Chapter 390 You Look Like A Bitch

“Serena. We will be right back.”

Elara crossed the Shadowfell’s main gallery, and grabbed Serena’s arm before anyone could object.

Hyran opened his mouth.

“Right back,” Elara repeated, already walking, already pulling, already navigating the corridors of Shadowclaw like she lived there. Probably how Serena should have been considering.

Serena let herself be pulled.

“Do you have a room here?” Elara asked, her stride unbroken.

“No.”

Elara stopped walking. Turned. Looked at her.

“That is problem number one.”

She resumed walking. She stopped at a sitting room that looked empty, unused.

Elara pulled Serena inside. Shut the door. Turned the lock.

She faced Serena with crossed arms, assessing using best friend diagnostics.

“Talk. You look like a bitch.”

Serena blinked. “Excuse me?”

“I said what I said. Your face is carrying an expression I have seen on angry horses and overworked commanders. Something is wrong. Multiple somethings, if I had to guess, and I always have to guess because you hoard your problems like a dragon hoards gold and you let them pile up until the pile falls on you. So.” She pointed at the nearest chair. “Talk.”

“Nothing,” Serena said.

Elara rolled her eyes. She had been Serena’s best friend long enough to know that ’nothing’ was never nothing.

Serena’s hands flew into the air. Her composure had just received its final load-bearing straw and was collapsing in real time. The gesture was dramatic, expansive, and involved both arms.

It was so unprecedented that Elara’s mouth fell open.

Then Serena unloaded.

“There are a million and one things wrong, Elara. What isn’t wrong? Where would you like me to start? First.” She held up a finger. “I have to have a whole goddamn audience for training, which includes both of my mates, who have the emotional regulation of Alphas. Both of my mates are military commanders. If I hold a sword wrong, I feel BOTH of them through the matebond.”

She was pacing. Straight lines. Sharp turns. Military precision.

“I am going to be very clear about this,” she continued, her voice climbing into a register Elara had never heard from her. “I am bad at fighting. I’m a lover. What can I say. I am learning and every time I fail or forget something, I can feel both matebonds clocking it. I am under a microscope on something I am not remotely naturally good at and feel worse at it the longer they both are there. I need them to go. Or I am going to give a double middle finger to this entire plan because I am over it.”

“Who are you, and what have you done with Serena?” Elara sat in the chair Serena had ignored. “This is the best day of my life.”

“Second.” Serena held up two fingers without breaking stride. “Apparently Dexmon and Fin are the best of friends now. Dex told Fin about the time he lost my wolf in the forest and we ended up in Nightspire in the middle of a coup. And Fin told Dexmon about Shadowclaw getting attacked on my first shift and him having to carry me out.” She put both her hands in the air. “Big deal. Oh no. Serena was attacked.”

“Have they met you?” Elara agreed.

“Right? And now the two of them have apparently held a summit and concluded that I cannot be trusted to shift in the woods.”

She paused and took a breath. “I don’t like being told I can’t do something. It makes me want to go do it.”

“You can’t shift on your own, Serena. Last time I checked,” Elara commented.

“I am aware,” Serena snapped. “Minor detail, Elara.”

She spun. The turns were getting sharper. The strides were getting shorter.

“And Dex and Fin set up a schedule for me like the best friends they are.” Her hands went up again. “And Fin is saying I owe him a favor, which I do, because I gave my word, but I did not think the favor would be me getting crowned.”

The pacing stopped. Her voice cracked.

“It isn’t that I am against it. I am honored. But I now have to look Dexmon in the eyes and tell him, and that is going to crush him. He already shares me. He already agreed to a schedule. And now I am going to walk into a room and tell the man who marked me first and crowned me first that another man is crowning me too, and the look on his face, Elara, I can already see it. I cannot do it.”

She stopped. Stood still. Breathed.

Elara waited.

She waited for more. For the topic that had been sitting in Elara’s chest like a loaded weapon since a bedroom and a bandage and a glowing mark on a Gamma’s shoulder.

None came.

Thank fuck. Relief so thick it was nearly visible moved through Elara’s body. She survives another day. The bandage stays. The mark stays buried. If she tried to tell Serena about that particular situation, Serena would confess to her mates within ten minutes.

That was staying buried until Gavriel woke up. Buried deep. Under concrete. With a headstone that read Never Happened in bold lettering.

“About the crown,” Elara said. “If Fin brought in another woman to wear it publicly, would you be okay with that?”

“I would be fine.”

Elara snorted.

“Bullshit. You would cry about it. Even if she were ugly. Even if she were seventy years old and had a personality like a filing cabinet. You and I both know it.”

Serena opened her mouth. Closed it.

“Dex is a grown man who can handle a custody schedule for his mate. He has to see this coming. Everyone else does. Hale has been predicting it for months.” Elara leaned forward. “Tell him. He will hate it for a bit. And then he will do what Dexmon Drakenfell always does, which is accept the situation with a cocky comment and an internal adjustment that nobody ever sees because he has been trained to perform composure since birth. You are underestimating him by dreading this.”

Serena exhaled. The exhale was long, carrying three weeks of compressed anxiety in a single breath.

Then she turned back to Elara.

“Oh, and one more thing.”

Elara braced.

“When I am in wolf form, I remember parts of it.” Serena’s voice dropped to a register that was quiet and careful. “I know my wolf mated with Fin’s wolf. I know this because Fin can now mindlink me, and the only way that happens is through a wolf-to-wolf mating.”

Elara’s posture shifted. The amusement from thirty seconds ago was gone, replaced by the focused attention of a Beta Luna with a shovel.

“I don’t know if my wolf mated with Dex’s,” Serena continued. “Both Dex and Fin are here today for this wolf combat training.”