The Alpha's Unclaimed Mate

Alaric was trapped in a bitch-born battle of wills against three bull-brained alpha males whose collective medical literacy could fit in a thimble with room left over for their self-preservation instincts.

All three had critical injuries nowhere near done healing, zero shared brain cells, and he was the unfortunate son of a bitch who got to tell them to sit the hell down.

"None of you are recovered enough to give her blood," he said. "You are still healing from stab wounds and the accumulated damage of fighting on a volcano. Giving blood in your current state puts you at risk of collapse, and I am running out of beds for idiots who think they are invincible."

"I’m not claiming to be invincible," Fin said. "I’m available. There’s a difference."

"The difference is paperwork," Alaric replied. "When invincible men collapse, I fill out one form. When available men collapse, I fill out the same form and then listen to them tell me they’re fine from the floor."

"I’m not going to collapse."

"That’s what the last three men who collapsed in this infirmary said. Word for word. I should get it engraved on the door."

"I don’t care," Fin insisted. "I’m fine. Take it."

"I am mostly recovered and she needs it," Dexmon cut in as he rolled up his sleeve. "This isn’t complicated, Alaric. She needs blood, I have blood, and the blood sitting in my arm is wasted if it’s keeping me upright while she’s dying in a bed."

"I’ll make more," Gavriel said, his voice carrying the flat certainty of a man who had decided the conversation was over. "Take mine. End of discussion."

Alaric pinched the bridge of his nose. Three assholes. One vote. Unanimous. Just his medical expertise getting overruled by men who can’t spell "hemoglobin" but are absolutely certain they have enough of it to spare. Typical.

He looked at Hyran. Hyran looked at Tiberon. Tiberon looked at his three wolves with the expression of a king watching men do what men do when the woman they love is in a bed and a doctor is standing between them and the helping. He had stood in that exact position once and understood that the doctor was going to lose this argument.

"Given the recent developments, these three aren’t the only match," Hyran said slowly.

Dexmon’s head snapped to him. "What recent developments? Also, correction, she has exactly two matches. Gavriel is still high on volcanic fumes and doesn’t know what he’s offering."

The sentence dropped with Alpha-prince certainty, half-amused that his best friend was trying to play hero and half-annoyed he even had to address it, because that man was never a match for Serena’s blood. Only two people were: himself and Finnick Shadowclaw. Fated mates. Her blood was goddamn gold and everyone else could sit the fuck down.

Hyran Thornfell was many things. A brilliant mage. A capable strategist. A man with the self-preservation instincts of a cat in a room full of rocking chairs.

And this definitely sounded like a father-son bomb to him.

So, he looked at Tiberon.

Hot potato.

Tiberon’s left eye twitched. Something that was happening more and more frequently lately. This one translated roughly to: Thank you, Hyran, for volunteering me to explain to my son that his mate has a third matebond and his best friend is a reincarnated Fae king. I will remember this generosity when your next funding request crosses my desk.

"There have been multiple developments," Tiberon said, voice level. "That is a conversation we will have when I return."

He turned to leave. Hyran fell into step beside him with the grateful efficiency of a mage who had successfully passed a live explosive to a colleague.

"Return from where?" Dexmon asked.

The door closed by his own father, which was either a power move or a chickenshit move. He couldn’t decide.

Dexmon stared at it. The door offered nothing.

"Does anyone want to tell me what the hell I’m missing about my mate?"

The silence hit like a goddamn nuclear bomb of quiet. Drakenfell had endured mage-librarians and Bellatrix’s passive-aggressive mind games, but this one took the crown.

Every occupant in the chamber suddenly committed to the crap-coated conspiracy of pretending they didn’t know exactly what Dexmon was asking about.

Elara moved towards the bathing chamber to get a fresh cloth, assuming this was about Gavriel and the cat was clawing its way out of the bag. She couldn’t fully tell if Fin was still oblivious. She wasn’t sure what the ancestors had said. If Fin knew, he was either faking zen while the fuse quietly ate its way towards detonation, or he had smoked something recreational before stepping inside the chamber.

"Gav?" Dexmon asked.

Gavriel’s eyes shut at that moment, like he’d spontaneously fallen asleep.

"Aeron?"

Aeron pulled out his journal and began writing, like he was deep in thought.

"Elara?"

From the bathing chamber, the faucet turned on.

Dexmon looked at Fin.

Fin let out a breath that had been held longer than the sentence that followed it. "Her biological father is apparently not the Frostborne Alpha."

The sentence detonated in the room with the quiet devastation of a grenade that doesn’t make noise but levels everything within thirty feet.

From the bathing chamber, something shattered.

The sound was ceramic. A basin or a cup or whatever Elara’s hands had been holding when the sentence reached her ears and her fingers forgot their primary function. The shattering echoed off the tile and into the infirmary with the acoustic clarity of a woman whose composure had been breached for the first time in Fin’s memory.

Elara’s head appeared in the doorway. Her face was pale. The pale was comprehensive, full-coverage, the particular shade of white that belonged to a woman who had just heard something she considered impossible said aloud with the casual certainty of a man who believed it.

"Impossible." Her voice was steady but her eyes were wide, the steadiness a professional reflex overriding a personal earthquake. "Where did you hear that?"

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