The Alpha's Unclaimed Mate novel Chapter 512

Chapter 512: Ducklings Into Traffic

NINE MINUTES LATER

Serena’s eyes were pink and she was speaking in that ancient tongue again, the language that carved the air like a blade and sat in the ears like a hymn from a civilization that had been dead for ten thousand years.

Gavriel’s head turned towards Serena, slow, the same involuntary rotation that had happened in the cavern.

"Open the path that remembers our blood," he said. His voice was distant. Detached. The words coming from a place in his brain that he had never accessed voluntarily and whose accessing was becoming a pattern and the pattern was producing a dread that was sitting in his stomach like a stone.

Maelor gave him a look so offended it should have been framed. The look contained: professional outrage, linguistic jealousy, academic fury, and the specific indignation of a man whose entire career was built on being the only person in any room who could translate sealed Fae script, and whose only-person status had just been demoted to ’one of two’ by a Gamma.

"I am choosing to ignore that," Maelor said through his teeth.

"Hard to ignore when he keeps doing it," Aeron murmured.

"I said I am CHOOSING, Aeron. The choosing is an ACTIVE process and your commentary is UNDERMINING it."

The mountain trembled. The trembling was deep, tectonic, the vibration of something massive responding to Serena’s words the way the cavern walls had responded to her touch, the mountain recognizing her blood and the recognizing was producing geological movement.

A section of the slope split apart. Stone grinding against stone, the seam widening, revealing a tunnel carved into the mountainside. Dark. Narrow. The exact dimensions of every other tunnel Serena had entered today, and the exact dimensions were producing a collective response from the group that could best be described as "profound, visceral reluctance."

Maelor groaned louder. He was watching his own resolution die in real time. Nine minutes. His binding declaration, which had been filed with the cosmos and witnessed by six people, had lasted nine fucking minutes.

"Oh, come on. FUCK no. Absolutely not. I am drawing a line. I’m staying right—damn it, Serena, don’t walk into it—"

Possessed Serena entered the tunnel with the unhurried confidence of a woman whose ancestors were driving and whose ancestors did not consult passenger opinions on route selection.

Fin did not let go of her hand. Possessed Serena looked down at Fin’s hand in hers with the expression of a woman tolerating a barnacle. She had historically treated physical contact with the tolerance of a cat being held against its will. The fact that Fin’s hand was permitted was either a concession to the severity of the day or an acknowledgment that the man attached to the hand was going to follow her regardless and the regardless was easier to accommodate than resist.

Without a shred of dignity, a gram of self-respect, or a single functioning survival instinct between the three of them, Hyran, Maelor, and Aeron followed her into the tunnel like ducklings trailing a mother duck who was actively leading them into traffic.

"Nine minutes," Aeron said.

"Shut up."

"Nine minutes, Maelor. Your ’binding declaration’ lasted NINE MINUTES. That is a new personal record. The previous record was eleven. You are getting WORSE."

"I am following under PROTEST. The protest is FORMAL. I want it DOCUMENTED."

"Documented where? Your robes? Because your robes look like something a raccoon fought and the raccoon won. The only documents you have left and they’re mostly HOLES."

"You are a CRUEL man, Aeron."

"I am an ACCURATE man. There is a difference and the difference is that accuracy hurts more."

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