The Alpha's Unclaimed Mate novel Chapter 427

Chapter 427: The Birds, The Bees, & The Blood Moon

Tiberon entered.

"Where is my Beta and Beta Luna?" he asked. "I am down a Gamma and now my Betas."

Serena stopped, her body freezing mid-motion with a document suspended between two fingers at an angle that suggested the page had been in transit from one pile to another and had been halted in the air between them.

Her Alpha had asked a question and to answer, she needed to exit Alpha speed and engage at a human pace.

"Hale fainted last night," she said. "And again a few times this morning."

"Hale fainted," Tiberon repeated.

The repetition was flat. Inflectionless. Carrying the specific disbelief of a man whose Beta was six foot seven, two hundred and forty pounds, had survived wars, dungeons, sieges, and Thor Crushturn, and had apparently lost consciousness in circumstances that Tiberon had yet to learn and was already suspicious of.

"Yes," Serena replied.

"Serena, you failed to tell me this." Dex set his report down.

"It didn’t come up." Serena bit her lip. She returned to Alpha speed, pages blurring, clearly hoping the conversation would end if she appeared busy enough.

Tiberon and Dexmon exchanged a glance. The glance was brief, loaded, and carried the shared recognition of two men who had both identified the same evasion and were both going to pursue it.

"Why did Hale faint?" Tiberon asked.

Serena stopped from Alpha speed again.

"Oh, I am sworn to secrecy."

Her tone was dead serious. Her face was dead serious. She had received classified information and had been instructed to protect it and intended to protect it with the same determination she brought to everything else, which was total.

"By whom?" Tiberon asked.

"Elara."

Tiberon pinched the bridge of his nose. The gesture was identical to the one his son had performed two minutes ago, genetic proof that the Drakenfell response to exasperation was hereditary, and the heredity was thriving.

"I am the Alpha, Serena."

"Have you met Elara?" Serena asked, and the question was genuine. She was comparing two authority figures and had already determined which one she feared more and the determination was unfavorable for the king. "Don’t worry. Alaric is looking at him. He is being cared for."

Tiberon’s patience, which had been tested by a mural, a missing Beta, and a woman reading at Alpha speed who was withholding information under the authority of a Beta Luna whose jurisdiction did not extend to overruling the king, reached its threshold.

"I demand you tell me. Now."

Alpha command. The words carried the frequency that Tiberon deployed when questions became orders, the specific register of an Alpha king whose bloodline had been issuing commands for thousands of years and whose current command was delivered with the surgical finality of a man who was finished asking.

The command hit Serena like a wall.

Her body tensed.

"She told him he is going to be a father, and he has taken the news rather poorly."

The sentence left her mouth with the resignation of a woman whose oath had been broken by biology and whose face communicated the full devastation of the breach.

"WHAT?" Dexmon asked.

The word was louder than he meant. The reproductive news about his best friend outpaced his ability to modulate his vocal output.

Serena looked at him, brow furrowed, unable to untangle his emotions.

"Elara hasn’t announced it," Serena said, and her voice was quiet and crushed because she had broken a confidence under Alpha command and was feeling the break in her chest like a physical wound. "It was her news to tell. I gave her my word."

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