The Alpha's Unclaimed Mate-Chapter 131: Tiberon Held Her Like A Bouncer

The sound Gavriel made was not words. It was the noise a man makes when his soul briefly leaves his body. The sound of twenty-three years of reckless confidence meeting sudden, catastrophic accountability.

He hunched over, both hands cupping himself, and collapsed sideways onto the floor next to Serena with his knees drawn up and his mouth frozen in a perfect O of silent agony.

"Both of you," he wheezed from the floor, voice three octaves higher than normal, "are fucking insane."

Serena started laughing. It hurt. Everything hurt. Her ribs, her jaw, her nose, her throat where Bellatrix’s fingers had been. But she couldn’t stop.

Gav watched her, and then he was laughing too, one hand still pressed protectively between his legs, shoulders shaking.

"I hate this family," he managed between breaths. "I hate this courthouse. I hate this floor. And I especially hate that I can’t get up right now because my entire lower body has left the chat."

Two floors up and one corridor over, Dexmon stopped mid-sentence. Pain hit him through the matebond, blooming across his ribs and radiating up through his jaw.

Hale watched him with the slow, careful attention of a man who had learned to read the signs. "That’s not yours, is it."

"No," Dex said, already moving.

In the great hall, Tiberon set down his glass. His expression didn’t change, but his hand stilled, and his eyes moved to the far wall as if he could see through it. Something had come through from Bellatrix.

He stood.

Dexmon reached the corridor first. He followed Serena’s scent, her pain pulsing stronger with every step.

He threw the door open just as Bellatrix shoved Serena into the curtains. The curtain rod ripped from the wall. Fabric billowed down over them.

There was a muffled curse from Bellatrix, and then both of them were tangled in velvet like the world’s worst magic trick.

Bellatrix’s voice came from somewhere inside. "Get this off me, you insufferable creature."

Serena got free first. She crawled out of the curtain, nose still bleeding, dress torn at the shoulder.

Dex looked at her. Then at his mother. Then at Gavriel, groaning on the floor in the fetal position.

His brain offered him several possible explanations for what he was looking at. He rejected all of them.

"What the fuck happened in here?" His voice came out calmer than the situation deserved.

Bellatrix scrambled up, standing over Serena. She was breathing hard, and there was nothing queenly about any of it.

Tiberon stopped in the doorway.

He’d commanded armies, negotiated treaties with hostile kingdoms, and maintained composure through three wars, two attempted coups, and thirty-one years of marriage to Bellatrix. None of it had prepared him for this.

His wife’s hair destroyed. His daughter-in-law’s face bleeding. His son’s best friend on the floor protecting his reproductive organs. He looked at the overturned chair and briefly considered if it was too early to retire as a king.

"Everyone in this court is talking about you," Bellatrix said. "The entire kingdom thinks the Crown Princess is unstable. They say it in the corridors when you walk past. You are not the queen they expected, Serena. You are a girl who cries in court and has nightmares and can’t hold herself together long enough to sit through a trial."

Dex’s jaw ticked so hard the muscle visibly jumped. Through the matebond, Serena felt his rage hit her like a wall of heat.

She pushed something back to him that made him freeze. A feeling of, I’ve got this.

Dex didn’t move. But he wanted to and was fighting every fiber in his body to stay put. His hands curled into fists at his sides, and Aegon was trying to force a shift.

"That’s enough," Tiberon said.

He said it at the same time Serena spoke.

Two voices. Different octaves. Tiberon’s carried the weight of a king who had decided his wife had crossed a line. Serena’s carried the weight of a woman who had been hit in the face four times in fifteen minutes.

"Good," Serena said. "Then they won’t be surprised when I do something crazy."

Serena’s leg swept out. Her foot hooked behind Bellatrix’s ankle and pulled. The Queen’s legs went out from under her. She hit the floor.

The sound of ass hitting stone was louder than it had any right to be. The acoustics in this room were, unfortunately, excellent.

Tiberon closed his eyes. In the particular exhaustion of a man who had been married for thirty-one years to Bellatrix and never witnessed anything like that.

