The Alpha's Unclaimed Mate

Every queen has a secret weapon. Bellatrix thought it was Petra. Petra also thought it was Petra.

But tonight, the title was up for grabs because a six-foot narcissist with a coconut fetish was about to give his opinions about lighting angles.

She straightened her shoulders. Looked at Petra. Looked at Thor. Looked at both of them with the imperious focus of a woman about to do something she found personally distasteful and was going to make goddamn sure nobody remembered it.

"This never happened. Neither of you saw this. If anyone asks, we were inspecting trail conditions for a routine land survey. Petra, you will take that to your grave. Thor, you will forget this entire evening."

"Yes, Luna," Thor said, still flexing.

"Stop doing that."

"Doing what?"

"The muscles."

Thor looked down at himself, genuinely confused by the instruction, because Thor’s relationship with his own muscles was the relationship between a man and his autonomous nervous system. Being told to cease was like being told to stop having a pulse.

"Luna, with all due respect, you can’t turn these off. This is factory default."

"Then face the other direction. I do not need your factory in my field of vision."

Bellatrix shifted.

The purple wolf stood in the clearing. Large. Magnificent. The coat catching what remained of the dusk light and turning it into something that lived in the space between violet and silver, the specific color that predated modern bloodlines and carried a resonance that most wolves had forgotten existed.

She walked the curve. Slow. Deliberate. Each step placed with the spatial awareness of a woman who had choreographed this exact moment in her head four hundred times and was now executing the rehearsal with a body that was designed for forests and a mind that was designed for warfare.

She stopped at the apex of the curve. Held the position. Profile to the clearing.

Then she shifted back.

"Thor."

"Luna."

"From that angle. Was it flattering?"

Thor considered the question with the focus of a man who took aesthetics seriously, which he did, because Thor Crushturn believed that physical presentation was the cornerstone of civilization and honest feedback was a sacred duty.

"Luna, I’m gonna level with you."

Six words that, in retrospect, should have come with a warning label and a head start.

"I asked you to be."

"From that angle, the haunches looked bloated."

The word BLOATED hit Bellatrix Drakenfell the way a cannonball hits a temple.

"BLOATED?"

"The moonlight’s coming in at like a forty-degree thing, right? It’s hitting the shoulders and the ribs great, that’s your money zone, total bad-bitch energy, and then it widens on the hips and by the time it reaches the rear flank, it’s adding like twenty pounds visually. It’s the angle, Luna. The angle is a liar."

"My wolf does not have a weight problem, Thor."

The sentence was delivered at a temperature that could have frozen the clearing. Thor, who was immune to temperature and subtext, continued.

"For her age, she looks great. I’m not saying weight problem. But light has opinions, Luna, and the light’s opinion at forty degrees is ’thicker than intended.’ You want the full violet-silver pop? That rock." He pointed at a flat stone near the edge of the clearing, elevated three feet above the trail, catching the last of the dusk light on its surface. "You stop there. Elevated. The moonlight hits you from above instead of the side. Side light adds mass. Top light creates definition. You want cheekbones, Luna. Not muffin top."

Bellatrix stared at him with an expression that was simultaneously murderous and genuinely considering the advice.

"Muffin top," she repeated. Each syllable was a separate indictment.

"It’s a lighting term."

"It is absolutely not a lighting term."

"Also," Thor continued, because self-preservation was a concept he had never successfully internalized, "shimmer lotion."

"Shimmer LOTION?"

"On the coat, Luna. Before the shift. You rub it on your skin and when you shift, the fur picks up the residue. Under moonlight, it catches and throws. Your purple goes from gorgeous to holy-shit-is-she-real. I use it on my midnight coat before every full moon run. The ladies lose their minds."

"On my wolf?"

"Yes. I make my own blend. Moonstone dust, aloe, and a little bit of coconut. The coconut is for scent. Makes other wolves go feral for coconut, Luna. It’s science."

Bellatrix’s mouth opened. Closed. Her professional dignity was screaming at her to dismiss everything this man had said and the screaming was being drowned out by the part of her brain that recognized good advice regardless of the source.

"Petra."

"Your Grace."

"Write that down."

Petra wrote: Shimmer lotion. Rock (elevated). Avoid 40-degree angles. Consult Thor re: lighting.

She looked at her parchment, then at the bottom, where she had written Consult Thor re: lighting, she added a second line:

Petra: everything else.

The addition was petty. The addition was necessary. The addition was the hill she was prepared to die on.

"The rock," Bellatrix said, walking toward it. She climbed up. Stood on the flat surface. Looked at the angle. The moonlight, what remained of it, fell across the stone differently. From above. The kind of light that carved edges instead of adding width.

Thor was right. The son of a bitch was right.

"One more thing, Luna."

"What."

"The dismount off the rock? You’re gonna want to leap. Full extension. All four legs stretched, ears forward, tail streaming. The pack sees you silhouetted against the moon mid-air for like half a second, and that half second is the half second they remember for the rest of their lives." He kissed his fingers. "Money shot."

Bellatrix looked at Thor Crushturn, who was standing in a forest giving her staging advice, and experienced the singular cognitive dissonance that the best creative direction she had gotten in years was from THIS man of all people.

"That is," she said slowly, the words fighting their way past her pride like refugees through a border checkpoint, "genuinely useful."

"I know." Thor grinned. Full wattage. Zero humility. "This is what I do, Luna. I make things look hot. It’s my whole brand."

"Your Grace, if I may." Petra stepped forward with the energy of a woman reclaiming territory. "The leap from the rock would benefit from a ground marker. Something reflective. Crushed quartz scattered along the landing zone would catch the moonlight from below and create a secondary glow effect on the underside of the coat as you pass through it."

She delivered this looking at Bellatrix. She did not look at Thor. Looking at Thor would have been acknowledging the competition, and acknowledging the competition would have been admitting there was one.

Bellatrix’s eyebrow lifted. The lift was approval. Petra’s spine straightened by exactly one inch.

Bellatrix climbed down from the rock.

"If you tell anyone about tonight, I will have you reassigned to latrine duty for a year."

"Wouldn’t dream of it, Luna."

Thor Crushturn told the Queen of Drakenfell her wolf’s ass looked fat, and lived. There are moments in history that change the trajectory of kingdoms. This was one of them.

✦✦✦

OPERATIONAL NOTES — CLASSIFIED:

Pack run route: Eastern clearing, curved trail.

Forestry: Reshape half an acre.

Deadline: before the run.

Budget: whatever it costs.

Shimmer lotion: Obtain discreetly. Apply before shift. If anyone asks, it is medicine.

Lighting rule: Top light creates definition. Side light creates muffin top.

Thor Crushturn: Useful. This sentence should not exist. And yet.

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