The Alpha's Unclaimed Mate novel Chapter 318

Chapter 318: Two Mates, One Distress Signal

Gavriel Sterling rejected his matebond at 4:17 in the afternoon. By 4:47, his lips were purple and Alaric Kestrel was running.

At 4:42, Serena was holding a cloth to his forehead, going back on her word, the exact thing both her mates had forbidden.

Serena’s chin trembled. She pressed her lips together and held the cloth against his forehead and refused to cry, because he was looking at her and he was hurting and the last thing he needed was her grief on top of his.

She failed. One tear fell. Then another.

"Hey." Gav’s voice found a ghost of itself, a fraction of the warmth that usually lived there. "Don’t do that, Frostborne. If you cry, I’ll cry, and I’ve already hit my quota for the week."

She laughed. The sound was wet and broken and real.

"I’m so sorry you had to do that, Gav."

He looked at her for a long time. The dark-ringed green of his eyes held hers, and what passed between them had no name and would never be spoken aloud, because it belonged to a corridor where he once sat beside her while she grieved, and a room where she was now sitting beside him while he did the same, and the symmetry was so precise it should have been poetic and instead it was just painful.

"I’m sorry too," he said. Then quieter, with a certainty that frightened her more than his color. "I’m also sorry I’m lying. I’m the opposite of sorry. Breaking it was the first honest thing I’ve done in weeks."

The dark around his irises spread another millimeter.

Then his lids fluttered.

"Gav." Elara’s voice sharpened. "Stay awake."

"I’m awake. I’m just resting my personality."

"Your personality is the least of my concerns right now. Your lips look like you’ve been eating blueberries."

"I have excellent lips. Ask anybody."

The door opened.

Alaric Kestrel walked in with the specific energy of a man who had been enjoying a rare moment of peace and had been summoned into a medical emergency by a Beta Luna who had used the words "purple lips" and "Gamma Sterling" in the same mindlink.

"You told them to wait," Alaric said, looking at Gav on the bed. "They did the opposite. I respect them for it."

"You always take their side."

"Their side is usually correct." Alaric crossed to the bed, two fingers already pressing against Gav’s wrist. His eyes counted. His mouth counted. The flask in his coat counted the seconds between, because Alaric Kestrel did everything with a drink in proximity and a refusal to pretend otherwise.

"Pulse is thready. Skin temp is dropping." He lifted Gav’s eyelid with his thumb and looked at the iris. His expression didn’t change, which on Alaric meant it was worse than the expression would have suggested. "When did you sever it?"

"Twenty minutes ago. Maybe thirty."

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