Chapter 160 No Claws Toward People

Watching Alpha Sebastian stagger from the kick, Lila and Mrs. Jones quietly raised their hands and gave two slow, soft claps.

Nice. Well kicked.

Eira’s first instinct wasn’t to look at Alpha Sebastian. It was to look at the man beside her.

Alpha Killian’s eyes held something Eira had never seen in them. Pure, cold contempt. The look you’d give roadkill on the shoulder of the highway.

His voice matched it, low and edged. "Alpha Sebastian. An animal doesn’t get to put its paws on a person. Count yourself lucky a boot’s all you got."

Alpha Sebastian caught his balance. Even through the sting, his eyes went to Eira.

She wasn’t looking at him. She hadn’t looked at him once. Her whole attention was fixed on the man beside her, quiet and steady, the way she used to look at him years ago, before he taught her not to bother.

The jealousy came up his throat fast. He forced it back down. He’d come to make peace, not to detonate.

He pulled in a breath and gentled his voice. "Eira. Come here. Come to me."

The hand at her waist tightened. No warning, just a sudden, deliberate pressure, fingers spreading against her side, holding her in place. Like Alpha Killian genuinely thought she might get up and cross the room to him.

Eira felt it before she understood it. The warmth of his palm through her clothes, the quiet certainty in the way he held on, like the answer had already been decided and he was simply making sure of it.

She glanced down at the hand splayed over her side. Her pulse did something strange.

The first time he’d held her here, it was so Alpha Sebastian couldn’t drag her off. That she understood. That was protection.

But Alpha Sebastian wasn’t touching her now. Nobody was dragging her anywhere. So what was this hand for?

She didn’t dare look up at him.

She was suddenly, uncomfortably sure that if she did, she’d find him already watching her, already knowing exactly what that little catch in her breath meant.

So she kept her eyes on Alpha Sebastian instead, and made her voice flat and final. "Sebastian. Get out."

The second the words left her, the hand at her waist eased.

And that, somehow, unsettled her more than the holding had.

Alpha Killian turned to Mrs. Jones. "Call security. Have him removed."

"On it." But Mrs. Jones was already muttering as she went. "Security. By the time they show he’ll have taken root. I’ll handle it myself."

She came back with the broom from the mudroom and planted herself in front of Alpha Sebastian like a bouncer, blocking Alpha Killian and Eira behind her so he couldn’t even see the couch anymore.

"Here’s how this goes, Alpha Sebastian." She leveled the broom at his chest. "You get one polite ask, then it stops being polite. So. Walking out on your own, or you want to see what this thing can do?"

Lila called over from the table. "Just run him off, Mrs. Jones. Anything you tear, I’ll replace. Anything you bruise, I’ll cover the ER."

"You got it." Mrs. Jones jabbed the broom into his chest and started walking him backward. "Out. Come on. Out. Quit hounding Miss Crawford."

Alpha Sebastian, who lived and died by a clean shirt, batted at the bristles with a grimace, eyes still locked on Eira.

"Eira. You’re really going to stand there and let the Sterlings treat me like this?"

"You stood there and let the Hales treat me like this for four years." She got to her feet and started toward him.

He’d already been herded to the doorway. His heel found empty air, and though he didn’t fall, he was forced down off the threshold and out into the yard.

Eira came to the door and stood above him, high enough that he had to tilt his head up to see her.

"Eira, I know you’re mad about how my family treated you. I already tore into Isabella. And I changed the code on our place. Nobody walks in and out whenever they feel like it anymore."

Mrs. Jones leaned an elbow on the broom and scoffed. "Where was all that Alpha swagger before? Little late. Nobody’s buying."

"Wouldn’t feed that line to a dog," Lila said.

Alpha Sebastian acted like he didn’t hear them, eyes locked on Eira, pleading now. "Eira, let me get you a better place. We’ll buy somewhere better. Better than whatever rental Alpha Killian set you up in."

"You’ve got a filthy mind, Alpha Sebastian." Alpha Killian stepped out beside Eira, his shadow falling across her as he moved half a step in front of her.

"You buy women houses, so you figure every house a woman lives in must have been bought by some man." He let out a low, cold laugh.

Alpha Sebastian froze.

Eira picked it up, voice cool. "Sorry to disappoint. This house is mine."

"I’m sorry, Eira. I misread it." He scrambled to walk it back.

"You’ve misread me more times than I can count. You want to walk out on your own, or should Mrs. Jones walk you out with the broom?"

Something ached in Alpha Sebastian’s chest. He dropped his voice and his pride with it. "I know I got you wrong. I’ve said I’m sorry. Can’t you come home? I need you."

"You mean you need an unpaid live-in maid." Anger flared in Eira.

"Sebastian. If you’d spent even a fraction of that money on staff, you could’ve had ten housekeepers and lived like a king. You weren’t running things that lean because you had to. You just liked squeezing every last bit of work out of me."

"I swear, from now on, you control every penny." He meant it.

"And what would I want with your finances?" She almost laughed.

"Finances?" Lila ran a chilly look up and down him. "Big talk for a guy running on pocket change. Serena already bled you dry, didn’t she?" Her eyes traveled the length of him on the last word, plainly suggesting he’d been drained in more ways than one.

His neck went red.

"If Alpha Sebastian actually feels bad about how he treated Eira," Lila went on, "he’ll make Serena pay back every dime he spent on her."

Eira watched him, waiting for that answer too.

His lips parted. Nothing came out.

He’d just drawn his line with Serena, and the price of that clean break had been writing off every cent he’d ever spent on her.

His brow furrowed.

Eira had known he couldn’t answer. Or wouldn’t.

"Sebastian." She said his name.

His head came up at once, a faint light in his eyes, sure he was about to hear her let it all go.

Wishful thinking.

"You don’t even have to say a word to Serena," Eira said. "All you have to do is admit you two were lovers. That makes every dollar you spent on her money spent during our marriage. It’s a shared marital debt."

His eyes widened a fraction. She was genuinely working out how to claw that money back.

His fingers trembled at his side.

"Guess the apology wasn’t sincere after all." Alpha Killian glanced at Mrs. Jones.

"On it!" Mrs. Jones hoisted the broom and charged, driving it at his chest. "Out. Now. Move. And don’t come back. You show up here again, you get this again."

"The nerve. Cheats, keeps a mistress, and still struts around with his chin up. Lied to Miss Crawford for four years and that’s not enough, he wants to keep lying. Animal."

Alpha Sebastian backed toward the door under the assault, trying to get a word of explanation out, only for the broom to catch him full across the face.

"Ugh." Lila grimaced.

A small laugh slipped out of Eira before she could stop it.

Alpha Sebastian caught it. That laugh.

Worse than the broom in his face was the sight of Eira smiling because he’d been humiliated.

Did she really just... not care at all anymore?