The Alpha's Unclaimed Mate novel Chapter 315

Chapter 315: Time To Hunt, Motherfuckers

Maelor needed thirty seconds. He got exactly thirty seconds. The door opened on thirty-one, and the Crown Prince of Drakenfell stood in the frame.

Alaric checked his pocket watch. "Thirty-one."

Hyran held out his hand. Alaric dropped five gold into it without looking up.

"I bet twenty," Hyran said.

"I bet forty-five. We were both generous."

Maelor was still hunched over Serena, both palms pressed to her temples, emerald light pouring from his hands in dense, concentrated streams. His nose was bleeding, twin lines of red tracking from both nostrils to his upper lip, and the intensity of his focus had drawn every line on his face into sharp relief.

Alaric held out a handkerchief. Maelor looked at it. Looked at the sleeve he’d already ruined. Took the handkerchief and tucked it into his pocket without using it.

"New cloak is up," he said. "She will remain unconscious for several hours from the venom. When she wakes, the cloak will be active."

"How long will it hold?" Dex asked.

"Seven days if she stays calm." Maelor’s mismatched eyes lifted to Dex, and the look in them was the flattest, most unamused expression Dex had ever received from a man whose face was still bleeding. "Which brings me to my next point. Something upset her before you marked her. The cloak I placed after the temple was built to withstand seven days of moderate emotional stress. It lasted two. Whatever happened between the placement and the moment the Emperor appeared degraded the structure by approximately sixty percent."

Dex blinked.

"If you are going to upset her," Maelor continued, "let me know in advance. I will reinforce the cloak beforehand. I would prefer advance notice over emergency portals. My schedule is complex. My robes are expensive. And my nose bleeds every time I do this, which I find personally offensive."

"In advance," Dexmon repeated.

"Yes."

"You want advance notice before I upset my wife."

"I want advance notice before anyone upsets her. You are simply the most likely candidate."

Silence.

It dawned on Dexmon with a slow, grinding clarity that he should have seen this coming hours ago.

The trial. She had insisted on attending. Both he and Fin had told her she didn’t need to be there, and she had gone anyway, because Serena did not let other people fight her battles, and the cost of that principle was a woman who walked into a courtroom and absorbed fifteen charges worth of damage while her cloak absorbed her emotional response and crumbled under the weight of it.

Of course it upset her. Of course it degraded the cloak. She had sat through two hours of hearing every terrible thing that had been done to her and to him, read aloud, in order, in a room full of wolves.

"Guinevere Ashford’s trial," Alaric cut through the quiet. "She attended. Confirm?"

"Yes," Dex replied.

"She attended," Maelor repeated with a sour look on his face. "A trial full of psychological knives where charges were read aloud describing every act of violence committed and no one thought to inform the mage responsible for keeping her cloaked?"

"It didn’t occur to me," Dex said.

"Clearly."

The single word carried enough disdain to redecorate a war room. Maelor had mastered the art of saying everything with one word and nothing with twenty.

"Fin and I both told her she didn’t need to go," Dex replied.

"I also told her she didn’t need to go," Hyran added.

"So three of you told her not to do something, and she did it." Maelor looked at all of them. "Have any of you considered trying a different approach? Because whatever you’re doing has a zero percent success rate."

Dex didn’t answer.

Aegon: The mage is correct. But there’s a piece he didn’t say. No one is saying.

Dexmon: Don’t.

Aegon: The Gamma is what’s hurting her the most.

Dexmon: I’m upset for him too. His fated mate is batshit crazy.

Aegon: You banning their friendship, is what hurt her, Dexmon.

Dexmon: Finnick did as well. Don’t put this all on me.

Aegon: You would also feel better if you checked on the Gamma. Are you still mad at him?

Dexmon: He screwed my mother. Kissed my mate. Then saved my life. I have no fucking idea.

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