The Alpha's Unclaimed Mate

Two Alphas walked slightly too fast, pretending their matebonds weren’t screaming at them like fire alarms in a burning building.

Garrett had sworn Agnes would be on her best behavior. Fin hadn’t known Garrett brought her until an hour ago. Leaving Agnes alone in Darkhowler territory with her father’s allies still circling was a risk Garrett wasn’t willing to take. So Fin allowed it.

He assumed, at worst, there would be tension. The last time Serena and Agnes had been in the same room, there had been a physical fight. He didn’t know the full scope of it, outside of Serena channeling her flame, which even that he found hard to believe.

None of it sounded like Serena.

But something had been pulling at him through the matebond for the better part of that last hour. The matebond carried emotion, not context, and he’d spent the last forty minutes telling himself it was tension from last night and Garrett would help cheer her up.

He was wrong.

Just as they rounded the corner of the east hall, mid-conversation, a voice rang out.

"Omega-grade cock socket and a plea-deal princess want to play politics here."

Fin had heard a lot of things in his life. Battle cries. Death threats. Diplomatic insults. None of them hit quite like ’omega-grade cock socket’ at two in the afternoon.

Then the context caught up.

Garrett went still beside him. The kind of still that preceded very bad decisions made by very good men.

Then Fin saw her, and smelled her tears. A rash had spread on her neck, the kind that came from sustained cortisol. His chest constricted.

Next to her was Agnes, who, to her deranged credit, was not backing down. She was an inch from Guinevere’s face, and the energy between them had crossed from hostility into something so charged that Garrett’s hand had come up to his own jaw, rubbing it slowly.

Fin wasn’t sure if he needed to intervene or sell tickets.

"You have the sexual energy of a woman who fucks with the lights off and still disappoints, and the entitlement of a HOA president in a tiara that every person avoids eye contact with because you’re an annoying bitch."

Xeon:I am reluctantly impressed.

Guinevere leaned forward. Their lips were nearly touching. For one deeply confusing second, Fin couldn’t tell if they were about to fight or make out, and based on Serena’s expression, she was running the same calculation.

Then Guinevere kissed Agnes.

Fin stopped walking.

Garrett stopped breathing.

Agnes’s eyes blew wide, her body going rigid for exactly one second before something behind her expression recalibrated, and she grabbed Guinevere by the back of the neck and kissed her back.

Guinevere’s tea was in between them, unspilled.

They broke apart, both breathing like they’d run a circuit of the grounds.

Serena stood frozen in the alcove, watching the entire thing with an expression that suggested her soul had temporarily vacated her body.

Fin would have found it funny if he wasn’t still processing the fact that Guinevere had just kissed Garrett Darkhowler’s mate in front of all of them.

Garrett had not moved. He was staring at Agnes with the thousand-yard focus of a man replaying the last ninety seconds on a loop and finding no version of it that made sense.

"Agnes." His voice was careful. The tone he used to defuse something he didn’t fully understand. "What just happened?"

"Allergies," Agnes answered.

Garrett blinked. "That is not what allergies look like."

Fin crossed the hall in four strides, and pulled Serena into his arms. She melted into him immediately, relief bleeding through their matebond.

His hand cupped the back of her head. His chin rested on her hair. His eyes, however, lifted over the top of Serena’s head onto Guinevere.

Something in his expression shifted in the kind of cold, surgical recognition that came when someone you trusted revealed exactly how little they deserved it.

Garrett, meanwhile, had already locked onto the scene: Agnes with a look that promised violence, Guinevere standing rigid with a teacup, and Serena buried in Fin’s arms looking like she’d been through a war.

"Agnes. What happened?" he repeated the question. Then he grabbed her waist, yanking her closer with a territorial grip Serena had never seen from him before.

"That woman," Agnes pointed at Guinevere, "has been tormenting Serena. Calling her a whore. A stray. An omega. Told her she wasn’t his type."

She turned to look up at Garrett’s eyes. "I’ve done worse to Serena personally, and even I think this woman is garbage. I found Serena crying in an alcove."

Serena’s face flushed. She pulled out of Fin’s arms, and turned to face them. "Oh no, it’s okay. I’m not—"

Guinevere cut Serena off. "She doesn’t belong here, Finnick. Everyone sees it. Every woman in this court has been talking about it since you brought her here. A scrawny, no-name omega auditioning to be your mistress."

Every word was a landmine, and Guinevere was tap-dancing through them unbothered.

Agnes sucked in a breath through her teeth. Not because it offended her. Because it was a tactically suicidal thing to say in front of the man currently cradling the woman in question like she was the most important thing in the room.

