The Alpha's Unclaimed Mate novel Chapter 275

Chapter 275: Uninhabitable My Whole Ass

The tunnel swallowed them whole.

Silver runes pulsed along the walls in rhythm, each one flaring as Serena passed and dimming after the last person cleared it. The passage was too narrow for two people to walk side by side comfortably, so they moved in single file, the silver glow their only light source.

Then it ended.

They stepped out of the tunnel, and the world changed.

Gone was the blizzard and frigid air. A warm breeze swept past them instead, carrying the scent of earth and green life so vivid it felt impossible.

They were standing on a cliff. Before them stretched a vast hidden valley, impossibly lush. Towering trees draped in emerald vines. Ancient stone pathways half-swallowed by moss. Waterfalls cascaded down cliffs of shimmering ice-crystal and granite, their mist catching sunlight that had no business existing inside a frozen continent.

Dragons soared in lazy circles across the distant sky, dozens of them, wings glinting like jewels. Green. Sapphire. Red. Each one massive.

An oasis carved into the heart of a dead continent. High above, jagged peaks encircled the valley. One mountain rose taller than the rest, a monolith so immense it cast the illusion of twilight across half the jungle below.

Fin, Dex, and Gav stopped dead.

Hale stood still, Avalon curled against his chest, and the baby dragon lifted its head for the first time since hatching. Its silver eyes widened. A tiny chirp escaped it, then another, then a rapid string of sounds that were unmistakably excitement. Avalon’s wings fluttered against Hale’s torso and its tail tightened.

"I know, buddy," Hale murmured. "I see them too."

Maelor stopped breathing. His lips parted, closed, parted again. For the first time in what might have been his entire adult life, he had nothing to say. He stood at the mouth of the tunnel staring at a place that every text he had ever written declared uninhabitable, watching wild dragons circle a jungle that shouldn’t exist, and his brain was doing something it had never done before.

Recalibrating.

"This changes everything I have ever published." He looked at Dexmon. "I thought Drakenfell was the only dragon civilization."

"There were others," Dexmon answered. "All thought to have died out thousands of years ago."

His eyes flared gold, studying the dragons in the sky. When he spoke again, his voice was older. "Ice dragons."

Aeron bounced on the balls of his feet. "Gods. This is a lost draken refuge. A cradle realm. Hidden ecosystems. There must be hundreds of species in here."

Hyran elbowed him. "Focus. We are stopping to catalogue nothing."

"I will be cataloguing everything," Aeron muttered.

Gav exhaled slowly, taking it all in. "I would like to formally retract every complaint I made about the portal, the blizzard, the tunnel, and the last forty minutes of my life."

Serena walked forward as if following a path she had known since birth, her white hair catching the warm jungle light, eyes still burning pink. Elara moved beside her, silver-eyed, matching her stride.

Serena’s boot tapped something at the edge of the cliff.

A tiny protrusion. So small none of them had seen it. No wider than half her palm. Practically invisible unless touched.

A peg.

She placed her foot on it without hesitation. The stone beneath her glowed pink.

Dex stiffened immediately, recognizing this. She’d done this in the library once. "Serena."

Without turning, without acknowledging any of them, Serena dropped into an alpha-speed descent, weightless, as if gravity held no authority over her. Her white hair streamed behind her as she sprinted down the vertical cliff, feet landing on pegs barely wider than two fingers. Each one ignited pink under her steps.

Fin swore under his breath. Dex nearly launched himself over the edge after her.

It was at least five hundred feet to the jungle floor.

Serena reached it in seconds. A soft glow pulsed beneath her boots as she landed, gentle, controlled, unhurt. Still in trance.

"I am going to have a conversation with her about this," Fin said, his voice the particular brand of calm that meant he was furious.

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