"That’s my girl," Gavriel muttered from the floor, then immediately, "I said that out loud, didn’t I." 𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂

Dex’s head turned slowly toward Gavriel. His eyes were still surging molten gold, Aegon very unhappy. And the look on his face could have peeled paint off castle walls.

"Reflex," Gav said quickly. "Entirely reflexive. No romantic context whatsoever. I have a head injury. From the floor. Where your mother put me."

Dex stared at him for three more seconds. Gav stared back with the wide-eyed innocence of a man who was absolutely guilty of something but would die before admitting it.

"Crazy bitch." Bellatrix was up and already lunging to the ground where Serena still was, fist connecting with Serena’s jaw. Or it was supposed to, but Serena caught it.

This woman was relentless. Serena had to give her that.

Bellatrix’s eyes widened, pushing harder against Serena’s grip. Serena’s arms shook holding her back.

Dex moved to intervene, but Tiberon’s hand landed on his shoulder. One grip. Iron. The king shook his head once.

His expression said: Let it play out.

Dex’s expression said: I am going to remember that you said that.

"Well," Bellatrix said, breathing hard, putting her full weight against Serena. "The alpha venom is certainly doing its job. You could barely open a door when you arrived."

That did it. Serena, who was still on the floor, kicked Bellatrix in the stomach. It wasn’t with all her strength, but it was hard enough that Bellatrix was knocked back a few feet.

Serena pushed herself up to stand.

Bellatrix scrambled up, hair destroyed, dignity in ruins, and the insults came like a dam breaking.

"Why you Motel 6, Walmart-clearance-rack whore," Bellatrix snarled. She then lunged straight for Serena.

Dex moved. He caught Serena around the waist from behind, lifting her off the ground. Even though she hadn’t made a move or lunged, Dex could feel her teetering on the idea of it through their matebond loud and clear.

Tiberon moved at Alpha speed, grabbing Bellatrix. One arm around her midsection, pinning her arms.

The King of Drakenfell, the man who commanded legions and brokered alliances with a single glance, was physically restraining his wife like a bouncer.

Bellatrix thrashed. "Get your hands off me."

"Stop," Tiberon commanded, alpha tone. One word.

Bellatrix stopped.

For a heartbeat, no one moved.

Then she turned her attention to Serena with the serene composure of a woman who had already rewritten history in her head and was now graciously sharing the corrected version.

"Clean yourself up, Serena. And get better balance. You tripped."

"Pretty sure my balls were collateral damage," Gavriel called from the ground. He still hadn’t moved. "Unless they were the target. In which case, bullseye, Your Majesty."

Bellatrix didn’t acknowledge him.

She straightened herself out of Tiberon’s grasp, smoothing her sleeves with the practiced ease of a woman who had never been held against her will and certainly not just now.

"And that little combat display earlier? With the sparring?" She waved a hand, dismissive, like she was shooing a fly. "I wouldn’t feel too badly about it. It was below average. But then, you came from Frostborne, so the bar was already on the floor."

She paused, tilting her head as if something had just occurred to her.

"I’ve seen omegas with better footwork at a harvest dance while intoxicated. But I suppose we can’t all be gifted."

She tilted her chin up. "Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have the matters we discussed to attend to."

She walked out the door without looking back. Her heels clicked down the corridor with the rhythm of someone who had won an argument that never happened.

Silence held the room for three full seconds.

"I want it on record that I entered this room as a peacekeeper," Gavriel said from the floor, still not moving.

Dex stared at the doorway his mother had just exited through, then down at Gavriel, then at Serena whose boots weren’t touching the ground because he was holding her still.

Tiberon looked at Gavriel for a long, measured moment. The kind of look that peeled away pretense and examined what was underneath with surgical precision.

"Why were you in this room, Sterling?"

Gav’s mouth opened. Closed. He could feel the trap. Every possible answer led somewhere catastrophic.

"I heard the commotion and came to help, Alpha."

Tiberon held his gaze for five seconds. Then six. Then seven. Gav did not blink, because blinking was an admission of guilt, and he was a man with many guilts who could not afford to display a single one.

"Hm," Tiberon said.

That single syllable contained more threat than most men’s entire vocabularies.