The Alpha's Unclaimed Mate-Chapter 174: Daddy Drakenfell’s Adopted Daughter, You Dickheads

Chapter 174: Daddy Drakenfell’s Adopted Daughter, You Dickheads

"Serena!" Fin was holding her, the mark on his arm flaring hot.

Serena’s eyes were completely black, with no whites or iris. The aesthetic of someone having the worst week in recorded history.

They were in Drakenfell’s infirmary and Fin held her in his arms, sitting on a bed in a private room

"Do something," Fin gritted out, his head snapping up to Alaric. Then he looked at Aeron. "Someone."

"You have wards. How is it Dark Fae?" Hyran snapped.

"Something has latched onto her," Aeron answered, voice calm. "She came back to Shadowclaw today with a fever, but said she was fine. Whatever it is, it’s not shadow-tether related. But it is definitely Fae."

Alaric nodded, hands glowing, and he shoved everything he had into Serena with a force that made the air in the room compress.

He stopped after a moment, panting, sweat beading along his temples, his hands trembling in a way Serena had never seen from him and couldn’t see now.

"Agreed, it’s Dark Fae with wards against mage magic." He turned to Tiberon. "She needs Fae magic. We can try to stabilize her, but we need a Fae to remove it."

"Nightspire’s Master Mage is half Fae, and understands both types of magic to the degree needed.."

Tiberon’s jaw tightened. The name sat in the room like a blade on a table, and everyone present understood the weight of what it meant for Tiberon Drakenfell to ask Nightspire for anything. He’d already asked for a favor four days ago, and now he’d be doing it again. Everything with Nightspire came at a price. But what choice did he have?

"Nightspire. Contact him immediately."

"On it," Gav said, moving out of the room before Tiberon had finished the sentence.

The color was gone from Serena’s face and her lips were blue. Her breathing was shallow, each inhale a fight she was losing by degrees. She looked like she was dying.

Fin held onto her with both arms, pulling her against his chest, and Elara had to look away, because the expression on his face was the expression of a man who had already lived this exact moment before.

He had mentioned it the night he said he would claim Serena, when she was dying the first time. That his last mate had died in his arms. Elara hadn’t pressed Serena for details.

She also swallowed down guilt at something else entirely. Something she hadn’t told anyone and wasn’t planning to. She had looked Serena in the eyes, said "heads," and watched her accept it like fate.

The coin landed on tails. Shadowclaw was the winner of the coin toss.

Elara told herself it was the right call. The math was simple, even if the feelings weren’t. She had been trying to be a good friend and do what she felt Serena already knew was the right thing but needed a push. Serena held more ties to Dexmon. Their wolves were true mates. They had Velkaris. And Dexmon loved her. She knew him longer. She was already crowned.

Fin had baggage from a dead mate and grief. But the look on his face right now said the math was dead fucking wrong.

He loved Serena just as deeply, and the math didn’t account for that, because love was never something you could reduce to arithmetic without losing the part that mattered most.

Alaric stepped forward and made a portal at that moment. "Let’s try the lake while we wait."

Fin stood with Serena in his arms, and moved through the portal first.

He waded into the lake without pause, cradling her against him. But to his surprise, it didn’t glow like usual. It was dim.

"Keep her in there," Alaric called, his voice steady in the way that only a man who has watched too many patients slip away can manage, the steadiness itself a warning.

The lake gradually glowed brighter, the gold light spreading outward from where Fin held Serena like a pulse finding its rhythm again. Everyone’s Hidden Flame mark went down a few degrees.

"Nightspire is here," Tiberon said. He glanced at Alaric. "Recommendation."

"Bring them here. I don’t want her out of the lake longer than necessary," Alaric answered, and the fact that he didn’t hedge or qualify or add a caveat told everyone in the room exactly how serious this was.

Tiberon gave a reluctant nod.

A portal formed and Nightspire entered with Maelor. Nightspire didn’t come last time, but there was no question Maelor filled him in and now he wanted to see for himself.

He locked eyes with Tiberon and spoke first.

"Maelor saved my life and is the very best." His endorsement of Maelor landed the way a lawyer endorses their star witness. Tiberon accepted it as a courtesy.

Maelor didn’t greet anyone or introduce himself. To be fair, half the room already knew him. And Tiberon hadn’t met a mage who wasn’t dramatic so it wasn’t anything new.

He stepped forward, cloak flaring around him. His mismatched eyes moved from the lake to Fin to Serena to the collection of Drakenfell’s leadership standing in a semicircle of varying helplessness.

He didn’t at all seem impressed or fazed by the glow, which meant he was very much impressed by it. He would have insulted it otherwise.

"Fascinating," he remarked. He then looked at Aeron with the specific expression of a man who had lost to someone by one rank and had been waiting years for that person to fumble.

"Your wards. The ones she is currently not behind. How are those performing? Just curious."

Aeron looked at him flatly. "The dark magic came a different way. Not tether related. Something else."

Fin moved to the shore and laid her down, grabbing her hand.

Tiberon was a strategist, not a man of emotions. But he also wasn’t dense and knew what he was looking at. Fin loved that girl. He saw it and so did everyone else.

He watched with the resigned expression of a Dragon King sworn to protect the Draken Prime at all costs. He was also a father, who now looked at her like his own. The daughter he always wanted, but never voiced. The girl dying on the shore had filled that role so quietly, he didn’t notice until it was too late.

And he was a father to Dexmon, who was going to be furious that she was permitted to stay in Shadowclaw.

But his hands were tied until they got their wards situated to specifically guard against shadow-tether Dark Fae magic, which is the most complex type of ward. 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

That aside, Tiberon had already given his word to Fin months ago, when he saved her life. His word was something he didn’t give easily and wouldn’t go back on. Honest kings are rare, and Fin Shadowclaw was too good of an ally to try to renegotiate with.

Dexmon left right when they were back on track, and Fin was now the one taking care of her.

Technically, Fin could’ve taken her as soon as he returned from Orosia. Tiberon would have allowed it and said nothing. He didn’t advertise that to either of them or to anyone, hopeful Serena would want to stay on her own.

Maelor lifted his hands, then froze. "Your matebond is the loudest thing in this room, and I include the dying woman. I can work with it or around it. Working with it is faster. Stay close and stop clenching your jaw, it’s distracting."

He clapped his hands twice and didn’t wait for a response.

He kneeled down, turquoise cloak pooling on wet stone. A micro-expression of suffering crossed his face before discipline won. The cloak was hand-stitched. The stone was filthy. He would mourn the fabric later.

He placed a hand on Serena’s arm, and his eyes flared green. He shoved magic into her aggressively, his jaw clenching, the veins in his forearms rising to the surface as green light poured from his palm and into her body.

The he stopped, yanking his hands back as though he had touched something that burned him from the inside out.