The Alpha's Unclaimed Mate novel Chapter 325

Chapter 325: Can We Keep Her? Please, Father.

There are plans that are brilliant, and there are plans that are terrible, and there are plans that are both at the same time.

Sneaking a six-year-old into the Fae palace required three things: a servant’s entrance, a distraction, and the absolute conviction that rules were guidelines written by people who lacked imagination.

The girl followed without speaking. She held Tristan’s hand the way a drowning person holds a rope: with her entire body weight committed to the grip and zero faith that the rope would hold. He held back just as tight, because somewhere between the rock and the corridor, his ten-year-old brain had made a decision that his ten-year-old mouth had yet to announce.

He was keeping her.

He pulled her into his cousin’s chambers, which were empty because Seraphina was at her lessons and would remain there until the afternoon bell. The wardrobe was enormous, built for a girl three years older and several inches taller than the child standing in the middle of the room leaving muddy footprints on marble.

Tristan opened the wardrobe and pulled out a dress. He held it against the girl, measured the discrepancy, and acknowledged that the garment could have housed two of her with room for a third.

"Perfect fit," he said, handing it to her.

She looked at the dress. Then at him. Then at the dress again. She put it on over her torn one, because she was six and assumed that was the goal. The fabric pooled around her shoes in a puddle of silk and she stood in the center of it, a small face floating above a very large dress, and Tristan decided this was acceptable.

"You look great," Lucian confirmed.

She almost smiled. Almost.

"Food," Tristan announced. "Lucian, kitchen. Operation: Feed the Girl."

The palace kitchen was staffed by fourteen people, guarded by two posted sentries, and operated under the direct authority of a head cook named Laurel who had once made the King of All Fae apologize for entering her kitchen without knocking.

Tristan’s plan was to walk in, take food, and walk out.

"This is a terrible plan," Lucian whispered as they approached the service entrance.

"All great plans look terrible at the beginning."

"This one looks terrible at every stage."

They entered through the bread pantry because the bread pantry was adjacent to the cold storage and the cold storage had cheese, and Tristan had determined through extensive research that cheese was the most portable food group.

He made it four steps before his boot caught a stack of copper pans that had been left on the floor by a kitchen assistant who would later be reassigned to root vegetable duty for the remainder of the season.

The crash was spectacular. Eleven pans hit the stone floor in rapid succession, each one producing a sound so loud and so unique that the cumulative effect was less "kitchen accident" and more "musical performance by a man who hated music."

Lucian dove behind a barrel.

Tristan, who had never once in his life hidden from a consequence, stood in the center of the pantry surrounded by pans and smiled at the three kitchen staff who appeared in the doorway.

"I was looking for cheese."

"Your Highness." The nearest cook looked at the pans. Then at Tristan. Then at the barrel where Lucian’s elbow was visible. "The cheese is in the cold storage. Where it has always been. Where it was yesterday when you also stole cheese."

"I was unaware that princes could steal from their own kitchens."

"Your father has a policy, Your Highness."

"My father has many policies. I find them aspirational."

Lucian’s face appeared above the barrel. "Can we also have bread?"

The cook’s expression suggested she was reconsidering her career.

They escaped with cheese, bread, a bowl of stew that Tristan had argued was medicinal, and three apples that Lucian pocketed.

The girl was where they had left her, sitting on the floor of Seraphina’s chambers in a dress that could have doubled as a tent. She looked at the food. Her eyes went wide.

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