The Alpha's Unclaimed Mate novel Chapter 147

Chapter 147: Kicked It Clean, Maybelline, Baddest Shit They’ve Ever Seen

"She’ll show." The High General’s boots struck marble as he descended the dais. "We’ll start with this one."

He came to a halt before Fin.

Fin was kneeling, wrists bound in silver chains, and his breathing was labored. Blood dripped from a fresh wound on his temple.

The High General kicked him in the ribs.

He doubled over with a grunt of pain, hitting the floor. He didn’t scream. He hadn’t screamed in weeks. The screaming had been beaten out of him somewhere around day four, replaced by a silence that was worse.

Two guards pulled him back upright, but his head lolled forward.

From the side, Hyran and Aeron glanced at one another, both cuffed and unable to help.

In the hall, Serena’s vision went white at the edges and her body went rigid. Pain cracked across her ribs so hard her knees nearly buckled. For a terrifying second she thought she’d been stabbed. Then she understood. This wasn’t her pain. It was Fin’s, bleeding through the matebond like a signal fire.

Spine straight and chin lifted, she pushed open the double doors. Her insides were made entirely of ice water and adrenaline. If she survived this, she was going to sit down somewhere quiet and shake for an hour.

Elara followed a step behind, carrying the box under her arm with the grim determination of a woman who had been asked to do something disgusting and had agreed only because the alternative was worse.

The High General raised his foot to kick again.

"That won’t be necessary."

Her words rang out across the throne room, clear and steady.

Every head turned towards the entrance.

Serena felt the weight of it, thirty armed soldiers, a High General, and a kingdom’s worth of hatred pressing against her chest like a tide.

She did not stop walking. She had learned that from her father. You do not falter. You do not hesitate. You enter a room like you’ve already won it, and you let them catch up.

The guards reached for their weapons, but the High General raised a hand, and they froze.

He studied Serena with poisonous green eyes, curiosity cutting through the hostility. Serena preferred curious to murderous. It was a low bar, but she’d take it.

"They said you would look like a Fae," he said in High Orosian. "They were right."

Serena didn’t hesitate. She answered him in the same tongue, her pronunciation flawless.

"I am no Fae, if that is what you are."

The High General’s smile flickered with surprise. He hadn’t expected her to understand him, let alone respond.

He switched languages to High Morbian and issued rapid commands to his guards.

"Lock the doors. No one enters or leaves."

Serena’s response came in the same tongue, equally fluent.

"Are you sure you want to do that?" It was not a question. It was the verbal equivalent of laying a card face-down on the table and watching someone decide whether to fold or hold.

He went still.

His guards exchanged uncertain glances. They had understood the order but not her response, and their confusion was evident.

He regarded Serena for a long moment, his eyes narrowing. Then he began to laugh.

It was not a pleasant sound. It echoed off the marble walls like grinding stone, the kind of laugh that had never once preceded good news for the person it was aimed at.

He switched to common tongue, apparently deciding that games were no longer necessary.

"A Fae lookalike who is trilingual. Interesting." He took a step towards her. "I’ve heard of your magic, little wolf. And you should know that it doesn’t work in here."

The High General caught the head reflexively, his massive hands closing around Varek’s hair. For three absurd seconds, the most dangerous man in Velanthor was holding his dead commander’s head with the same energy of a man whose wife had just handed him her purse.

His face cycled through bewilderment, irritation, and fury before landing on a cold, tactical reassessment.

During this, she felt a welcome heat stir in her chest, one she hadn’t felt since entering this fortress. Velkaris’s energy had found her in the dark, pushing past the wards. And with him, familiar threads began to hum between her and members of the Hidden Flame. To her surprise, Fin was among them.

He wasn’t a member, but she felt him as clearly as if he were, and her blood oath stayed silent. She didn’t question it.

She pushed flame into all of them. In the dungeons below Gav’s cuffs melted from his wrists. He gave an, I told you so smirk to Archibald across from him.

In the throne room, Fin’s head snapped up.

His eyes met hers and something passed between them. Understanding. Recognition. Trust.

And, beneath all of it, the very specific expression of a man who had just watched his mate kick a severed head across a throne room floor and was processing it in real time.

He let the power flow through him without resistance.

The silver cuffs on Fin’s wrists began to glow. The metal melted, running down his hands like water, and pooled on the stone floor.

The High General either didn’t notice or chose to not pay attention to it. Serena wasn’t sure.

"Frostborne Princess." His voice was low and dangerous. "You surprise me."

That made two of them. Serena had been surprising herself every five minutes since entering this throne room.

Then he moved.

His hand blurred, and a blade flew from his fingers faster than Serena’s eyes could track.

It was wreathed in dark magic and aimed directly at her heart.