Page 48 of Claimed By My Fiancé's Brother

So this was the bodyguard who Seraphina had almost eloped with, causing her father to have her strictly monitored and locked up in her room.

He seemed sweet, but I knew from experience that daughters of alphas almost never mated with wolves they had feelings for. They had to mate to make an alliance that benefited the pack.

“West, this is Alexander’s mate and my sister-in-law,” Seraphina said, her words tripping over one another. “Eleanor, this is West, your new trainer. I’ll see you later. Bye!”

She dropped a kiss on my cheek and she hurried off as if her pants were on fire.

West’s eyes tracked her across the field until she disappeared into the tree line.

The poor boy was besotted.

His gaze returned to mine and he flushed with embarrassment when he realized I’d been watching him.

“I’m sorry. Seraphina and I—” he began to explain, but I shook my head.

“It’s fine. You don’t have to explain yourself to me.”

After all, he was doing me a favor.

Last night at the coronation, Seraphina and I had spoken at length about her father, her attempted elopement, and how she was my only friend in this pack.

Somehow, the incident at the training grounds had come up, and she’d started crying, saying she’d failed me as my sister-in-law because she hadn’t been there to “defend my honor.”

I’d tried to placate her, to no avail. Then she’d stopped crying almost as suddenly as she’d begun, an almost scary gleam in her eyes. I was going to have a personal trainer, she declared, and she knew just the person for the job.

At this point, I knew that the Nightshade Pack was filled with the most unusual people, but I was starting to think I liked that.

A lot.

“Do you have a goal in mind for your training?” West asked softly, his calm demeanor the complete opposite of Seraphina’s chaos.

“Not really…I mean, I’ve never trained before.” I shook my head. “I wasn’t allowed to in my former pack.”

West didn’t seem surprised. He just nodded.

“All right, then. We’ll start with the basics.”

For someone so soft-spoken, West was a ruthless trainer. I understood the reason why he’d been made Seraphina’s bodyguard.

After some warm-up stretches that were supposed to loosen up my body but left me feeling like I’d dislocated most of my joints, we worked on the basics.

We practiced posturing, observation, fighting stances, and breaking holds, as well as connecting better with my wolf to optimize my strength without letting her take over completely in a fight.

As I walked back to Alexander’s residence a few hours later, it was with a sweaty, achy body that wanted nothing more than a bed to crash on.

I was to report every day to that patch of woods for training. Goddess, I was already dreading it, but it couldn’t be helped—not if I wanted to be able to defend myself.

At least Alexander was at a meeting in the pack house, so I didn’t have to worry about facing him immediately after what happened last night.

No sooner had that thought popped into my head than a group of pack warriors appeared in front of me.

Their leader, a lady with a close-cropped buzzcut, bowed slightly to me, and the others behind her followed suit.

“You have been summoned by the alpha of the pack,” she informed me.

Dylan wanted to see me? Why?

Besides, wasn’t he in the meeting with Alexander?

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