Chapter 622: Funny Story About Your Alpha

Getting shorts on an unconscious Alpha King was a physical challenge that belonged in a category somewhere between wrestling a bear and moving furniture upstairs alone.

She lifted his hips. His lower body was dead weight, the particular heaviness of a man whose muscle mass was distributed across a frame that had been built for combat and whose combat-ready body weighed approximately twice what it looked like it should. Gravity was winning. Her arms were filing injunctions.

She got one leg in and pulled. The shorts protested. His body did not cooperate because his body was unconscious and unconscious bodies cooperated with nothing. She yanked the fabric over his left thigh with a grunt that would have been embarrassing if anyone had been present to hear it.

Onyx lifted his head from his basket, one gold eye open, and watched Serena wrestle shorts onto an unconscious Alpha King with the detached curiosity of a creature who had been woken by grunting and was now evaluating whether the grunting warranted his involvement. It did not. He watched her roll Fin, yank fabric, grunt again, and fluff pillows with the aggression of a woman at war with bedding. Then he tucked his snout under his wing and went back to sleep, because whatever this was, the white-haired woman had it handled and his basket was warm.

Serena did not notice, too busy rolling Fin onto his side, which required her entire bodyweight as a counterbalance. She wedged the shorts onto his right leg and pulled them up to his waist in a single, furious motion that left her breathing hard.

Rolled him onto his back. Fluffed his pillows with the aggressive efficiency of a woman whose caretaking instincts operated at combat speed. She poured a glass of water from the pitcher on the nightstand and set it within arm’s reach, knowing he could not drink it, knowing the gesture was more for her sanity than his hydration.

She pressed her hand against his forehead one more time. Still burning. The golden marks were still pulsing. His breathing was steady but his body was somewhere deep and the deep was going to last.

"I will be right back," she said to a man who could not hear her.

She ran to the closet. Her training suit was still here too, hanging beside her robe, another piece of her that Finnick Shadowclaw had been too furious to keep and too in love to remove. She pulled it on in twelve seconds, a personal record achieved through pure adrenaline and the motivational terror of an unconscious Alpha King with a glowing neck.

Then she left his chambers at a speed that was inappropriate for the corridors of Shadowclaw castle and entirely appropriate for the circumstances.

Aeron’s study was on the second floor. East wing. She’d memorized the layout months ago because memorizing layouts was what Serena Frostborne did in every building she entered, a habit forged in Viremont where knowing the exits was the difference between escape and execution.

She hit the door at a near-sprint. Knocked twice. The knocking was a courtesy she could barely afford, the formality burning precious seconds while a king lay unconscious in a bed wearing shorts she’d wrestled onto him.

Silence.

She opened the door.

Empty.

The study was immaculate. Aeron’s journals were stacked with obsessive tidiness on the left side of his desk. His pen was positioned at a precise angle that said I will return and I will notice if this has been moved. A half-finished cup of tea sat on the windowsill, cold, which meant he’d been here earlier and had left for something he considered more urgent than tea, and Aeron Lancaster considered very few things more urgent than tea.

"Of course." She exhaled through her nose. "Of COURSE he’s gone."

Serena wasn’t a Shadowclaw pack member. She had no mindlink access, which meant she couldn’t mindlink Aeron.

Aeron was the only option because he saw Dexmon after he was marked. Aeron would understand what happened and could explain it to Shadowclaw’s Beta and Gamma. He had credibility here as the Master Mage. Otherwise, it was just Serena’s word. Truthfully, she hadn’t interacted much with the Beta or Gamma. She likely had zero credibility with them outside of Fin telling them he wanted her as his Luna. They may or may not be aware that he also had told her to get out. She was not sure. And most importantly, their Alpha was unconscious and burning up, and she was the last person in his room. The optics wrote themselves.

She stood in his empty study, breathing hard, wearing a training suit she had put on in twelve seconds, carrying the weight of an unconscious Alpha and a marking she did not remember authorizing and a wolf who had gone silent, not wanting to deal with this.

Serena: Still nothing, Aurelia?

That’s when something snagged her eye. Wedged between two journals was something else.

Against her better judgement, she entered his study and pulled it free.

The Knotty Omega.

On Aeron Lancaster’s desk.

The laugh that escaped her was small and broken and the first laugh she’d had in twenty-four hours. Her world might be falling apart, but the fact that Aeron Lancaster was secretly reading the Knotty Omega was the funniest thing she’d learned all week.

Her hand hovered over one of his journals. She wanted to take a peek. This was insane. Very wrong. An invasion of his privacy. He could also walk in at any moment.

No, she wasn’t going to do that.

Her hand dropped.

Before she lost her resolve, she turned on her heel and left his study, already calculating her next move, because Serena Frostborne did not stand in empty rooms and wait for solutions to arrive. She went and found them, dragged them back by the collar, and made them cooperate.

The corridor stretched ahead of her, long and stone and carrying the early-morning silence of a castle whose king was unconscious and whose staff had no idea yet.

She was going to find Aeron if she had to search every room in this castle.

"Luna?"

Griffin Sharpe, Shadowclaw’s Beta, rounded the corner. The fact he had just called her Luna splintered in her chest. Because that meant he didn’t know that his Alpha had kicked her out and probably, as in definitely, did not want her to be his Luna anymore.

"Hello, Beta Sharpe. I was looking for Aeron. Do you know where he is by chance?"

"He’s gone for the day. Is there something I can help you with?"