The Alpha's Unclaimed Mate novel Chapter 466

Chapter 466: Are You Not Entertained?

Five rounds.

Serena hit the ground on her hands and knees for the fifth time and stayed there for three seconds because three seconds was what her body was demanding as payment for five consecutive shifts and five consecutive de-shifts and the payment was non-negotiable.

Her nose was bleeding. A thin line of red running from her left nostril to her upper lip, the signature receipt of a body that was processing shifts as trauma rather than function. She wiped it with the back of her hand. Looked at the blood. Accepted it.

Bleeding from the nose meant the shift was still too hard on her system. Bleeding from the nose also meant she was shifting, repeatedly, in succession, which was more than her body had been able to do a week ago. Progress was bleeding and bleeding was progress and the math was ugly but the math was hers.

Tiberon had said nothing. Five rounds. Five shifts. Five de-shifts. Five returns to consciousness where Serena checked his face for data and received the same granite wall. The wall had been standing for twenty-five minutes and the wall’s structural integrity was suspicious and the suspicion was growing but the growing was irrelevant because Tiberon’s silence was Tiberon’s approval and his approval was the only metric she had.

Aurelia: I won.

The thought arrived in Serena’s head with the warmth of a wolf curling back into her consciousness after five rounds of solo operation. Aurelia was settling back in, the two of them overlapping for the brief window between de-shift and rest where both minds existed in the same skull.

Serena: Did you?

Aurelia: Five times. He went down every time. I am undefeated.

Serena was skeptical. Aurelia’s definition of "kicked his ass" and the military’s definition of "kicked his ass" were two different dictionaries, and Aurelia’s dictionary had been written by Aurelia and peer-reviewed by nobody.

Serena: What technique did you use?

Aurelia: Strategy.

Serena: Be specific.

Aurelia: I used my paw and then I ran at him. It was devastating. He was confused and on the ground and I was standing. That is called winning.

Serena: Aurelia.

Aurelia: Hey. That hurts.

The wolf’s voice carried the specific wince of a body reminding its inhabitants that five shifts in succession came with a cost and the cost was currently being itemized across every joint, every muscle, every bone that had reshaped itself ten times in twenty-five minutes.

Serena wiped her nose again. Stood. Her legs were shaking but her legs were always shaking after shifts and the shaking was background noise at this point.

"SHIFT, Serena."

Tiberon’s command cracked across the field. His voice carried the same flat authority it had carried for five rounds, unchanged, undimmed, the vocal equivalent of a man whose battery ran on discipline and whose discipline was nuclear.

Serena closed her eyes. The command hit her chest. Her body protested. Her bones protested louder. Every cell in her body filed a formal complaint about the prospect of another shift and the complaint was denied and the denial was Tiberon’s voice and his voice outranked her cells.

White light erupted.

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