The Alpha's Unclaimed Mate novel Chapter 471

Chapter 471: Arm-Wrestling Himself Over A Hug

Serena Frostborne had hugged him and Gavriel Sterling had almost detonated.

Her arms had gone around him. Her body had pressed against his chest. Her scent had hit his bloodstream at point-blank range, and the range was zero, and the zero was catastrophic.

The scent at zero distance was a hundred times more concentrated than the scent on the wind and the concentration went through his nervous system like lightning through a copper rod.

Rook lost his mind.

The wolf surged so hard Gavriel’s vision flickered gold at the edges. His hands had been at his sides, neutral, safe, and Rook had tried to lift them, tried to put them on her back, tried to complete the hug with the possessive, full-armed hold of a wolf claiming his mate in front of a crowd.

It was so aggressive that Gavriel’s right hand had twitched three inches upward before he caught it and forced it back down with the muscular effort of a man arm-wrestling himself.

She had pulled away. Fast. Stiff. "Good to see you." And she was gone, redirecting towards Elara with a trajectory so abrupt it left a vapor trail of her scent hanging in the air between them.

Rook: Mate.

A breeze blew through the training field. Warm. Carrying her scent from the space she had just vacated, a parting gift from the wind, and Rook howled inside his skull with the sustained, unrelenting enthusiasm of a wolf who had been saying the same word for hours.

Rook: MATE.

Gavriel: I know, buddy.

Then the pain hit.

It arrived without warning, without buildup, without the gradual onset that would have given him time to prepare. One second he was standing on a training field processing the aftermath of a hug. The next second, every muscle in his body cramped simultaneously.

His shoulders seized. His spine compressed. His ribs ached with the deep, structural soreness of bones that had been reshaped and reformed, except they hadn’t been.

He hunched over. Caught himself. Forced his spine back to vertical with an effort that cost him something visible in his jaw. His hands curled into fists at his sides, rode out three seconds of full-body agony, and unclenched when the worst of it passed.

The worst passed after a moment, but the residual stayed. A low, throbbing soreness that settled into every joint like he had just been through fifty consecutive shifts and fifty consecutive de-shifts and his body was processing the receipt.