The Alpha's Unclaimed Mate novel Chapter 413

Chapter 413: Adorable Is The Wrong Word Right Now, Dex

She was sobbing. The composure was gone. The armor was gone. The woman in his arms was raw, shaking, crying with the specific intensity of a girl who had been holding this since morning and the holding had ended and everything behind it was pouring out into bathwater and steam and the chest of the man she was terrified of losing.

Dex felt every wave of it. Every pulse of guilt. Every tremor of grief. The matebond was delivering her pain at full volume, unfiltered, and the pain was worse than the shifts because the shifts were physical. She loved him and was apologizing for something that was tearing her apart.

It shattered him.

More than the arena. More than Fin’s arms around her. More than the Luna title landing on the training floor like a stone. More than the schedule, the co-mating, the shared mate geometry that had been testing him for weeks. This, right here, Serena sobbing in his arms because she was terrified of hurting him, this was the thing that broke Dexmon Drakenfell open.

Because she was crying for him. The tears were for him. The guilt was about him. Every ounce of grief pouring through the matebond was the grief of a woman who cared about his pain more than her own crowning, and the caring was so genuine and so total that it reached into his chest and dismantled every wall he had built around the jealousy and the territory and the pride.

He shifted her in the water. Turned her. His hands found her face, both palms against her cheeks, thumbs sweeping beneath her eyes, wiping the tears. He intended to catch every single one until the supply ran out.

But he was watching his mate cry for him and was feeling the specific devastation of knowing she had carried this weight alone all day to protect him.

"Serena." His voice cracked. "I knew it was coming."

Her wet eyes opened. Green, red-rimmed, searching his face for the damage she expected to find there.

"I knew, baby. I have known since the schedule conversation. Since before the schedule conversation. Since the moment Fin Shadowclaw sat across from me and proposed logistics for a shared mate with the energy of a man brokering a treaty, I knew the Luna title was coming because the Luna title is the logical conclusion of everything he is building, and Finnick Shadowclaw does not build anything without a crown on it."

He wiped another tear. His thumb traced the line of her cheekbone, slow, steady, grounding her while his voice did the rest.

"I just thought I would find out about it from you."

His voice cracked again on the last word. The crack was the cost of honesty, and the honesty was the cost of loving a woman who was being crowned by another man, and the loving was the thing Dex could never stop doing regardless of how many crowns she wore and how many of them belonged to a kingdom that was his rival’s.

Serena’s face crumpled.

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