The Alpha's Unclaimed Mate novel Chapter 407

Chapter 407: One Visits The Crypt, Petra

DRAKENFELL — BELLATRIX’S PARLOR

Bellatrix Drakenfell was reading the Knotty Omega.

She would deny this under oath, under torture, and under the direct scrutiny of the Moon Goddess herself. She was reading it because Petra had "confiscated" it from a chambermaid, and Petra’s definition of confiscated was becoming suspiciously consistent across multiple issues, and Bellatrix had chosen to interrogate the content rather than the procurement.

The article was on page twenty-three, buried between a scandalous illustration of two unnamed Alphas and a recipe for something called "Knot Butter" that Bellatrix had read, reread, and would be taking to her grave.

The title was printed in bold ink:

HOW TO MAKE IT IMPOSSIBLE FOR HIM TO LEAVE: YOUR 8-STEP FIELD GUIDE

Divorce is for quitters, and you, my darling, are a winner with better hair.

"Petra."

"Your Grace."

"This article was written for me."

"It was written for a general audience, Your Grace."

"It was written for me, Petra. The author knows. Look at this." She held up the page. "Step one: ’Make his court believe losing you would be a tragedy.’ This is my life’s work distilled into a single sentence by a gossip columnist, and I am both offended and impressed."

She turned the page. Read further. Her eyes narrowed with the focus of a general studying enemy fortifications and finding them structurally familiar.

"Get me a quill," she said. "And a fresh sheet of parchment. We are making a checklist."

STEP ONE: PUBLIC COLLAPSE (SYMPATHY IS A CURRENCY)

Faint in public. The court must see you as the wounded party. If they do not see you bleed, they will believe you cannot.

Bellatrix underlined the passage twice.

"Fainting," she announced. "I will faint. In the great hall. During a meal. Preferably when Tiberon is present so the visual is seared into every noble’s memory."

Petra held the inkwell steady. "Your Grace has never fainted."

"I have never needed to faint, Petra. Fainting is a tool I have kept in reserve for thirty years, and the reserve has matured, and the maturity will make the performance more convincing."

"Will there be crying?"

"Before the faint. The crying establishes the emotional context. The faint delivers the climax. The sequence is critical." She tapped the article. "Tears first. Public tears, witnessed by at least four nobles and one servant with a reputation for gossip. The tears frame the narrative: the queen is distraught. The queen is suffering. Then, mid-meal, I go down."

"What if Alaric examines you?"

Bellatrix paused. The pause was the pause of a woman who had forgotten that the castle’s Master Healer was a man whose diagnostic capability was exceeded only by his intolerance for deception and whose bedside manner was a war crime.

"We time it when he is elsewhere. He cannot diagnose what he does not witness. Get me his schedule."

"I will obtain it."

Petra wrote: Step 1: Faint. Avoid Alaric. Obtain schedule.

The word obtain was doing considerable work given that Petra was going to have to stalk the Master Healer’s movements without alerting a man whose professional training included detecting precisely that kind of surveillance.

✦✦✦

STEP TWO: BEFRIEND HIS MOTHER

Win over his mother. A mother’s approval is a chain no man can break, and a mother’s disapproval of the divorce is a weapon that fires indefinitely.

Petra wrote: Step 2: Crypt. Flowers. Crying. Servant with loose lips.

STEP THREE: MAKE YOURSELF ESSENTIAL TO HIS INNER CIRCLE

Befriend the people he trusts most. If removing you means disrupting every relationship he relies on, the cost of leaving becomes prohibitive.

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