The Alpha's Unclaimed Mate

Three stabbing victims had independently decided that comfort was for quitters and spinal health was a suggestion.

Serena was going to correct that shit immediately. Entire body shaking, still dehydrated, zero excuses. She could do this.

All three would rather be caught dead than have their unrecovered mate tuck them in. But she was vertical and they weren’t, which made her the ranking officer in this room and this a more dangerous mission than the goddamn volcano.

Order of difficulty, not alphabetical. Alphabetical would have started with Dexmon. She went with difficulty because she was an overachiever and also because Fin’s spine was committing the most urgent crime.

Fin had somehow found the one position in the room that was worse than the chairs, which was impressive in a way she refused to admire. His legs were still hanging off the bed, boots on the floor, his spine torqued at an angle that made her wince.

Gently, she lifted his legs onto the mattress, one at a time, careful, quiet, rotating his body until he was lying flat. His face turned towards the pillow she hadn’t placed yet, searching for comfort that wasn’t there.

Even unconscious, the man was looking for something to take care of and finding nothing, and the nothing was bothering his face.

She grabbed the pillow she had been lying on and slid it beneath his head. He inhaled deeply, and the tension in his shoulders released by a fraction, his body recognizing horizontal the way a man recognizes home.

She covered him with a blanket. Tucked the edge at his shoulder. Her fingers lingered there for one second because one second was all she could afford without waking him, and the second was enough.

She kissed him on the forehead softly.

His hand shot out from under the blanket and hooked her waist. She went down instantly because her legs were in no condition to argue and Fin’s unconscious reflexes didn’t take no for an answer.

Her face hit his chest. His chin settled on top of her head.

"Mine," he mumbled.

She was trapped. By a sleeping man. Who was winning.

Serena tried pulling Fin’s arm. It didn’t move. She tried wiggling sideways. He adjusted. She tried going limp, hoping dead weight would slide free. He compensated like a man whose subconscious had trained for exactly this scenario. Every escape route she attempted, his body countered.

She had the upper body strength of a wet napkin on her best day, and today was not her best day. She reached behind her, grabbed the pillow from the other side of the bed, and wedged it against his chest as she extracted herself inch by inch, swapping her body for stuffing like a heist movie replacing a jewel with a sandbag.

The extraction took two full minutes. It was the most undignified thing she had done this week, and this week had included a squid.

Fin’s arms tightened around the pillow. His face buried into it. Accepted.

She stood there, free, victorious, watching Finnick Shadowclaw teddy-bear-hug a pillow with the same intensity he usually did with her.

Onyx cracked one eye open. Watched her stand there, breathing hard, trembling, triumphant.

The eye traveled from Serena, upright and victorious, to Fin, unconscious and spooning a pillow with full commitment, and back to Serena.

His tail flicked once. The dragon equivalent of slow applause.

He closed the eye, tucked his snout under his wing, and went back to sleep with the energy of a creature who had just witnessed the most pathetic jailbreak in recorded history and chosen to let it slide.

Dexmon was next.

She pulled a pillow from the closet and eased it behind his head, wedging it between his skull and the chair back so his neck would stop doing whatever crime against anatomy it was currently committing. His head settled into it seamlessly before he exhaled and said, clear as day: "Denied."

Serena blinked down at him.

"...no. I want the gold ball." He let out a long exhale. "Gavriel gets the keychain."

His eyes were still shut.

She quietly backed away and grabbed a blanket from the linens closet, then draped it across his body, pulling it up to his shoulders, covering the bandages she could see peeking through his collar.

His face scrunched. "Because it’s mine. Everything on this side is mine. That’s the law, Gavriel. I don’t make the rules."

She kissed his forehead gently.

Bad idea.

His arm came out of the blanket and hooked around her neck like a heat-seeking grappling line. The speed was offensive.

She literally just did this with Fin. The same kiss with the same grab. Their timing was identical.

Shame on her for expecting different.

Fin and Dexmon were so similar at times it was almost as if they were brothers.

Serena let out a breath.

Both of them had stab wounds and neither of them seemed to care.

"Gavriel’s touching the ball," she whispered.

Dexmon’s arms released. Both hands came up in fists. "No he’s NOT."

She was across the room before his arms tightened again around air. His face scrunched in displeasure.

"...put it back, Gavriel. Put. It. Back. ..it was my turn."

Gavriel last.

She turned to him.

His head was still thrown back, throat exposed, mouth open. She slid a pillow behind his neck, gentle, adjusting the angle until his chin dropped forward instead of backward. His mouth closed. The blanket went across his lap and chest, tucked around the wraps that were still doing their best to hold him together.

"Give her back, Dexmon," Gavriel mumbled.

Serena froze.

"..Dexmon. Dexmon, I swear to..." His brow furrowed in his sleep. "I’m not apologizing. Tell him that."

"I’ll tell him," Serena whispered.

Gavriel’s face relaxed.

She leaned down and pressed her lips to his forehead the same way she’d done with the other two without thought.

The not-thinking lasted exactly one second. Then the thinking arrived, all at once, a stampede of awareness that trampled through her chest and left her standing over Gavriel Sterling with her lips tingling and her face on fire.

Before she could pull away, Gavriel’s eyes snapped open.

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