Chapter 733: Bold. I Love It. Go On.

DRAKENFELL — THE BETA’S CHAMBERS

Elara shut the door, turned the lock, and leveled a stare at Serena that could have cracked stone.

"Spill."

Serena stood near the window with her arms loose at her sides, and for once the composure that carried her through throne rooms and war councils had nowhere to hide. Hale was out. Avalon was out. The room held two women and whatever truth was about to fill it.

"I have a third mate."

Elara did not move.

"It’s Gavriel. The ancestors confirmed it." Serena kept her eyes on the middle distance, as if the facts were easier to recite when aimed at the air. "I marked him. After he broke his matebond with Guinevere. I have no memory of doing it."

Something flickered across Elara’s face. Suspicion, arriving fast and poorly concealed, the look of a woman whose poker face had a crack in it tonight.

Serena caught it. "What."

Elara pressed her lips together, held it for a second, then surrendered. "I know."

"You know what."

"I saw it, Serena. And I covered it."

The air left the room.

"ELARA?!" Serena crossed half the floor before she caught herself. "You saw it, and you didn’t tell me."

Elara lifted both hands, palms out, holding her ground against the wave. "No. I didn’t." Her voice was steady, and underneath the steadiness sat the firm conviction of a woman who had made a hard call and would make it again. "You were about to walk into a mission. The last thing anyone needed was Fin or Dexmon losing their minds right before you went into danger. So I sat on it." She held Serena’s gaze. "I’m telling you now."

Serena opened her mouth. Nothing came out. She shut it again.

Elara crossed to the side table, uncorked a bottle, and poured two fingers of amber into a glass. She pressed it into Serena’s hand and folded her fingers around it.

"Medicinal," she declared, with the clinical authority of a physician prescribing something that worked before for Serena.

Serena drank it.

The whiskey went down and scorched a clean line through the middle of her chest, which was, at the moment, a welcome distraction from everything else happening in there.

Elara settled onto the edge of her bed. The performance dropped away, and what was left was quieter. "I’m sorry, Serena. I should have told you."

Serena turned the empty glass in her hand. "It’s okay."

"What else." Elara angled toward her. "There’s more. I can see it sitting on you."

Serena took a deep breath. "He was bitten by a vampire. Gavriel. That’s fatal, Elara. There’s no surviving it." She stopped. Started again. "Apparently I marked him then too. I don’t remember the marking part."

Elara waited.

"I remember the other parts."

Elara’s eyebrows climbed toward her hairline. "You had sex."

Serena gave a single nod and dragged a hand down her face, the gesture of a woman who had run entirely out of dignified ways to deliver information. "I feel him through a matebond now. And also through his Fae magic. There’s no explaining it away. I’ve tried." She lowered the hand. "I went to talk to Fin about it. He told me to get the fuck out. So I left. Went on a dragon ride to clear my head."

"That’s when you found Charlie." Elara pointed at her with the triumphant precision of a woman slotting a puzzle piece into place. "One hell of a dragon ride, by the way. Continue."

"I get back." Serena set the glass down. "Fin and Dexmon are both possessed."

"Yeah." Elara leaned back on her palms. "I noticed that part."

"The past life riding Fin had a tragic ending. With one of my past lives." The words came slower now, each one hauled up from somewhere that cost her. "They had sex. I was aware the whole time, Elara. Heartbroken the whole time, and present for all of it." She pulled in a breath. "Then Fin surfaced. Just for a moment. His voice, his words, him. He said he was here."

Elara went still.

"For that one moment I felt better. Then it was gone." Serena’s composure thinned at the edges, fraying where no council could see it. "He’s never told me to get the fuck out before. Not once. And he was so angry when he did." She shook her head. "We ended up together. I marked him. Or my wolf did, since I apparently make a habit of marking men without filing the paperwork. Now he’s in a coma. Dexmon’s still possessed." She looked at Elara. "And I’m supposed to be back there anyway."

The room held it.

Elara reached for the bottle, poured a second glass, and handed it over without a word of protest about the first one.

"Still medicinal," she offered. "So you took over for Shadowclaw after he told you to get the fuck out, before you were crowned Luna."

"Yes."

"Bold. I love it."

"What else was I supposed to do?"

"Hand it to his Beta?"

"His Beta defaulted to me. His Beta and Gamma also aren’t aware he told me to get the fuck out." Serena rubbed the back of her neck. "Did I make the right call?"

"Yes. But I am surprised they let you take the throne that easily, considering you aren’t crowned. Let alone have you walk into that war council."

"They didn’t at first," Serena replied.

"Go on."

Serena set the glass down and turned it a quarter turn, lining it up with nothing. "When I first took that throne room, there was some pushback and hesitation. To be expected. Things were going fine until they dragged in someone that I was certain would escape if he was not executed and I was certain of his crimes."

"Someone I know?"

"Yes. Alistair Creed." She watched the recognition land on Elara’s face.

"That bastard." Elara’s mouth thinned.

"He was brought before me in chains. I identified him through three aliases, corrected the court record where it was wrong, and sentenced him to death." Her voice stayed level, the recitation of a woman who had made peace with the facts if not the feeling. "Then Elder Voss raised a legal objection. Who held the authority to carry it out. So I walked down the steps, fabricated a sword, and did it myself. One strike. Made the sword vanish before his head finished dropping."

"You executed a slave trafficker in open court and dissolved the murder weapon on the way out." Elara pressed a hand flat to her chest. "I need you to understand this is the single most proud moment of my life."

"Elder Voss hasn’t recovered." A ghost of dryness crossed Serena’s face, then left. "While that was going on, Drakenfell had decided to keep me in the dark. Everyone agreed to it. Everyone. Except one person."