The Alpha's Unclaimed Mate novel Chapter 130

Chapter 130: Breaking Up A Royal Bitch Fight: His Balls Said Goodbye.

"Say that again," Bellatrix said, in a tone that could have frozen over every circle of hell and still had cold to spare.

"Your affair. With Gavriel Sterling. Dexmon’s best friend. A man the same age as your son."

"You wouldn’t."

"Try me."

"You would never say a word about that." Bellatrix’s voice dropped and she leaned back in her chair, watching Serena the way a cat watches a mouse that just tried to bite. "Because the only way to expose me is to expose him. And we both know you don’t have the stomach for that."

Serena crossed the space between them and leaned down until she was level with Bellatrix’s eyes. Close enough to see the thing Bellatrix never let anyone see. The mask had seams.

"Bet," Serena said.

Bellatrix’s mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. She looked like a woman who had been handed a foreign object and told it was a weapon.

Three decades of court politics. Four languages. A vocabulary that could flay a man alive at fifty paces. And this girl had just countered all of it with a single syllable.

"Gavriel is Dexmon’s age. He’s not the one having an affair. You are. You are the married one. You are the one with a crown and a husband and a kingdom watching. Gav is a twenty-something-year-old man. The court will call him reckless. They’ll call you a predator." She paused, letting it land. "And while we’re listing things the court will find interesting, how many times have you poisoned me? Openly? Because I’ve lost count, and I think the kingdom might like a refresher."

Bellatrix stood.

The slap came fast. Hard. The crack of palm against cheek echoed off the stone walls, and Serena’s head snapped to the side.

Serena’s cheek bloomed hot and she tasted copper.

Bellatrix resorting to hitting meant Bellatrix was nervous. Her bluff worked. She’d never compromise Gav. But she would rattle this bitch any day of the week.

Serena turned her head back. Looked Bellatrix dead in the eyes.

SMACK.

The sound was sharper than the first one. Bellatrix’s head jerked. Her hand flew to her face. Her eyes were wide. As if no one, in her entire life, had ever hit her back.

Fifteen minutes ago Serena had been crying in a broom closet. Now she was bitch-slapping a Queen. The trajectory of her day was truly remarkable.

Bellatrix recovered in half a second. Because of course she did. She was Bellatrix Drakenfell, and she had not survived three decades in this court by being slow.

She grabbed Serena by the front of her dress and shoved her into the wall. Serena’s back hit stone. The air punched out of her lungs.

This dress was borrowed. Elara was going to kill her. Assuming Bellatrix didn’t finish the job first.

Bellatrix pulled her hand back for another slap.

Serena caught her wrist.

Bellatrix’s eyes widened again. Serena might be thin, but her grip didn’t budge.

"Let go of me," Bellatrix hissed.

"No."

Bellatrix yanked her wrist. It didn’t move. She yanked harder. Nothing. Her composure cracked, just a fraction, and she swung with her other hand.

Serena caught that one too.

They stood there, locked together, Bellatrix pinning Serena to the wall, Serena holding both of the Queen’s wrists in a grip that should not have been possible from a girl her size. Bellatrix’s chest heaved. Serena’s didn’t.

If this bothered Bellatrix, and it clearly did, she hid it about as well as she hid her affair.

She pulled again. Then once more, as if the third attempt might yield different results.

"Are you finished?" Serena asked.

Bellatrix headbutted her.

The ghost of every Drakenfell queen rolled over in their crypts. It wasn’t graceful or regal. It was the single most undignified thing a Queen of Drakenfell had ever done in the history of the bloodline, and it connected with Serena’s nose hard enough to make her vision white out for a full second.

Serena released her wrists.

Blood ran from her nose, over her lips, down her chin. She wiped it with the back of her hand, looked at the gold smear, and then looked at Bellatrix, who was breathing hard and already regretting the headbutt because her forehead was throbbing and she was too proud to touch it.

"Did you just headbutt me?"

"Self-defense," Bellatrix corrected, voice clipped, as if she hadn’t just used her skull as a weapon. "You were restraining me."

"You slapped me."

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