The Alpha's Unclaimed Mate

"You again."

Serena recognized the voice before she turned, and the familiarity wasn’t the good kind. The dark-haired woman from the courtyard.

"I was hoping you’d moved on by now," she said, rounding the corner like she owned the corridor and the air in it. Her eyes dropped to Serena’s dress then climbed back up slowly. "But here you are. Still lingering."

Serena turned to face her. "I’m just passing through."

"You’re always just passing through. Just happening to be wherever Finnick is." She stopped two feet away, close enough that Serena could smell her perfume. "Do you rehearse that? The doe-eyed virgin routine?"

Serena held her look. "I don’t know what you think is happening, but you’re mistaken."

The woman laughed. Short, sharp, no humor in it.

"Oh, sweetheart. I’m never mistaken." She tilted her head as if the conversation was merely a formality before the verdict. "You spread your legs for the most powerful man in Skardos because your bloodline couldn’t open a broom closet and that’s the only card girls like you know how to play."

Serena went very still. She said nothing.

There was no version of this conversation where talking made it better. She’d learned that from every woman who’d ever hated her on sight. The list was long. The lesson was consistent.

"It’s not even original. Women cycle through this castle constantly. They last a season, maybe two. And then they leave, because Finnick doesn’t keep anyone."

She paused, letting that land. It crash-landed actually. So did the overwhelming urge to tell this woman to go fuck herself, but Serena’s manners had survived worse provocations than this, and they weren’t dying today.

"His real mate was beloved by this entire pack, and he buried her in the ground. He will never love you the way he loved her. That’s just the truth no one else will say to your face."

The silence that followed was worse than anything she’d said. Because Serena couldn’t argue with grief. Or the quiet fear she carried in her chest that she was a placeholder in a story that had already ended.

"You’re not the first girl to mistake proximity for permanence. You won’t be the last. Shadowclaw is not a charity, and Finnick is not a rehabilitation project for women who’ve run out of options. Whatever you think is happening here, it isn’t."

Serena swallowed the twelve things she wanted to say, most of which would’ve made a sailor flinch, and settled for the thirteenth, which was nothing. Her eyes burned, and she hated that they burned, because she had survived worse than this and she knew it. But knowing it didn’t stop the sting. It never had.

"So do yourself a kindness," the woman said softly, almost gently, as if she were offering genuine advice. "Leave before he has to ask you to."

"Understood. Please excuse me."

Serena dipped her head, a reflex so ingrained it happened before she could decide whether this woman deserved it, and walked away. Measured. Unhurried. Spine straight, chin level.

She made it around two corners before the composure buckled.

She pressed herself into an alcove between a stone column and a tapestry. Her hand found her neck, fingers curling around the side of her throat where her pulse thudded against her skin. She pressed her palm flat and held it there.

She breathed and swallowed hard. The second breath came slower, steadier.

Serena wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, then again faster, as if speed could erase the evidence.

She refused to cry over a woman she didn’t even know the name of. Nameless bitches didn’t get tears.

"Serena?"

Serena flinched so hard her shoulder blades hit the stone behind her. She thought she’d tucked herself deep enough into the alcove that no one would find her.

Serena turned, expecting an omega, a guard, Aeron, anyone but the woman standing three feet away.

Agnes Viremont, now Darkhowler, stood in a gown that cost more than most villages, looking at Serena with an expression that didn’t match a single interaction they’d ever had.

Concern.

Serena cursed herself. She’d once told herself she preferred Agnes to that woman. The universe rewarded her for the thought. Fantastic.

"Are you alright?"

Serena opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Her throat was raw and tight, and the heat crawling up her neck had turned into a visible rash. And she had no excuse to be upset because Fin wasn’t her mate, and she’d been sad about Dexmon all morning.

She swallowed.

"Allergies."

"And it has nothing to do with that horse-face woman saying cunty things?"

Serena didn’t know if she wanted to laugh or cry.

"Are you visiting with Garrett?" She also didn’t know why she was making pleasant conversation with a woman who had poisoned her three times, faked a pregnancy, and once listed her crimes alphabetically as a formal apology.

Maybe it was because Agnes was the only person in Shadowclaw who wasn’t looking at her like she was something to be scraped off a boot. A low bar to clear. Six feet under, but Agnes was crawling over it barely.

Agnes didn’t answer, because the hall echoed with approaching footsteps.

