The Alpha's Unclaimed Mate novel Chapter 403

Chapter 403: Only One Pack Chains Women In Silver

DARKHOWLER KEEP

Finnick Shadowclaw was mid-sentence when the pain hit.

It came without warning, a white-hot lance through his chest that dropped him to one knee on the stone floor of Darkhowler’s eastern corridor. His hand slammed against the wall for balance. Every muscle in his body seized with the specific agony of a shift that was happening inside a body that was miles away.

Garrett Darkhowler stopped walking. His hand went to his sword on instinct, scanning the corridor for a threat that did not exist, because the man beside him had just collapsed and there was no visible enemy.

"What the hell? You alright?"

Fin’s voice came through his teeth. "I’m fine."

The pain held for twelve seconds.

At thirteen, it stopped.

Fin stood. Straightened his jacket. Resumed walking at the exact pace he had been maintaining before his knees had betrayed him, and the resumption was so seamless that it would have been impressive if Garrett had not just watched the King of North Skardos crumple against a wall.

Garrett stared at him for two full seconds, then matched his stride. The question on his face was loud. The question stayed on his face, because Garrett Darkhowler was a man who understood that some questions waited for the right room.

They moved through the keep in silence. Guards posted at intersections acknowledged both Alphas with crisp salutes that neither man returned because both men were thinking about different things and the salutes were background noise.

The war room was on the second floor. Garrett pushed the door open.

Officers were already seated. Four Darkhowler captains, Garrett’s Beta, and a logistics commander whose name Fin had memorized on arrival because memorizing names was a habit and habits were how empires stayed organized.

Agnes Viremont was in the far corner.

Fin noticed her immediately. She was seated at the end of the table, and her posture suggested she was comfortable and felt entitled to it. Then again, Garrett was about to crown her, so that was fitting. Attempted murder of his mate multiple times. Drugged a crown prince. Now at the head of the war room like a Luna Queen.

Meanwhile, Serena had saved a war camp, saved the lives of two Alphas, a Beta, a Gamma, and others in Orosia, and was a magical prodigy, but was still acting like a guest in Shadowclaw. The contrast bothered Fin.

He did not comment. He did not greet her. He sat at the opposite end of the table and placed his hands flat on the surface, and the placement was deliberate, because Finnick Shadowclaw’s hands communicated what his face chose to withhold, and flat hands on a table meant I am here and I am listening and I have formed no opinion that I intend to share.

Xeon: That entitled woman commands attention by being loud. Mate commands loyalty without lifting a finger. Which one do you think will be the better queen?

Fin: Xeon, that is genuinely the smartest thing you’ve ever said to me.

Xeon: I know.

Fin: Now tell me why the smartest wolf in my head turns into a goddamn feral raccoon every time Drakenfell’s wolf looks at him.

Xeon: He started it.

Fin: He did NOT start it.

The meeting began.

Fin listened, his military mind activated, filing relevant details, discarding redundancies, cross-referencing Darkhowler’s positioning with Shadowclaw’s own southern deployments.

Seven minutes in, the second shift hit.

This one was worse.

The pain detonated behind his sternum like a fist punching through his ribcage from the inside. Fin’s body pitched forward, his hands slamming flat on the table as his torso folded, a grunt tearing out of him that he could not contain because the pain was beyond containment. His vision whited out at the edges. His jaw clenched so hard he tasted copper.

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