegas. They think we’re fighting. Which—” he looked me up and down with that annoying smirk “—isn’t exactly false, but still. They can’t see cracks in the Alpha-Luna bond. It makes us look weak.”

I folded my arms. “And what if I don’t want to?”

He sighed, annoyed already. “Please don’t make this harder than it already is.”

I let out a loud, long, very dramatic sound of disapproval. “Ughhhhhh.”

He rolled his eyes. “What are you? Five?”

Before I could shoot back a clever reply, he walked over to me. And not just walked—stalked—like some predator about to pounce. I held my ground, because no way was I going to back down from Lucien Asher.

But then his hand shot out and wrapped gently—but firmly—around my throat.

Not choking. Just… holding.

My breath caught. What the hell. Why was my stomach doing flips? Were those—were those butterflies?

“You are such a pain in the ass,” he hissed, his face inches from mine, his breath warm on my cheek.

“So were you,” I shot back. And without thinking—literally without a single thought in my brain—I Taekwondo’d him.

A solid kick right to his side.

I glared up at him. “You’re such a child.”

“You’re the one who kicked a wounded Alpha.”

“You’re the one who grabbed my throat.”

“Touché,” he said with a wink.

Before I could respond with something equally snarky, the kitchen door swung open. A guard stood there, wide-eyed. “What is happening here?”

Lucien and I froze.

We were… literally tangled into each other. My leg was half hooked around his. His hand was pressed against my hip. My hair had fallen out of its bun and probably looked like a bird’s nest. We both scrambled to our feet so fast we nearly fell again.

“Nothing,” we said at the exact same time.

The guard raised an eyebrow but nodded and left, muttering something under his breath.

Lucien and I didn’t look at each other for a full ten seconds. Then I stole a glance. He was already looking at me. And I couldn’t deny it.

The spark. It was there.