The woman rounded the corner unhurried, and stopped at the mouth of the alcove. Her eyes swept from Serena to Agnes. The teacup in her hand was still steaming.

"Oh, look. Another one." Her lip curled. "You two are friends, then? Both content with the arrangement?"

Agnes looked at Serena. Then at the woman. Then she smiled.

"Do I know you?" She asked it with a bored tone. Like she was mildly inconvenienced by the existence of the question.

The woman’s chin lifted.

"You’re speaking to a senior lady of King Shadowclaw’s court." Her voice dripped with a level of entitlement that would give Bellatrix a run for her money. "I’d suggest adjusting your tone."

"A senior lady," Agnes repeated. She let the words sit in the air like something she’d stepped in. "How quaint. I didn’t realize they gave titles to decorative cunts. Is it hereditary, or did you earn it on your back?"

Horse-Face’s nostrils flared.

"I would be very careful, girl. You have no name here. No standing. No..."

"I am Queen Agnes Darkhowler. I have a crown and bloodline that predates whatever backwater finishing school taught you to harass women half your size in hallways." Agnes tilted her head, examining her the way one examines a stain on upholstery. "You don’t even have a name worth giving. And you’re picking on Serena, who is my friend."

The word detonated in the hall. Serena’s brain went blank. Every thought froze, then flatlined.

Agnes Viremont. The woman who had thrown a whiskey glass at her head and called her a white-haired used condom the last time they saw each other, just called her a friend.

In public.

With a straight face.

Serena couldn’t tell if Agnes was trying to get her banished from Shadowclaw or was genuinely delusional enough to believe the word applied. It was either strategy or insanity, and the truly alarming part was that with Agnes, the answer was probably both.

"Your friend," the woman repeated. She looked between them with the kind of open disgust usually reserved for vermin. "The cock-warmer and the convict trying to be a queen. One fucks for a roof. The other fucks for a title. Trash attracts trash."

Agnes let out a laugh so sharp it could have split marble. "Sweetheart, I committed actual crimes and still got a king. You’re standing in your own castle with no ring, no crown, and no man brave enough to claim you."

The woman’s hand tightened around her teacup, knuckles going white. "You know nothing about this court. Nothing about who I am to him. And nothing about what happens to women who overstep here."

"Him?" Agnes raised one eyebrow. "Interesting. You said ’who I am to him.’ Never just ’who I am.’ Which means the only thing interesting about you is proximity to a man who clearly hasn’t touched you."

Horse-Face’s composure fractured for half a second.

"Katherine would be horrified," the woman clipped. "To see the caliber of women being paraded through these halls. A Viremont felon and a half-starved omega whore playing dress-up."

"Half-starved?" Agnes looked at Serena, then back at the woman. "Maybe you’re just fat."

She said ’fat’ so casually it took a full second to register. Serena’s mouth fell open.

"And if you invoke a dead woman’s name one more time to win an argument you’re already losing, I will drag you by your split ends down every corridor in this castle until a brave soul comes to collect what’s left."

She took a step forward.

The woman held her ground, lifting her chin defiantly. "A Viremont felon and a half-feral rent-a-mate playing court."

"Don’t test me," Agnes shot back. "I have an actual criminal record. What do you have? A seating chart and a grudge?"

Agnes took another step forward. They were the same height and three inches apart. For a terrifying second, it looked like they were going to kiss.

Serena was half tempted to give them a moment of privacy, but she also couldn’t look away. Elara would be livid if she didn’t get the full details. She’ll want a goddamn transcript, and a diagram of who was standing where.

"You don’t scare me. Convicted cum-queen who fucked Darkhowler into getting a mark. I heard you begged so he wouldn’t reject you." The woman looked at Serena, who was silent. "And you. Taking advantage of Finnick. You’re milking a grieving man’s cock and praying he puts a pup in you before he realizes what you are."

Agnes leaned back far enough to clap her hands in the woman’s face, then leaned back in. The woman jumped, and Agnes’s whole face brightened. She got off on it without a shred of shame.

"You’ve got the mouth of a dock whore and the ring finger of a nun. Pick a lane, hun."

The woman leaned another inch forward. Their lips were an inch apart now.

Serena blinked a few times, then looked around, because either this was about to become a fight or something significantly more confusing, and she wasn’t sure she had the emotional bandwidth for either.