Chapter 603 Understandable My Ass, Maelor

Maelor Vantheos walked into the infirmary the way Maelor Vantheos walked into every room: like he’d been personally invited by the architecture.

His eyes swept the scene with the clinical efficiency of a man who processed information the way other people processed oxygen.

Alaric, working. Serena, dripping. Three Alphas standing around a bed like bouncers at the world’s most stressful nightclub. Two of whom were possessed. Two were also radiating a magical frequency that made the hair on his arms stand up.

His gaze landed on Dexmon and stayed there two seconds longer than casual.

Something was off. The posture was wrong. The stillness was wrong. Dexmon Drakenfell did not stand like that. Dexmon Drakenfell stood like a man who owned the room and wanted everyone to know it. This version was standing like a man who had built the room.

Maelor’s eyes narrowed a fraction. He stored it. Moved on.

Then his gaze found Gavriel and his entire demeanor shifted. The change was subtle if you didn’t know Maelor, and volcanic if you did. His chin lifted. His shoulders squared. A light entered his eyes that had nothing to do with the underground lake and everything to do with a mage who had found a prodigy standing in an infirmary like an unclaimed masterpiece and was already mentally drafting a curriculum.

The curriculum had twelve modules, a practicum, and a reading list that would make a librarian weep. Gavriel didn’t know it existed yet. Ignorance was temporary.

He wanted that boy. He wanted that boy the way collectors want paintings and generals want cavalry. The want was practically visible, humming beneath his composure like a tuning fork struck against a table.

Maelor wanted Gavriel the way Bellatrix wanted dragon custody: completely, immediately, and with zero interest in anyone else’s opinion on the matter.

Then his eyes landed on Serena.

He looked her over once. Twice. The second pass was more thorough than the first.

“You are looking more alive than the last two times I saw you,” he said. “Which, to be fair, is a bar so low it’s underground.”

The bar was six feet under, actually.

Serena looked down at herself. Soaking wet. One eye still faintly red. Dried blood crusted under her nose. Sitting in a puddle of her own lake water on an infirmary bed she’d already ruined.

“Thanks. I’m going for ’recently exhumed but optimistic.’”

Nobody laughed.

Except Alaric.

Alaric, who did not laugh. Alaric, whose face had been clinically neutral since the day he was born. Alaric, who treated humor the way most people treated tax documents. That Alaric made a sound. A short, involuntary exhale through his nose that could not be mistaken for anything other than amusement.

Serena stared at him.

She almost checked the room for signs of a dimensional rift because what the actual fuck. In all the time she had known Alaric Kestrel, she had never, not once, heard the man react to a joke with anything other than contempt or silence. He had laughed. At her joke. Her stupid, throwaway, self-deprecating joke that she hadn’t even meant to be that funny.

Hell had frozen over. Demons were ice skating. Satan was wearing a scarf. And she had achieved what no patient in Drakenfell history had achieved: she had made Alaric Kestrel laugh.

Maelor looked at her. Looked at the bed. Noticed she was soaking wet.

“For fuck’s sake.” He reached out and touched her shoulder.

The water was gone.

All of it. Instantly. Her clothes, her hair, her skin, the sheets beneath her, dry. Like someone had hit an undo button on the entire concept of moisture. Even the puddle on the floor evaporated, leaving nothing behind but clean stone and the faint smell of ozone.

Gavriel blinked. Looked at his own hands. Looked at the very dry Serena. Looked back at his hands.

“Oh.” He paused. “I could have done that.”

Maelor’s head turned toward him with the slow, deliberate rotation of a man exercising superhuman restraint.

“You could have done that,” he repeated.

“Yeah. I did it on Vampire Volcano Island.” Gavriel scratched the back of his neck. “I forgot.”

Maelor’s mouth opened.

Then it closed.

The closing was extraordinary. The lecture was right there. Serena could see the lecture fighting for its life behind his teeth like a caged animal that had been promised freedom and was watching the door close.

Maelor swallowed it.

Because Gavriel hadn’t picked a mentor yet. To be fair, he was unaware three mages had been arguing over him for almost two days. The words “picked a teacher” implied choice. The reality was closer to a custody battle.

“Understandable,” Maelor said.

The word sounded like it caused him physical pain. It was not understandable. It was the opposite of understandable. It was the most incomprehensible waste of talent Maelor had witnessed in his professional career.

“How hard is it for one to do that drying thing?” Gavriel asked. He didn’t know how he had done it. His magic did what it wanted so having a general idea would be helpful.

“It is one of the first things taught to apprentice mages. Children learn it.”

“Hyran never taught me how to do it,” Serena commented.

“That is because you are beneath a child’s level. You are sub-child. I have to restart your Fae magic more than a child.”

“Thank you, Maelor. That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

“Don’t thank me. It wasn’t a compliment.”

Serena flashed a fond smile. “Too late.”

Did she enjoy pushing Maelor’s buttons sometimes? Yes. It was funny. She was heartbroken and currently being watched by three mates who didn’t know the meaning of blink, and about to be poked and prodded by Maelor’s magic. Pushing Maelor’s buttons was a small spark of joy that she allowed herself to have.

“Maelor.” The usual humor in Gavriel’s voice was gone and what was left was the version of Gavriel that showed up when something threatened Serena. “Can you feel those roots too?”

“Obviously. I was wondering when you would ask.” Maelor’s expression had shifted from academic interest to something colder. “That is the shadow tether. Currently it’s at the stage where it’s affecting her wolf.”

The words landed in the room like a rock dropped into a pond. Serena looked up. Gavriel’s jaw tightened.

On the other side of the room, two sets of golden eyes locked onto Maelor with identical intensity at the same time. Somewhere, a nature documentary narrator cleared his throat.