The Alpha's Unclaimed Mate

"Sit," King Tiberon ordered, already pouring whiskey.

One for himself. One for his son. One for Hyran.

The last time they’d been in this configuration, Dexmon found out about Viper’s Kiss and was told he couldn’t hold his mate.

Tiberon handed him a glass.

Dex held it, thumb running along the rim, watching the amber catch the light from the hearth.

Tiberon picked up his own glass, and sat across from his son. Hyran slumped into the third armchair.

"Shadowclaw could have taken her at any point," Tiberon said, voice steady as iron. "He didn’t. Whether that was strategy or something else, I’ll leave to your interpretation. But he saved her life. We gave him our word, and that does not bend. Not for an ally."

"I know." Dex’s eyes didn’t leave the fire. "You don’t need to explain how your word works. I grew up watching it."

He took a slow drink. It burned, and he let it.

"She is my mate by law. My wife. The Crown Princess of Drakenfell. I don’t understand where his confusion is."

Tiberon let him go. He knew better than to step in front of this.

"A fated matebond so deep the ancestors blessed it." Dex’s voice gained weight with each word. "The Dragon Queen Incarnate. Sacred to our people. My wolf’s true mate. We share a dragon as a true bond."

He rubbed his hand down his face.

"With all due respect, Father, you’re advising on a language you’ve never spoken."

Dex said it without malice, without the bite of a son lashing out. He said it like a man stating a geographical fact, pointing at a mountain and saying you’ve never been to the top of that.

Tiberon didn’t correct it. But he took a large gulp of his whiskey.

"We have a few options." The sympathy, if there had been any, was gone. "Shadowclaw hasn’t crowned her. But, it sounds like we are on borrowed time with that."

Hyran opened his mouth, but paused before speaking, long enough that both Dex and Tiberon looked at him.

"Aeron relayed that Shadowclaw offered her the crown and she refused it already."

Dex exhaled. He wasn’t surprised by this. "That’s because it’s never been about a crown for her."

"Yes," Hyran agreed. "Which makes her the only person in this room who’s ever turned down power voluntarily. Present company very much included."

"Shadowclaw wants it," he continued. "But he hasn’t pulled the trigger publicly, which is the only reason we’re having a conversation right now instead of responding to a diplomatic crisis. So we should probably stop wasting the window he’s accidentally giving us."

"He is too attached to her. Aeron says he’s never seen him like this before, even with his first mate."

Dex’s knuckles went white around his glass.

Hyran tapped a rhythm against the side of his own, the crystal pinging softly. "She tried to end things with Shadowclaw. He, predictably, declined the offer. I believe the technical term for that conversation is ’dead on arrival.’"

"What does that mean," Dex said through gritted teeth.

"It means," Hyran answered, voice calm. "She’s marked by him and has a fated bond with him. She loves you and has a mark with you. And she’s tearing herself apart trying to reconcile. That’s the math, Dex. It doesn’t simplify."

The whiskey glass in Dex’s hand exploded, shattering. His jaw locked so tight a muscle jumped at his temple.

Tiberon stood, handing Dexmon a cloth, and another glass. Dexmon looked down, just then noticing his hand was bleeding.

"As I said. Options. First, give her to Shadowclaw and we be done with this."

"No." Dex didn’t let him finish. "I’ll give her to Shadowclaw right after I give him my spine. Since apparently I’m not using either."

Tiberon didn’t flinch. He’d expected that.

"If you and her break the matebond mutually, the risk of it killing is substantially lower. You could keep it in tact for now, and break it in a year or so when things settle."

"I said no."

"Second." Tiberon continued as if Dexmon had never spoken because Tiberon Drakenfell did not present incomplete intelligence, even when the data was unpalatable.

"You annul things with Serena and take another mate."

Dex’s eyes darkened, but Tiberon held up his hand before he could interrupt.

"Not for love, Dexmon. You keep seeing her if you choose. Have an heir with the legal Crown Princess." His voice carried no judgment. "Perhaps in time, with distance and another commitment, you move on. Perhaps you don’t. But you have options."

Dex’s jaw shifted. "No. Off the table."

"Third. Keep things as they are. But know this: when Shadowclaw crowns her, not if, when, she will be queen of the two largest regions in Skardos. There will be fallout landing on her, Drakenfell, and Shadowclaw."

The firelight caught the scar on Tiberon’s knuckle as he set his glass down. A scar from a war that predated Dex’s birth. A reminder that empires survive on structure, not sentiment.

"If you and him both keep Serena by law, when she sires an heir, that child would be heir to Shadowclaw as well."

The words landed with a weight that pressed the air out of the room.

"Dragon high bloods generally sire only one son. Now, if she has two mates, there’s a chance she could sire two. But there’s also never been an example of that in our history," Tiberon continued, tone unchanged. "If she doesn’t, you would need to take a mistress, at least temporarily, to ensure an heir."

Dex stared at his father in disbelief, fury, and with a hollowed-out expression of a man in a cage.

"No. The only person she is siring an heir with is me."

Tiberon met his gaze and held it. "Even if that were true, by law, it wouldn’t be just yours."

Dex let out a breath through his nose. Not quite a laugh. Not quite a sound of pain. Something in between that lived in the space where both of those things collapsed into each other.

"You’ve given me three options and none of them end with her being mine. So tell me the fourth. The one you haven’t said yet."

"The odds of that fourth option coming true are zero, Dex. Shadowclaw isn’t going to let her go, and breaking a matebond with him could also kill her. Even if it’s mutual."

"No one would blame you, if you did end things," he added. "She’s not carrying a child. She’s been here a few months. You and her barely consummated. All grounds for annulment, and you can move on."

Consummated meaning, you’ve only had sex with her a few times and it could be worse. Dex didn’t want to analyze the fact his father was talking so openly about that and siring heirs.

He looked at his father with an expression of pure disbelief. "There’s no world where I do that. Ever. I love her and she’s supposed to be in Drakenfell. And you agree. I’ve seen it."

Tiberon held Dex’s gaze. "I do."

Silence held the room for a long moment. The fire popped. Whiskey settled in glasses no one was reaching for.

Tiberon spoke again, his tone shifting from options to assessment. The king replacing the father, because the father had done what he could and the king still had work to do.

"Shadowclaw is playing the longer game with her, from what I can tell. He’s not putting pressure on her or giving her an ultimatum. In fact, he’s opposed to that, which, given our ninety-day timeline, is the right call."

Dex looked up. The implication wasn’t lost on him. Time was doing the work for Shadowclaw. Every day she spent in his territory, under his protection, wearing his mark, the gravity of that arrangement deepened. Not by force. By presence. By the slow, patient accumulation of a man who understood that a woman like Serena couldn’t be cornered into loyalty, only earned into it.

And that, Dex realized with a sickening clarity, was exactly what made Finnick Shadowclaw dangerous.

Tiberon read it on his son’s face, but didn’t soften the blow. "He’s smarter than most think."

"I’m aware. That’s not the compliment you think it is right now," Dex said. There was nothing worse than watching another man play his hand better than he had.

Hyran cleared his throat.

Both Tiberon and Dex looked at him. Hyran clearing his throat before speaking was a red flag that neither of them missed.

"There’s something else." His voice was careful. "Serena was very upset after leaving yesterday."

He paused.

"Upset is an understatement. Aeron’s actual word would make you put your fist through that wall, and I rather like this room intact."

He looked into his glass like the whiskey owed him a better way to say this.

"So distraught, in fact, that Shadowclaw is now involved." His gaze lifted to Dex. "Aeron inquired whether Dexmon was alright. Not to Serena’s knowledge."

The room contracted. Dex’s chest tightened, something sharp and involuntary pressing against his ribs.

Hyran continued, quieter now. "Aeron said Shadowclaw feels her pain and emotions to a high degree through their matebond. I’d imagine similar to yours."

The words hit Dex somewhere beneath the anger, beneath the possessiveness, beneath every instinct that screamed mine every time Shadowclaw’s name was spoken in the same sentence as hers. They hit the part of him that knew exactly what Hyran meant by to a high degree, because he had lived it.

Tiberon watched his son. The way Dex’s shoulders curved inward, just slightly. The way his eyes stayed fixed on a point that wasn’t in the room but somewhere far past it, somewhere he couldn’t reach.

He’d seen that look before. Once. In a mirror, thirty years ago, when he made a choice that cost him everything and called it leadership.

He said nothing. Because there was nothing to say that wouldn’t be a lie or a wound, and Tiberon Drakenfell did not deal in either.