The Alpha's Unclaimed Mate novel Chapter 166

Chapter 166: A Massive Failing At Basic Operculum

Water poured from Serena’s lungs in violent, retching coughs. She was on her side, but she didn’t remember being moved.

Someone’s hand was on her back, firm and constant, holding her through each convulsion like they’d hold her through a thousand more if that’s what it took.

Fin’s arms went under her, picking her up.

She had been many things tonight. Brave. Terrified. Defiant. Drowning. But she had not been held. Not until now. And the difference between fighting alone and being held by someone who would rather die than drop you was so vast she didn’t have a word for it.

Her eyes closed and when they opened, she was being carried through a portal.

Portal travel while semi-conscious: zero out of ten. Would not recommend. The light hurt, the transition made her stomach flip, and she was fairly certain her soul arrived three seconds after her body.

She blinked slowly a few times. But the noises were all muffled. Voices layered over each other, urgent and hollow, like hearing an argument from the bottom of a well.

Fin was upset. She could feel him through their matebond, and it wasn’t subtle. In fact, their matebond was delivering Fin’s emotions with the grace of a battering ram. Every feeling arrived pre-amplified, unfiltered, and several degrees past what any reasonable person would broadcast. He wasn’t leaking. He was full-on flooding.

It was sharp, fractured, the kind of distress that bled through without restraint and turned into anger. She could hear his voice but she couldn’t figure out what he was saying.

She caught fragments. "Now." "Move." Something that might have been a name and definitely sounded like a threat. The Finnick Shadowclaw method of communication: half directive, half promise of consequences.

Gav’s voice cut in somewhere in the blur. He was either providing a status update or making an inappropriate comment. Possibly both.

She felt Fin kiss her head. Her forehead pressed into the crook of his neck.

"I’ve got you, baby. I’ll take care of this."

His voice cut through the noise the way it always did. Not louder than anyone else’s. Just more certain. Like he’d already decided how this ended, and the universe was welcome to disagree but wouldn’t.

He kissed her head, and her forehead fell into the crook of his neck.

Her eyes closed, relaxing into him. The tension left her body in stages, like a building deciding to stop standing.

First her shoulders. Then her spine. Then whatever was left of her dignity. She never let herself be small. She hadn’t been small since she was twelve.

But Fin’s arms were around her and his heartbeat was under her ear and for ten seconds, she decided the world could carry itself.

When they opened, she saw mismatched orbs staring down at her. Maelor.

She didn’t recognize the ceiling. It was vaulted, inscribed with runes in arrangements. Wherever she was, it was built to keep things out.

Then she realized she was in Fin’s lap, being held.

His distress flooded through their matebond, then she blinked again and saw his face. His eyes were red and he looked like a wreck. Rage tangled with relief tangled with something that tasted like guilt, and underneath it, a fear so raw it didn’t have words.

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