Chapter 442

SHADOWCLAW — TRAINING ARENA, EXTERIOR

Dexmon Drakenfell was leaning against the wall outside the training arena with his arms crossed. He had absolutely not been standing there for forty-seven minutes and counted every one of them.

Hyran was beside him, looking grumpy because he had been asked to stand outside an arena for the sole purpose of opening a portal when the session ended. His professional bandwidth was being allocated to the magical equivalent of calling a carriage.

Inside the arena, Serena shifted for the twenty-first time that day.

The pain tore through Dex’s matebond like a hot blade through his sternum. His jaw locked. His nose started bleeding. Again. Eleventh time for that symptom.

Six seconds. He counted every goddamn one.

In his study, Finnick Shadowclaw was receiving the same six seconds at the same intensity through the same matebond, and was bleeding on whatever documents were under his nose, and was hating every second of the distance with the same fury Dex was hating it from outside a wall.

Both Alphas had been removed from the arena by Tiberon. Again. Both Alphas had complied. Again. Both Alphas had spent the morning absorbing their mate’s shift pain from locations that were close enough to hear the shifts and far enough to be useless during them, and the combination of close and useless was the specific torture that Tiberon Drakenfell had designed when he told them to stay out and the design was working exactly as intended.

The arena doors opened.

Tiberon walked out first. He looked at his son leaning against the wall. He looked at Hyran reading a ward schematic that Hyran had already read four times and was reading a fifth because the alternative was making eye contact with an Alpha whose patience had dissolved three shifts ago.

“Excellent use of a Master Mage’s time,” Tiberon observed. “Standing outside a wall. Holding a portal request. Truly, the pinnacle of arcane application.”

“I serve at the Crown’s pleasure,” Hyran replied without looking up, because looking up meant engaging, and engaging with Tiberon’s sarcasm was an activity that produced no winners.

Serena came through the doors behind Tiberon. Her hair was plastered to her forehead. Her training suit was damp with sweat. Her arms were shaking from exertion and her legs were doing the thing where they functioned but were filing complaints about the functioning.

Dex moved. “Shadowclaw had you. My turn.”

Serena opened her mouth to tell him she was going to say goodbye to Fin, but Dexmon threw her over his shoulder before she could get the words out.

Hyran opened a portal and Dex stepped through without looking back.

✦✦✦

DRAKENFELL KEEP

“What are you thinking about?” Dex asked.

They’d been walking in silence through the Keep for a good five minutes. Serena hadn’t noticed, but he had.

Serena looked at him. Truthfully, she had a lot on her mind. But the biggest thing weighing on her was Gavriel.

“Is it alright if we check on Gav?”

Her voice was careful. She understood Dexmon and Fin had technically both banned her from being friends with him. Gav almost dying had shoved the rule under the rug, but the rug was still there, and the rule was still under it, and Serena was lifting the corner of the rug with two fingers and checking if the rule would bite.

“Sure, baby.” Dex kissed the top of her head. “Let’s go see him.”

She exhaled, tension releasing from her body.

Too bad.

Dex scooped her up again, throwing her over his shoulder for the second time.

“DEX. I can WALK.”

“You’re being dramatic.” He was already moving at a pace that suggested the destination was urgent and the urgency was manufactured because carrying Serena was an activity he enjoyed and the enjoyment was the point. “You just trained for three hours. Your legs are shaking. I am providing a service.”

“A service is a chair. This is a kidnapping.”

“This is efficiency. Chairs are slow. I am fast. The math supports me.”

“Put me down.”

“No.”

“Dexmon.”

“That tone works on other people. It has never worked on me. You should know this by now.” He adjusted her on his shoulder with the casual correction of a man repositioning cargo. “Also, your ass looks incredible from this angle, and that information is relevant because it is motivating me to keep carrying you, and motivation should be encouraged.”

Serena stopped protesting. She did not stop because the protest was resolved. She stopped because protesting while draped over Dexmon Drakenfell’s shoulder was an activity that had a zero percent success rate and the success rate was historical and the history was comprehensive.

They rounded the corner toward Gav’s wing.

Elara was in the corridor.

She was walking toward them from the opposite direction, coming from the direction of the healing wing, which was the direction of Gavriel’s chambers, which was the direction she had been coming from every morning for a week at hours that did not correlate with casual visits.

“Oh, I was heading there too,” Elara said, falling into step beside them with the practiced ease of a woman joining a group she was already part of. “We can go together.”

Dex looked at her. Looked at the corridor she had come from. Looked at the corridor they were heading toward. The geometry was wrong. She was coming from Gav’s direction and claiming to be heading toward Gav’s direction, which meant she had been at Gav’s chambers and was turning around and going back and the turning around required an explanation the explanation was absent.

“You’re coming from that direction though,” Dex commented as he set Serena down.

“I got distracted,” Elara offered, with a shrug. “Walked the wrong way.”

Dex looked at her for one second. His mouth opened. The follow-up question was forming, visible in his jaw, ready to launch, the instinctive interrogation of a man whose Beta Luna was providing an answer that did not add up and whose Alpha instincts were flagging the discrepancy.

Then his mouth closed.

Dex knew Elara was pregnant. Tiberon had Alpha-commanded the information out of Serena in a war room, and Serena was devastated about having told her best friend’s secret. So Dex had been pretending not to know until Elara announced it. Performing ignorance required him to accept every flimsy excuse Elara produced without scrutiny, because scrutiny led to conversation and conversation led to the pregnancy and the pregnancy was the thing he was pretending did not exist.

Unbeknownst to Dexmon, Elara knew he knew, and knew he was pretending not to know because Serena had told her about the Alpha command. She enjoyed watching both the Alpha King and the Crown Prince of Drakenfell perform ignorance about her pregnancy.

She was going to let him keep going. She was going to let him suppress every follow-up question, swallow every instinct to comment, and perform obliviousness for as long as his pride and his love for Serena could sustain the act. The sustained performance was her entertainment. The entertainment was medicinal. She had earned it.

Dex nodded once, accepting her answer with the forced neutrality of a man who was letting an obvious lie pass because challenging the lie would unravel a chain of secrets he was committed to pretending did not exist. “Makes sense. Happens.”

Elara smiled. The smile was warm, genuine, and carrying a layer of amusement so deeply buried that excavation would require specialized equipment and a permit.

Serena, between them, was oblivious.

“Shall we?” Elara gestured toward Gav’s corridor.

They walked. Three people heading toward the chambers of an unconscious Gamma, carrying three different sets of knowledge about the same situation, performing three different versions of awareness, and producing a collective energy that would have made Hyran’s head hurt if Hyran had been present, which he was mercifully spared from because Hyran was in Shadowclaw closing a portal and being grateful for the distance.

They reached Gav’s door.

Elara’s hand found the handle. She paused. The pause was the pause of a woman who had been in this room six times in the last four days and whose pauses before entering had become shorter with each visit because the entering was routine and the routine was becoming comfortable and the comfort was dangerous.

She pushed the door open.