The Alpha's Unclaimed Mate novel Chapter 643

Chapter 643: Never Demote A Wolf’s Mate

Tristan made it four steps past the chamber doors before his knees hit the stone.

A dark vein crawled up the side of his neck. The corruption rooted itself beneath his skin, branching at his jaw, forking toward his ear.

Lucian caught him.

The wolf king moved faster than the guards, faster than the healers, faster than the door had time to close behind them. His arms went around Tristan’s chest and his knees hit the ground a half second after the prince’s, taking the weight, absorbing the collapse the way a foundation absorbs a falling wall.

"Easy. I’ve got you." Lucian’s voice was steady. The steadiness cost him something Fin could feel through the vision, a tax paid in heartbeats and adrenaline. "Breathe."

Tristan’s eyes rolled. Green light erupted from his palms in jagged, uncontrolled bursts that scorched the walls and shattered a window fifteen feet away. Lucian held through it. The Fae magic that detonated from Tristan’s hands burned the skin on Lucian’s forearms and he didn’t flinch, didn’t move, didn’t release, because releasing his brother was the one thing the Alpha of the Northern Realm would never do regardless of the price his body paid for holding.

"River!" Tristan’s voice was wrong. Thin. Scraped hollow.

"She’s safe," Lucian said. "Focus on breathing."

Guards arrived. Healers arrived. Lucian transferred Tristan’s weight to the medical team with the efficiency of a battlefield commander who understood triage and the reluctance of a man whose arms had been the only thing between his brother and the ground.

He stepped back. His burned forearms were already healing, wolf regeneration closing the wounds in real time, but the scars would stay for hours, and the hours would be a reminder that Fae magic and wolf skin were incompatible and that holding Tristan through a detonation was a sacrifice his body paid in pain.

Fin looked at the burns. Then at Lucian’s face, which carried zero acknowledgment of them.

"You stubborn son of a bitch," Fin said, with something closer to reverence than judgment.

The vision compressed again. Hours folded. When it opened, Lucian was standing outside the council chamber doors, one shoulder against the wall, close enough to hear and far enough to deny listening.

Inside, Elder Vareth was speaking.

"...take a second wife. Crown the fated tie, as the Moon Goddess intended. The chosen mate may retain her position in the household, with dignity, with respect..."

Second wife.

Lucian’s body went rigid.

Every wolf instinct in his body erupted simultaneously, a detonation of protective fury so violent his vision tinted gold at the edges. The suggestion wasn’t aimed at him. The conversation wasn’t about him. The woman they were discussing relegating to "second" was the woman his matebond connected to, and the suggestion that she be demoted from wife to accessory was a blade that hit his wolf in the exact place where the word MATE lived.

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify