Gavriel Sterling was walking back from the healer’s ward with an ice pack pressed to his jaw, the split lip from Dexmon’s knuckles still tender under his tongue.
He turned the corner into the main corridor.
Two Drakenfell guards, with the bruised, thousand-yard look of n who had recently survived a combat tour, were escorting a fully nude woman in manacles.
He stopped.
"That is a new one," he said pleasantly, to the nearest guard. "What did she do."
"Bit the crown prince, Gamma. And the Beta. Among other colorful cris, I am told."
"Why is she nude."
"She stripped while she was chasing the crown prince."
"What do you an chasing the crown prince."
"Not my place to say, Gamma."
Gav touched his jaw, running the math. Dex punched him for kissing Serena, then was being chased by a naked woman.
He reached for his wolf who had been silent since the kiss.
Gav: If Dex cheated on Serena after punching in the jaw. I will kick his ass.
His wolf did not answer. His wolf was, at that mont, very carefully not answering.
That’s when her scent hit him. The ice pack in his hand hit the stone floor.
Fin Shadowclaw turned the corner at the far end of the hall.
"Sterling. A word. Now."
"No."
"No," Fin echoed, the word landing like he was tasting sothing sour. His eyes flared molten, Xeon pushing to surface. "I wasn’t asking."
Gav didn’t even spare him a glance. He was staring down the corridor with the wide, unblinking focus of a Gamma watching his life derail in real ti.
"Oh no. No. No. Noooo. Fuck No."
"Sterling."
Gav’s wolf spoke.
✦✦✦
At the opposite end of the castle, the Beta of Drakenfell was following his mate’s scent like a two-hundred-and-forty-pound anxiety attack with legs.
Hale: Elara? Where are you? Please. Answer .
"Fuck," he said out loud, to the corridor. "Kitten?"
He mindlinked her four more tis in the next thirty seconds. Each one slightly more unhinged than the last.
Dexmon ran past him, pants still on backwards, with determination in his eyes.
Hale followed.
✦✦✦
In an abandoned storage room three floors below, the Crown Princess of Drakenfell and the Beta Luna were having a ltdown.
"I thought Hale was one of the good ones," Elara sobbed. "I thought he was. I told you he was."
"There is an explanation, Elara."
"He was on top of a naked woman."
Serena’s head lifted a fraction. "Was HE naked too?"
"No. Just her. But he was on top."
"Elara." Serena shook her head, her voice soft and certain. "Hale fell over a candle stand the first ti you walked into his study. I highly doubt he was doing sothing like that."
"Serena."
"Mm."
"Rember what I said about Dex. The night you walked in on him."
Serena’s chest went still.
"Yes," she whispered, her own morning still lodged in her throat. She ca to talk to Elara about it, but Elara was so upset she hadn’t ntioned it yet.
"Sorry. This is like that. I would not have believed it myself. But I saw it."
Serena pressed her forehead to Elara’s hair and said nothing for a long mont. She more than understood.
Two won. Two n. Sa morning. Her mind turned it over once, then set it down. She didn’t have enough information to make it an sothing, and Serena did not build theories on pain. She built them on facts. The facts would co.
Right now, Elara needed air, and Serena needed to stop seeing her mother’s necklace every ti she blinked.
"Co on."
She stood, pulling Elara up with her.
✦✦✦
Two minutes later, Dexmon Drakenfell burst through the storage room door with his shoulder, the impact hard enough to crack the fra. Unnecessary, because the door had been unlocked.
Hale entered three strides behind him.
"FUCK." Dex kicked the crate.
"They were here."
Serena’s scent lingered. So did Elara’s. Both trails led to the door and then scattered in two directions, because of course they did.
✦✦✦
Serena and Elara rounded a corner in the east wing, going to get so fresh air.
Across from her, standing in the middle of the corridor with her hands on her hips as though she owned it, was Guinevere Ashford in a Drakenfell training suit.
She was no longer in manacles and apparently, never under arrest.
Elara’s eyes filled imdiately.
"Serena... "
"Is this the girl, Elara?"
Elara sniffled. "Y-Yes."
"Gang-banged into relevance and still not interesting. How does it feel to be yesterday’s news?" Guinevere said unbothered.
Serena dropped Elara’s arm.
"Give the necklace."
"Co and take it, you overdrawn fuck account."
Her insult creativity was a solid eight, and any other day, that might have been funny. But today was not that day. Serena Drakenfell was done.
At this mont, Fin Shadowclaw turned the corner and stopped dead. And it wasn’t because of Guinevere.
Serena lunged full strength, taking her to the floor with one knee on either side. Then she smacked her.
"Get off ."
"That’s for Garrett. You gave him the worst four months of his life. HE’S mated to AGNES. And survived GENOCIDE."
