The Alpha's Unclaimed Mate novel Chapter 448

Chapter 448: Structural Support From A Future Ex

DRAKENFELL — QUEEN’S CHAMBERS

Frail was not a word that had ever been associated with Bellatrix Drakenfell. The wet rag on Bellatrix’s forehead was doing absolutely nothing for her head, but it was working overtime for the visual.

Dexmon entered the chambers, then froze.

Bellatrix opened her eyes slowly, groggily, blinking against the dim light.

"Dexmon? Is that you?" she called, as if she were emerging from a fog.

Who the fuck else would it be? She had sent for him. Specifically. Had she forgotten?

He shook his head once, coming out of the daze. "Yes, mother. It’s me."

He closed the distance and took the chair next to her bedside.

She grabbed his hand.

Dex went still. His mother was holding his goddamn hand. Physical affection from Bellatrix was rare enough to be classified as a natural phenomenon. Like a solar eclipse. You knew it was possible, you’d heard reports of it happening, but experiencing it in person was disorienting as fuck and you weren’t entirely sure it was real while it was occurring.

He gave her hand a squeeze. Then pulled his hand back because the squeeze had used up his entire reserve of maternal physical contact and the reserve was small and the replenishing took years.

"Alaric said you fainted and are having chest pains," Dexmon said. "But you sent him away."

Sending away the Master Healer after a fainting episode was the behavior of a woman who was too proud to be examined. Dexmon knew his mother.

"Oh, yes, dear." She sipped from a tea cup that was on her nightstand. "I am healthy as a horse and he has far more important patients to attend to. The man looked exhausted. I refuse to be the reason Alaric misses his afternoon whiskey."

"You fainted in the grand hall."

"I am aware of where I fainted, Dexmon. I was there."

The door opened. Tiberon Drakenfell entered without knocking, because Tiberon Drakenfell had never knocked on a door in his life and was not going to start with his wife’s chambers regardless of the divorce papers on his desk.

He looked cross, like he had run out of shelf space for the bullshit. He had carried this woman to her bed an hour ago and was now back in her room for the second time, which was two more times than he had entered this room in the last calendar year. She kept that math to herself.

Alaric entered behind him. The Master Healer’s expression was the expression of a man who had been sent away by a patient and summoned back by a king and whose professional dignity was hanging by a thread that the patient kept cutting.

"Alaric will examine you," Tiberon ordered. "Fully. Now. You will allow it."

"I told him I was fine."

"I am telling you he will examine you. The difference between your telling and mine is that mine is happening."

Bellatrix sipped her tea and said nothing else.

Was that a white flag? Dex had never seen her surrender that fast. The fever might actually be fucking real.

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