The Alpha's Unclaimed Mate novel Chapter 217

Chapter 217: Don’t You Fucking Dare. (She Dared.)

Fin’s laugh was ice-cold. "Say that again. Slower. So I can count exactly how many lies just left your mouth."

"You’re right. I was completely out of line, and I owe her a proper apology." Guinevere pressed a hand to her chest. "Truly, Cousin. I mean it."

"I love you, Guinevere. You’re family." Fin’s voice dropped. "But if you go behind my back on Serena, I will burn every bridge between us and watch you choke on the ashes."

"You know, Finnick, you do have an awful lot of rules."

Fin leaned back in his chair, one arm draped over the armrest. Unimpressed.

"You’ve got thirty seconds before I kick you out. Clock is ticking."

"I want to apologize to Serena. Face-to-face. That’s it." She spread her hands, palms up.

"She’s in Drakenfell."

"Then I’ll wait for her to come back."

"Every single door that leads to Serena Frostborne now goes through me." His words cracked like a whip. "When she comes back, if she wants to see you, you will apologize in my presence. You will not approach her unless I am there. Are we clear?"

"Crystal clear, Alpha."

She left his study with perfect posture and a plan.

STEP ONE: wait for the guard rotation. Forty minutes later she stood in front of his chamber doors.

She slipped through the door without a sound. The room smelled like cedar, iron, and that girl. The omega. The scent was everywhere, saturated into every surface. An invasion of her nasal passages. She breathed through her mouth. Adaptation was key.

STEP TWO: dig up evidence.

"Everyone has dirty laundry, Serena. What’s yours?"

She started with the closet larger than most bedrooms.

Fin’s side was exactly what she expected. Dark tunics. Formal coats. Training leathers. Everything pressed, hung at even intervals, and organized with the precision of a man who ran a kingdom the same way he ran a closet. Efficient. Controlled. Boring.

Then she moved to the other side.

Three pairs of riding boots in different shades of leather. A shelf of folded chemises, each one softer than the last.

Dresses. A lot of them. She counted. Then she counted again because the first number offended her. Fifty-three.

Fifty-three dresses for a woman who wore training suits. Fin had filled half his wardrobe with clothes for a girl who didn’t even want them, and that, more than anything Guinevere had seen tonight, made her want to set this room on fire.

Guinevere’s hand stopped on a sage-green gown with gold stitching. She pulled it out. Held it up. It was exquisite. Custom. The next. Ivory silk. Hand-beaded. Worse. More expensive.

"You’ve got to be kidding me, Finnick."

She went through the pockets of Fin’s coats next. Left breast pocket of his formal jacket: nothing. Right: a pressed flower. Small. White. Tucked between two squares of parchment to keep it flat. The kind of thing a man kept because a woman had handed it to him.

Guinevere stared at it for three full seconds, her expression cycling through disgust, disbelief, and something dangerously close to jealousy before settling on contempt.

"A flower. He kept a flower. Finnick Shadowclaw, Alpha King, keeps a pressed flower in his coat like a lovesick page boy." She put it back. "Revolting."

She moved to the vanity. Serena’s side of it was sparse. A brush that didn’t look used. No perfumes, cosmetics, creams or anything that indicated the girl was living in luxury.

That was annoying.

"Where is the dirt, Serena?" She opened a small drawer. Socks. Another drawer. Undergarments. Lace. Silk. Nothing outrageous. Where is the scandal? Damning correspondence. Love letters. Something. Anything.

"Give me one vaguely incriminating item."

The omega’s belongings had the personality of a monk’s quarters and the scandal potential of a library card.

Then she saw the nightstand.

A necklace. Small. Gold chain. Crescent moon pendant.

Guinevere put it on. She pressed it flat with two fingers and checked her reflection in the dark window glass.

The girl had two mates and two kingdoms. One necklace was nothing. The math was fair.

"I think I will keep this, thank you." She adjusted the chain. "You can continue to fuck your way for more."

She turned back to the room. Swept it one final time with her eyes. Not a single piece of usable leverage anywhere in this entire, infuriatingly wholesome collection of belongings.

The omega didn’t have dirty laundry.

The omega had clean laundry, folded laundry, and the most aggressively boring personal inventory Guinevere had ever audited.

Two mates. Two kingdoms. Zero exploitable flaws.

She huffed loudly at the fundamental injustice.

"Fine. Plan C."

✦✦✦

"Serena Frostborne Drakenfell."

She jumped, hand flying to her chest.

"The deal was you were to stay in bed this morning." Gav gave her a flat look. "I warned Dex. If we put the scrolls in the room with her, she will not be able to help herself. And shocker, I catch you with your hand in the cookie jar."

Serena’s guilty face was the least convincing display of innocence since Agnes’s formal apology. Both involved eye contact and neither involved remorse.

"I can’t sleep. And I feel fine, Gav. We are running out of time. And don’t you want to know if I can even read it?"

To the water, child of the white flame. Below the surface, seventy feet, where the light ends. A dragon sleeps in stone. On its head, what was left for you. You will not be given a second invitation.

A low grinding sound rolled under their feet and the ground shook. Not an earthquake. Something underneath them was moving.

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