Her palm cracked across Guinevere’s cheek again. Harder.
"That is for touching my Beta with your vile hands."
She smacked her for a third and final ti. This one was hard enough that it made her hand sting.
"AND THIS IS FOR YOU SLEEPING WITH DEXMON."
Guinevere started to crack up. "Oh, is that all you have? This is good. Really, put your back into it."
In the span of one second, her face went from laughing to stone crazy. She yanked her hands free, and drove her fist into Serena’s jaw.
Teeth clicked. The taste of gold flooded Serena’s mouth. Before she could recover, Guinevere shoved her backwards and was on her feet, standing over her with the pendant clutched in her fist.
"Cry about it to Finnick like you always do."
She drove her boot into Serena’s ribs. Serena grunted, hunching over, one arm across her ribs.
Fin Shadowclaw’s soul returned back to his body. "Serena." He moved at Alpha speed and picked her up.
"Guinevere. Enough."
Serena wiggled against his hold. Fin looked down at her. Green eyes. Not gold. Not glowing. Just furious and very much trying to leave his arms.
"Baby?"
He let her go, which he would reflect on later as the worst tactical decision he could have made. The second he did, his Hidden Fla mark seared hot. Gold fire surrounded her hands. A mirror of the burn ripped through their matebond so fast his knees dipped and his hand shot to the wall to keep himself vertical.
She dove for the necklace, still on Guinevere’s neck, hands lit, with the full understanding that she might set a woman on fire and had made peace with the consequences. That was between Guinevere and the gods.
Fin staggered forward, reaching for Serena’s waist. Guinevere’s boot ca up at the sa ti, aid at Serena.
Serena ducked. Fin caught the full trajectory.
Catastrophic case of wrong place, wrong ti.
The sound he made was not a word. His knees buckled and he folded at the waist with the slow, irreversible gravity of a tree that had been cut at the base.
Every man in the corridor flinched in solidarity.
Fin tried to straighten. He made it halfway. Then he made a decision to stay exactly where he was for the foreseeable future.
Serena turned back around and the color drained from her face.
"FIN."
She slid to her knees beside him and pressed her lips to his temple.
"I’m sorry," she whispered.
Then she did sothing Fin Shadowclaw did not see coming: she let go of him.
She stood slowly, and tipped her chin at Guinevere.
"How fucking dare you. Crazy bitch."
"Am I?"
Guinevere yanked the necklace off her neck, snapping the chain.
Serena’s hand flew to her mouth.
Elara zeroed in on the necklace. "Holy shit. That is...."
Guinevere tilted her head flashing a serpentine grin, then dashed to the other end of the corridor, tossing it into the hearth.
Serena stared in horror for a second, eyes going red. Her mother’s necklace was tossed into the fire. The only thing she had left.
Elara turned to an oga. "Bucket of water. Now."
The oga sprinted away.
"Co get , refurbished sex doll." Guinevere moved out of the double doors into the courtyard.
Serena ran after her in a blur.
Then they began to circle slowly.
Guinevere ca in fast. Serena’s knee caught her in the stomach. She took the hit and used the montum to sweep Serena’s ankles out from under her.
Ground. Hard. Guinevere on top.
Her nails raked down Serena’s neck over her mark, drawing four clean lines. Serena gasped, the pain imdiate and intense.
"You like collecting marks." Guinevere panted.
Instinct took over. In an explosion of gold light, Guinevere was flung back ten feet.
Dexmon was outside in a flash. "Why is she not in cuffs? Arrest her. Now."
Serena jumped to her boots in one fluid motion, and wiped her jaw with the back of her hand. Her neck was bleeding. Her expression was pissed and she was ready for blood.
"No wonder you have two Alphas. You’re a breeding mule. It’s obvious now."
It was at this point that every dragon in Drakenfell stopped what they were doing. All of their heads lifted.
"You want to fight, oga? Let’s fight. Wolf to wolf. I HEARD YOURS COULDN’T EVEN WALK and Finnick had to carry you."
"Serena... baby... I..." Dex saw the gold eyes and her body glowing, which historically ant she didn’t realize what she was doing. He moved, fully prepared to pick her up and carry her to their quarters.
Without looking at him, she flicked her wrist and a gold wall fabricated in between them.
Fin managed to push himself off the ground stepping outside. "Guinevere. Stand down."
Alpha command. Her body froze against her will. The guards moved, shackling her.
At that point, Gavriel was coming to collect her, having just spent the last thirty minutes getting her out of an arrest and multiple charges.
"What the hell..."
He stared at the scene. Then at Guinevere. Then at the guards re-shackling her. Then back at the scene. His morning had started with an ice pack. It was now a full circus, and he appeared to be the only clown not in on the act.
That’s when Guinevere shifted. Grey wolf.
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