The Alpha's Unclaimed Mate novel Chapter 241

Chapter 241: He Guided. She Surrendered.

Odette moved her belongings into the royal quarters before anyone formally approved it. She reorganized his desk, replaced the curtains, and had fresh flowers delivered daily, a variety she liked.

She had the courtyard fountain removed. The one shaped like a winged serpent where Asher and Ronan had hidden as boys. She said it was "crumbling" and "an eyesore." It wasn’t crumbling. It was the oldest structure in the courtyard.

She consulted no one. She announced changes the way weather happens: without permission, and with the assumption that everyone would adapt

She threw a fit and screamed at Ronan in the corridor outside the council chamber for a reason he wasn’t sure. He was genuinely confused and tried to apologize but she wouldn’t hear it.

Asher had to step in and order her to return to their chambers for the rest of the day because she was out of control. He went to check on her that day, and found her not in their chambers. Instead she was in a corridor nearby, stabbing cushions with a dagger. The room was full of feathers and every single chair was destroyed.

He kept walking, filing it in the growing cabinet of things about his wife he chose not to examine.

She was also watching him. The way a warden watches a prisoner who hasn’t tried to escape but still tries to catch them in the act.

Everything she did was slightly too much and it made his skin itch in a way he couldn’t scratch without looking like the villain.

✦✦✦

The scene faded to a destroyed room.

"Who?" Ronan’s voice was low enough to vibrate.

The nearest guard swallowed. "By orders of the Queen, sir."

Ronan stepped inside.

Every drawer had been pulled and overturned. Her clothes were on the floor, trampled, some of them torn.

The bookshelf had been swept clean, volumes scattered across the stone with cracked spines and bent pages. Her writing desk was flipped. Ink pooled across the stone like black blood. The wardrobe doors hung open, contents ripped from hangers and thrown.

Ronan crouched in front of her, slow. "Natalia."

She looked up. Her green eyes were red-rimmed, her face blotched, her lower lip trembling. A hiccup caught in her chest.

Footsteps behind him. Asher appeared in the doorway, breathing hard, his face cycling from confusion to horror to cold, white fury in the span of two seconds.

"What happened."

"Your wife happened," Ronan said without turning around.

Asher looked at the room. At the ink. At the books. At Natalia on the floor. His jaw tightened so hard the muscle jumped twice.

"This ends now." His voice was a dangerous kind of quiet. He turned on his heel and walked toward Odette’s wing with a stride that cleared the corridor.

Ronan stayed. He looked up at the guard. "Have her things moved to my quarters. Tonight."

"At once, High Commander. Right away."

✦✦✦

Ronan was careful. He was so careful it would have been invisible to anyone who wasn’t Asher Valerion. Asher Valerion handed over the most important person in his life and couldn’t stop checking whether she was being held correctly.

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