Chapter 176

Two Apex Predators Calling Dibs
Serena’s eyes shifted from black to pink, her body glowing with it.

The familiar crown, the one Aeron had identified as the Moon Goddess artifact, vibrated onto her head, the armband locking into place beside it.

Everyone bearing the Hidden Flame mark on their forearm surged pink in unison, glowing with her.

Somewhere on the west lawn, fifty warriors looked at each other, and collectively decided not to talk about it.

She stood up, Fin behind her, ready to catch her if she fell. He could feel her through their matebond, a focus radiating off her like heat from a forge, and knew not to get in her way.

She turned to Maelor and opened her mouth.

The language that came out was not one anyone in that chamber had ever heard outside of Maelor. The syllables rolled off her tongue like she’d spoken them her entire life.

The color drained from Maelor’s face. He spoke the language back to her, giving her a small nod.

Dex appeared at the top of the stairs. He looked like hell had chewed him up, spit him out, and sent him back shirtless with a bloody torso.

“Dexmon?” Tiberon and Alaric said in unison. Tiberon was already moving to his son, relief cracking through the iron mask.

At that moment, Serena held up one hand, a portal cracking open. The edges of it sizzled with pink energy, the air around it warping.

“Don’t let her go through,” Dexmon called, his voice raw. He could feel her with clarity through their matebond. Every ounce of her intent. And it terrified him. He moved at Alpha speed towards her.

Fin reached for her arm, but his hand was stopped by an invisible force an inch away.

“What the hell—”

He had never been told ’no’ by anything, and had just been denied by a tiny girl who wasn’t even looking at him.

Dexmon had an identical experience. His hands stopped dead, as if the air around her had turned to glass. His fingers pressed against nothing, and nothing pressed back.

Both of their Alpha auras detonated simultaneously, two thunderstorms in an enclosed chamber for everyone else to feel. All non-Alphas in the room visibly winced.

“What is she saying?” Fin demanded, eyes snapping to Maelor.

“She thanked me for my help,” Maelor answered, a bead of sweat forming on his temple.

“Then why is there a damn portal open?” Fin gritted out.

Dex said nothing because he’d been about to ask the same question, and agreeing with Fin out loud felt like losing something.

Instead, he tried a different approach, moving in front of the portal. “Serena, come back to me, baby.”

Serena spoke.

Maelor translated. “She says not to worry and the girl will not be harmed. But she must retrieve something. You can see it from the portal door.”

Dex and Fin processed this at the same speed. The answer was a unanimous: absolutely not.

Serena moved in a blur.

Both alphas lunged at the same time, in the same direction, with the same result.

Dex tried again. Fin did as well. As if they’d have a different result on the third try. They didn’t.

Both of their eyes flared molten gold, wolves surging in equal frustration.

It would have been funny. If Serena hadn’t almost died, and Dex hadn’t miraculously showed up when they all thought he was captured, it would have been. Two apex predators reduced to toddlers being told no. Hands out, grasping at air, with identical expressions of furious disbelief.

Elara pressed her lips together so hard they disappeared. Hale looked at the ceiling because eye contact with anyone would have ended him.

Aeron was openly amused with the self-preservation of a moth near a flame, wearing the grin of a man who had chosen entertainment over survival.

She entered the portal, Fin and Dexmon storming in behind her. Without discussion. Without eye contact. Shoulder to shoulder. The doorway was wide enough for both of them. Barely. They entered at the exact same time through sheer mutual refusal to go second.

“For the love of the Moon Goddess,” Hyran said, unimpressed, arms folded, watching two of the most dangerous alphas on the continent trail after a girl glowing pink like devoted, useless puppies.

Serena returned with three scrolls, Fin and Dex still behind her. Both alphas wore the expressions of men who had just braved a portal to save a woman, convinced their presence had been the only thing keeping her alive.

Almost like they were waiting for her to collapse, and whoever caught her first had dibs. Neither acknowledged the other.

It was an unspoken competition with no rules, no referee, and both competitors pretending it wasn’t happening.

Elara made eye contact with Hale and shook her head once, very slowly, communicating an entire paragraph: Do. Not. Laugh.

Serena then, to everyone’s surprise, moved to Gav.

Fin and Dex both tracked her movement with the synchronized precision of two men who were absolutely, categorically fine with this.

They were not fine.

Their matebonds were broadcasting the emotional equivalent of a fire alarm, and Serena, bless her, was too possessed to notice.

She spoke, and Maelor translated. “Your ancestors are aligned. You take these and only give them to her in order. She will complete them one at a time.”

Gav blinked, taking them, staring at her with the intensity of a man who was praying that this was the moment when the draw he felt towards her would finally make sense. The one he had buried.

Serena spoke, and Maelor shifted his weight, uncomfortable, like he didn’t want to translate what came next.

He was standing in a room with two territorial alphas, multiple kings, and a glowing girl speaking a dead language, and the thing making him uncomfortable was the translation. That said everything.

He gave her a look, not missed by anyone. She nodded, in understanding. The meaning was unclear to the room, but Gav read it as a silent agreement: you don’t have to translate that now, but you will tell him.

Dex stood slightly closer to Serena than Fin. Fin noticed and closed the gap by exactly that much. Dex noticed and did not move, because moving again would confirm he’d noticed. They were now equidistant from her. Elara was keeping score.

Maelor loosened his collar, then translated the next part. “She must take care of something. If you choose to stay in this chamber, you are agreeing to bleed.”

Tiberon’s jaw flexed. He didn’t want Nightspire in here, but Maelor was his mage and the only person who knew the language Serena was speaking. And Tiberon knew Serena, without a doubt, was not aware of what she was doing.

“I’ll stay with her,” Hyran said, like he was taking one for the team. “You can all go get rest.”

“I’ll stay too,” Aeron nodded solemnly.

Two scholars, volunteering to stay in a room with unprecedented magical phenomena. The selflessness was staggering.

They’d have paid admission.

“Dex, you look terrible,” Alaric said. “Why don’t—”

He stopped mid-sentence at the look on Dexmon’s face.

“Why can’t I touch her,” Dexmon clipped, eyes snapping to Maelor. It wasn’t a question. It was a threat dressed in syntax.

Serena held out her hand, a pink bridge forming from nothing, sparkling into existence, stretching to the island at the center of the lake.

Fin and Dex looked at the bridge. Then at each other. It was the first direct eye contact they’d made all night, and it lasted exactly long enough to establish that neither was letting the other cross first.

She moved across the bridge, everyone following behind.

Fin moved immediately. Dex moved at the exact same time.

But was one step behind. One. He would remember it. His nostrils flared.

Fin first. Dex second. Both pretending the order didn’t matter. It did. Everyone knew. Nobody said a word.