The Alpha's Unclaimed Mate novel Chapter 245

Chapter 245: Your Friend Is Right Here. Always.

Natalia found him in the library three days later.

He was sitting in a chair by the window, reading a tactical report he’d already read twice, because the library still smelled faintly of her and he was pathetic enough to sit in it for that reason alone.

"Asher."

He looked up. She was standing in the doorway, a scroll tucked under her arm. Her white hair was braided over one shoulder, and her green eyes held his with the quiet intensity that had always made him feel like she was seeing straight through him.

"Hey." He managed a smile. It was a good one. He’d been practicing.

She sat across from him. For a moment, neither of them spoke.

"How are you?" she asked. Natalia Moonveil didn’t ask how anyone was unless she meant it down to the marrow.

"Good." He set the report down.

A lie so clean it could have been framed.

Natalia studied him. Her brows drew together, just barely, the same expression she wore when she was reading a text and found a word that didn’t belong.

"You’re lying."

He laughed. "I’m fine, Nat."

"Your jaw does a thing when you lie. The muscle on the left side jumps."

His smile faded. He looked at her, at the woman who had shattered herself to honor a bond she believed in, who had handed him to a fated mate he didn’t want because she loved him too much to let him live wrong, and the urge to tell her the truth was so violent he tasted it.

Instead, he leaned forward.

"How are you?" he asked. "And don’t give me composed Natalia. Give me the real one."

Her chin tilted. "The real one is tired. She misses her friend."

Friend. The word was a controlled demolition of his chest cavity, and he let it happen because she needed this. She needed him to be her friend, because she was alone in a castle full of people who loved her and none of them understood her the way he did.

"Your friend is right here," he said. "Always."

Her eyes grew red but she didn’t cry. She smiled. Small. Real. The kind that reached her eyes and made the green in them catch the light.

"You’re reading a border analysis upside down," she said.

He looked at the report in his hand. She was correct. He’d been holding it inverted for forty minutes.

"I’m studying it from a different tactical perspective."

"You’re studying it from an illiterate perspective."

He laughed. A real one. The first one in weeks that didn’t feel like a performance, and the sound of it surprised both of them.

Natalia’s expression shifted. Something moved behind her eyes, quick and deep, a recognition she immediately buried.

She stood, tucked the scroll tighter under her arm, and paused at the doorway, turning to look at him.

He met her eyes.

Her lips parted. Then she closed her mouth and left before he could respond.

The library was quiet. The report was still upside down. His chest was on fire.

He knew she saw him. He knew she always had. She read him better than Ronan did, better than his own father, with an instinct that bypassed language and went straight to the source.

There is nothing in the world quite like being seen. And she saw him.

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