Fin still said nothing. His silence was louder than anything Guinevere had said, and twice as dangerous.

"And you," Guinevere turned on Agnes. "You waltz in here, a convicted poisoner whose own father disowned her, and you think you can lecture me? In my home?"

"Your home," Agnes repeated flatly. "Funny. I don’t see your name on the door."

Guinevere moved. She poured her tea down the front of Agnes’s dress. Slowly. Deliberately. The dark liquid soaked through the silk bodice, spreading across the fabric in a stain that would never come out and onto Garrett’s arms that were still around her.

Agnes looked down at herself. The sound that came out of her was not a scream. It was older than that. It was the sound of a woman whose dress had just been ruined, and if the Geneva Convention applied to fashion, Guinevere had just committed a capital offense.

"MY DRESS." Agnes’s voice hit a register that science didn’t have a name for. Dogs three territories over perked up their ears, and bats left the castle tower.

"DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT THIS COST? THIS WAS A GIFT FROM GARRETT. YOU CUM-GUZZLING, SPLIT-END, BARGAIN BASEMENT HARRIDAN."

Guinevere didn’t flinch. She turned to Serena and threw the empty teacup directly at her. It hit Serena’s collarbone and shattered on the stone floor. A piece of porcelain nicked the skin above her clavicle, and a thin line of gold blood surfaced.

Serena jolted, genuinely surprised, and touched the blood on her clavicle.

"Clean it up." Guinevere spat the words like venom, eyes locked on Serena with something that went beyond contempt into territory that was deeply, fundamentally personal. "That’s what you are, isn’t it? You’re not a princess. You’re not a queen. You’re an omega. And omegas get on their knees and they clean."

Garrett stopped breathing. Agnes froze, done with screaming.

"You just physically assaulted the crown Princess of Drakenfell. Call her an Omega again. Or any of the vile names you were calling her in front of your Alpha. I dare you," Agnes snarled.

The teacup would leave a bruise. But it was fine. Agnes defending her, on the other hand, was something Serena would never recover from. Considering Agnes had called her every name in the offensive dictionary.

Guinevere looked genuinely appalled. "She is no such thing. She was wearing a warrior omega suit the first time I saw her and now she is wearing a dress I guarantee she pressured Finnick into buying for her."

She gave Serena another up and down. "A ridiculous lie. Like the one you tried to say that you were just visiting for a day, yet here you are again. You are a mistress who the Drakenfell Prince discarded and is now latching onto Finnick. A whore Drakenfell should collect from here but won’t because you are manipulating Finnick."

Serena opened her mouth. Closed it. The woman struck a nerve with the dress part. The rest was shocking. Fin had gotten Serena this dress, along with fifty other dresses. He filled half of his closet with clothes for her actually, and Serena felt guilty about it. Like she was doing something wrong by accepting it. And it took Fin three days just to get her to wear it. It might be stupid. She understood it was irrational. But she’d had nothing for so long and Dexmon had given her so much. A dress wasn’t just a dress to her. Not when it was from Fin.

She swallowed, knowing full well if she wanted to, she could light this woman on fire. But she didn’t. She just didn’t understand why she kept coming after her. And how she managed to say ignorant things in the exact right way to upset her when this woman had no idea what she was talking about.

Fin didn’t give her time to respond, stepping in front of her, shielding her completely. His eyes were molten. The way they got when his wolf wasn’t fighting for control because his wolf and the man had already agreed on what happened next.

Garrett moved first. "Serena. Agnes. With me. Now."

His hand found Serena’s arm, firm and careful. His other hand caught Agnes by the elbow before she could lunge, because Agnes was vibrating with the specific frequency of a woman three seconds from attempted murder.

"My DRESS, Garrett," Agnes snarled as he steered her. "She destroyed my dress. I am going to rip her hair out follicle by follicle and make her EAT it."

"I know. We’re leaving."

"I’m going to shove that teacup so far up her ass, next time she does anal she won’t even feel it."

"Agnes."

"SHE THREW A CUP AT SERENA. SHE THREW A CUP AT MY FRIEND."

There it was again. That word said with the same ferocity as a war declaration. Serena, still being pulled down the corridor by Garrett, looked over her shoulder one last time.

Fin hadn’t moved. He stood in front of Guinevere like a wall, his back to them, his shoulders rigid. Guinevere was staring at him. Her chin was still raised, but her hands were shaking.

The last thing Serena heard before Garrett rounded the corner was Fin’s voice, controlled in a way that made every word sound terrifying.

"Sit down."