The Alpha's Unclaimed Mate novel Chapter 549

Chapter 549: Help Me Or Get Out Of My Way

Finnick dropped to his knees beside Gavriel, and his voice broke on the first word.

"We’ll get back to her." His hand gripped Gavriel’s shoulder, the grip carrying everything he couldn’t say and wouldn’t say in a room full of people, the terror and the fury and the guilt from leaving his mate. "We will. But you’re going to live first, because you’re no use to her dead. So you are going to stay down and you are going to let them work."

Gavriel closed his eyes. His jaw locked tight enough to crack teeth. His breath shook, each exhale a tremor that ran from his chest to his fingertips, and the green magic pulsing from his body flickered in time with his heartbeat.

"What day is it?" he gritted out, sweat beading along his hairline as Hyran pushed another wave of gold into his chest.

Hyran didn’t soften the answer. "Same day you left. Afternoon now. How much time passed for you?"

Gavriel’s breath hitched. "At least thirty-six hours. If I had to guess."

The number landed in the chamber like a grenade.

Finnick’s jaw tightened so hard the muscle in his neck jumped visibly. Over a full day. Serena had been inside that temple for over a full day, fighting whatever the hell was in there, alone now, alone because Gavriel’s cuff had yanked him out and hers hadn’t, and thirty-six hours was a long goddamn time to survive on depleted magic and willpower in a place that had already put a hole through Gavriel Sterling’s chest.

Alaric and Hyran finished binding the last wrap. Each hooked an arm under Gavriel and hauled him carefully to his feet, the motion coordinated, practiced, the kind of lift two men perform when they’ve carried enough wounded soldiers to know where the weight needs to go and where the injuries won’t tolerate pressure.

Gavriel’s legs nearly gave out. His knees buckled, his weight shifted, and for a full second, he was held upright by nothing except Alaric’s grip and Hyran’s shoulder and the stubbornness of a man whose body had quit and whose mind had refused the resignation letter.

He forced his legs to lock. Forced his spine straight. Forced himself vertical through an act of will that had nothing to do with physical capability and everything to do with the fact that the woman he loved was at the bottom of a frozen lake and he would stand on shattered legs if that’s what standing required.

"I’m going back," Gavriel said. His voice was firm despite the tremor. Despite the blood still seeping through the wraps. Despite the fact that his lungs were whistling on every inhale and his vision was still doubling at the edges.

Nobody misunderstood him.

He wasn’t saying he was going back to the temple. He wasn’t requesting permission. He wasn’t asking for a plan or a portal or a briefing on what happened while he was gone.

He was saying one thing, and it landed in the chamber with the weight of a war horn sounding across an open field:

I’m staying right here on this rune until she appears on it, and if she doesn’t appear on it, I’m going back in after her, and every person in this room can either help me or get out of my way.

The room braced for Tiberon to shut it down. To pull rank. To deliver the cold, strategic calculus that said a bleeding soldier doesn’t go back into a fight he barely survived, that emotion is not a battle plan, that they needed to regroup and assess and do every rational thing that rational men do when the situation calls for patience.

Tiberon looked at Gavriel. Looked at the wound. Looked at the rune.

"How deep is the lake?" he asked.

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