The Alpha's Unclaimed Mate novel Chapter 537

Chapter 537: Whatever Happens I’ve Got You

Heat rushed to her face so fast it could have powered a steam engine.

Gavriel felt the flush before he saw it, her emotions brushing against him with an unnerving clarity that was sharper than anything he’d experienced, embarrassment and awareness and a very particular panic.

"We both passed out, and I woke up with both of our training suits off," he said, keeping his voice even, like this was no big deal even though his heart was thudding like a humming bird. "But I would have taken them off regardless. We would have overheated."

Technically true. Strategically worded. He left out the part where he’d slid her thong up her legs while barely breathing. That detail could live and die in this cavern.

Serena was too drained to interrogate it. Her brain had the processing power of a candle in a hurricane, and she was choosing to spend what remained on standing upright.

She climbed out of the pool behind him, thick white hair dripping around her shoulders, water streaming down her skin, the green glow still clinging to her like she’d been dipped in liquid starlight.

Gavriel watched her. He couldn’t look away. She stole his breath the way she always stole his breath, effortlessly, accidentally, with the devastating obliviousness of a woman who had no idea what she looked like and never had.

When she looked up at him, he grabbed her thermal-weave training suit and tossed it at her, as if that had been the reason he was staring the entire time.

It was a terrible cover. The matebond ratted him out in real time. She chose mercy and pretended she didn’t feel it.

She caught the suit and slid into it, zipping up with practiced efficiency, only to freeze halfway through.

It hung looser than when they’d left Drakenfell. The thermal-weave that had fit her properly three days ago now sagged at the shoulders and gaped at the waist, the fabric telling a story about exactly how much this temple had taken from her body in calories and magic and structural integrity.

Gavriel’s did the same. His suit, which had been tailored to his frame, now hung off him like he’d borrowed it from a bigger man. The temple had put them both through a meat grinder and their wardrobes were the receipts.

He looked down at himself. Then at her. Then back at himself.

"We look like two scarecrows that escaped a barn fire and found a spa," he announced, eyes flicking between their suddenly bedraggled forms. "I’ve seen refugees with better tailoring. This is genuinely offensive."

"What? We look great," Serena said dryly.

He laughed, warm and real, the first laugh that sounded fully like Gavriel Sterling since before the vampire bite. He gave her a playful shove, and she barely moved because her center of gravity had the stability of a wet napkin, but she shoved him back, and the shove was so weak it was essentially decorative.

Serena stepped forward, and her eyes flashed pink.

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