Chapter 391 Vitamin F And The Territorial Disaster

SHADOWCLAW — TRAINING ARENA

The arena was built for war and repurposed for embarrassment.

Serena Drakenfell’s training session had drawn an audience that rivaled a tournament.

Both Alpha Kings. Three Master Mages. Two Betas. A Master Healer who had arrived with a flask and the expression of a man attending a catastrophe out of professional obligation. Twelve Shadowclaw warriors handpicked by Fin to serve as training partners. And one Beta Luna, who was sitting in the front row with her legs crossed and a look on her face that communicated she was here for the chaos and would be providing commentary.

Serena stood in the center of the arena floor and wanted to disappear.

Hyran spoke first.

“The dark magic from the lake has been fully purged. All three are clean. The parasitic residue from the spikes has been extracted and neutralized.” His eyes moved to Serena, then to Dex, then to Fin.

“Confirmed,” Aeron said from his position against the far wall.

“Confirmed,” Maelor echoed. “Though I would like it noted that confirming something Hyran already confirmed is redundant, and my time is worth more than redundancy.”

“Your time is standing in an arena watching wolves train,” Hyran replied. “Adjust your expectations accordingly.”

“I am here for the cloak,” Maelor said. “If the Gamma’s cloak destabilizes during a shift, I need to be present to recalibrate it. The cloak is the priority. The training is incidental.”

“The Gamma is in a coma,” Alaric pointed out from his position against the wall, flask in hand.

“The cloak is still active,” Maelor countered. “Comas are temporary. Cloaks are forever. I have my priorities.”

Four days. They had four days before the next artifact retrieval, and the training Serena had abandoned when Gav started dying needed to resume immediately, which meant today, which meant now, which meant in front of every person whose opinion she cared about and several whose opinions she feared.

Serena pulled her hair back. Her hands gathered the white strands and secured them, and the tension in her shoulders during the process was so visible that both Alpha Kings registered it simultaneously.

Dex saw it from the western wall, where he was leaning with his arms crossed and Aegon rumbling low in his chest.

Fin touched her shoulder.

“Hey.” His voice was low. Private. Pitched for her ears and carrying the warmth of a man whose matebond was receiving her anxiety at full volume and whose instinct was to address it before the arena could amplify it. “Serena. What’s wrong?”

She shook her head once.

Fin didn’t move. He didn’t buy the headshake for one second.

“Shifting makes me anxious,” she said.

It was true. Shifting did make her anxious.

That was also about thirty percent of what was wrong, and Fin could feel the remaining seventy percent through the matebond the way a man feels rain through a leaking roof.

He pulled her into a hug.

His arms closed around her because his mate was anxious and the solution was vitamin F for Finnick. Her face pressed against his chest. Her hands stayed at her sides for three seconds. She was being hugged in front of an arena full of warriors and mages and felt the heat climbing up her neck toward her ears.

She hugged him back.

Her arms went around his ribs. Her body softened by increments. The tension in her shoulders released one degree at a time, and the anxiety bleeding through the matebond dimmed from a scream to a murmur. She had to admit, she felt a million times better.

“Don’t worry,” Fin said into her hair. “The pain gets less every time you shift. Your body is learning the transition. By your tenth shift, you will barely notice.”

She swallowed. “I don’t like the blackout part either.”

Fin looked down at her with fond endearment, like she just said the most adorable thing in the world. Because she just admitted a fear that was small and genuine and fixable, and this was a problem he could solve and intended to solve it thoroughly. All she needed was practice, and practice required him, and the requirement was the best thing he had heard all week.

“We will work on that,” he said, and the we carried a possessive weight that had nothing to do with grammar and everything to do with the fact that Finnick Shadowclaw had just mentally filed ’Serena’s shifting anxiety’ under ’things I am personally responsible for,’ and the file was going to receive his full attention for as long as the attention was needed.

He kissed her forehead. “Don’t worry about any of that. My wolf is here too.”

Twenty feet away, Dexmon Drakenfell was stiff as a board.

His arms were crossed. His nostrils were flaring. His eyes had shifted into molten gold Aegon taking control.

Teaching Serena to shift was his job, not Fin’s. Her wolf was Aegon’s true mate. She confided in him about not having a wolf weeks before she knew Fin. He marked her first. He was an Alpha, and she was his mate, and Serena hadn’t admitted any of that to him.

And the comforting. The holding. The steady voice and the patient arms.

Fin was doing it. Fin was doing it in front of every warrior in Shadowclaw and every mage in the alliance, and Serena was relaxing into it, and the relaxing was visible, and every person watching could see the tension leave her body in real time, and the person responsible was Finnick Shadowclaw, and Dex’s jaw was going to crack if he clenched it any harder.

He wasn’t going to rip her out of Fin’s arms or assert himself. He wasn’t going to do any of the seventeen things Aegon was screaming at him to do, because doing them would upset Serena. They were on a time crunch for training, and the time crunch outranked his ego, and the ego outranked his patience, and his patience was two seconds from saying fuck it.

Elara glanced between the two of them. Her eyes moved from Dex’s molten irises to Fin’s arms around Serena to the twelve Shadowclaw warriors who were pretending to stretch and were absolutely watching the most loaded hug in the history of the alliance.

She looked at Hale. Hale looked back. Both of them remained silent, because the silence of a Beta couple watching two Alpha Kings navigate a shared mate in a public arena was the silence of professionals who understood that intervention would make things worse and popcorn would be inappropriate.

Fin released Serena. She stepped back, her face carrying the fading blush of a woman who had been comforted in public and was already regretting the audience. She straightened. Squared her shoulders. Pulled the composure back on like armor.

“Let’s get this started,” Dexmon said, his voice layered with Aegon’s.