The Alpha's Unclaimed Mate novel Chapter 187

Chapter 187: Baby Fell Out Of Him Like A Bomb

"I have never been more embarrassed to call you family."

Guinevere looked at him as though he had just suggested she apologize to a houseplant.

He shook his head. It was the head shake of a king who had mentally drafted, reviewed, and signed an eviction notice before his mouth opened.

"Two weeks. You leave the castle and out of my sight. And when you come back, if you come back, you will apologize then you will never speak to her again. You will not look at her or be in the same room unless I specifically allow it."

"She’s an omega, Fin."

"That’s not the point. But you keep bringing it up. She’s the Crown Princess of Drakenfell. But even if she was an omega, you would still be wrong. And you would still be leaving. Unacceptable."

Her face cycled through several expressions: shock, offense, outrage, and finally cold, narrow-eyed recalculation.

✦✦✦

Fin found Garrett on his way out of the sitting room, Agnes trailing behind him still dabbing at the stain on her bodice.

"Where is Serena?"

Garrett’s expression shifted to something careful. "She said she had something to take care of. Left about twenty minutes ago."

"Take care of what?"

"She didn’t say. She lied about it and left before I could ask."

Fin pinched the bridge of his nose. Serena, who could light a man on fire, channel dragon energy, and read dead languages, could not tell a convincing lie to save her own life. The fact that she kept trying was endearing.

And he knew that pattern. She had the emotional crisis management strategy of a cat: disappear, process alone, return composed, and deny everything. Fin understood it, because that was his own method. He also hated it, because it meant she was somewhere in his castle upset by herself.

He needed to find her.

But more than that, he needed to fix something that had been gnawing at him since the moment she arrived in Shadowclaw.

He couldn’t mindlink her.

Every time something happened, every time she was upset, or lost, or being torn apart by someone in his own house, he couldn’t reach her. He had to physically find her. Track her scent. Ask other people where she’d gone. It was maddening and it was dangerous, and he was done with it.

He was an apex predator reduced to asking hallway staff if they’d seen a small white-haired woman walk by recently. Like a man who’d lost his keys, except the keys could start fires and had a habit of solving ancient mysteries when left unsupervised.

She needed to be initiated into Shadowclaw’s pack so he could mindlink her and have her by his side at all times. That was how it was supposed to be.

He hadn’t claimed her publicly yet, moving slow for her. But that was now becoming an issue.

The longer he didn’t acknowledge what they were, the more speculation would arise. That was inevitable.

The problem was jurisdiction. She wore a Drakenfell crown. She was mated, on paper, to Dexmon. Dual-pack membership wasn’t standard. But it wasn’t explicitly forbidden either, which meant there was a loophole in his experience.

If there wasn’t Fin was going to find one or kick a hole in the wall next to where the loophole should have been and call it a door.

The only other path to a mindlink was if their wolves mated and marked, and her wolf wasn’t healed. He wasn’t going to try to pressure that. Not all wolves mated, and that was too far away.

This needed to be resolved now.

He had been planning on taking care of her the rest of the day regardless. She’d come back from Drakenfell upset, trying to hide it, and he could feel her turmoil getting worse through their matebond. The plan had been dinner in his quarters with her.

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