The Alpha's Unclaimed Mate-Chapter 122: Start From The Goddamn Beginning

Dex bolted upright in bed, panting.

Two things registered at once.

First, Serena wasn’t in his arms. Even in sleep, he held her. His body did it without thought, without effort, the way his lungs drew breath. She fit against him like she’d been designed for the space between his chest and his chin, and the absence of her there felt like a missing organ. Wrong on a level that bypassed his brain and went straight to his marrow.

Second, her terror was flooding through the matebond like a dam had broken.

It hit him in waves. Raw, animal fear, the kind that didn’t come from a nightmare. This was awake fear. Active. Present tense.

Dex reached for her in the bed. The sheets were cold.

Not cool. Cold. She’d been gone for a while.

Aegon surged forward, slamming against Dex’s ribs, trying to force a shift. Dex shoved him down.

His wolf didn’t process fear the way he did. Aegon didn’t analyze. Aegon acted. And right now, Aegon wanted to tear through walls to find her.

Dex was out of bed, boots on, through the door, and following her scent down the corridor before his heart had time to beat twice.

The torches blurred past him, her scent pulling him forward like a thread tied to his sternum.

✦✦✦

Serena looked at Gav, then pulled in a long breath through her nose. When she spoke, her voice was almost convincing.

"I’m okay, Gav. Just startled."

"No." Gav didn’t blink. "You’re not."

He took a step closer and pulled her into a hug.

The sob that escaped her was involuntary. He felt it break loose from her chest before she could stop it, and her shoulders shook against him. She was so small. That always caught him off guard.

He held her for a second. Then two. Then long enough that his wolf settled and his heartbeat returned to something resembling normal.

"For the record," he said, his chin resting on the top of her head, "if you wanted a midnight hug from me, you could have just asked. The whole screaming-in-a-dark-library setup was dramatic, even by your standards."

She gave a reluctant laugh against his chest and pulled back, brushing the tears off her cheeks with the heel of her hand.

"Hit me with it." Gav held out his hand, gesturing at the scattered scrolls, the dark shelves, the general atmosphere of ancient secrets and questionable life choices. "I promise I won’t tell anyone. What the hell was that? Assuming you’re in this ball of sunshine, not-creepy-at-all library to find answers."

She nodded.

"Gav..." She wiped her eyes again. "I think..." She took a steadying breath. Then another. Then a third, and each one sounded harder than the last. "I think I’m going mad."

Gav stared at her.

"Bold of you to assume the rest of us are sane. Have you met Hale?" He paused, then asked, "Is it because of that thing that knocked the scroll out of your hand?"

Her head snapped up. "You saw that?"

"I saw something like a heat signature. Standing next to you like it paid rent." He paused. "Then gone. Like it was never there."

She exhaled, and the relief that passed through her face was so raw it made his chest ache. Like she’d been carrying this alone and the weight of it had been crushing her, and someone finally seeing even a fraction of it was enough to let her breathe.

"It’s the High Emperor of Orosia," she said. "He keeps talking to me." She sucked in a deep breath. "And it’s been getting worse."

Gav processed that in silence for approximately two seconds, which was a personal record for him.

"Have you told anyone?"

"I told D-D..." Her voice caught. She swallowed. "D-Dex. About the first time. But I don’t want him to keep worrying about me."

Gav considered her. The tears drying on her cheeks. The way she’d stammered on Dex’s name. The guilt underneath the fear, because of course she felt guilty. Of course she was more worried about worrying Dex than she was about the emperor haunting her in the middle of the night.

"Yeah, that tracks," he said. "Everyone’s treating you like you’re glass."

Serena gave a wet laugh. "Is it that obvious?"

"It’s a little obvious. Dex looks at you like you’re going to shatter if someone closes a door too hard. Alaric hovers. Hale asked me yesterday if I thought you were eating enough, and Hale doesn’t notice what he eats, let alone anyone else."

She laughed again, small and tired, and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. "I’m not glass."

"I know you’re not glass." He held her gaze. "Which is why I’m standing here asking you what the hell is going on instead of carrying you back to bed and pretending this didn’t happen."

Something in her expression shifted. Gratitude, maybe. Or just the relief of being treated like a person with a problem instead of a patient with a condition.

She opened her mouth to respond.

The temperature dropped.

The air went cold like someone had flipped a switch. Gav’s breath didn’t quite fog, but it was close. His wolf snapped to attention, hackles raised, every nerve firing at once.

The shimmer was back.

It was behind Serena. Between the shelves. Taller than before, or maybe just closer, and this time Gav could have sworn he saw definition in it. The suggestion of shoulders. The angle of a jaw. The outline of something wearing authority like a garment.

Serena’s spine went rigid. She knew. She could feel it, or hear it, or see something Gav couldn’t, and her hands curled into fists at her sides.

Then the bookshelf next to them shuddered, like something had shoved it from the other side. A heavy leather-bound volume slid off the top shelf and hit the stone floor with a crack that echoed through the restricted section.

Then another book. Then a third, this one landing open, its pages fluttering in a wind that didn’t exist.

Gav looked at the books on the floor. Then back at Serena. None of this was going in the ’it’s fine’ category.

The air warmed.

The silence that followed was the loudest thing Gav had ever heard.

"Okay," he said slowly. "So. Not mad."

Serena’s eyes were fixed on the books now scattered around them. One of them was open, its pages settling. She stared at it like it had personally betrayed her.

"You saw that?" she whispered.

"The invisible man threw a tantrum at the bookshelf. Yeah. I saw that." He crouched down and picked up the fallen volume. It was heavy. Old. The leather was warm, which it shouldn’t have been. He turned it over in his hands and then held it up to the lamp light, reading the spine.

His brows furrowed. He looked at Serena.

"This one is about dreamwalking," he said.

The color drained from her face.

She took the book from his hands, and her fingers were trembling, but her eyes were sharp. Focused. Whatever fear had been drowning her a minute ago was being shoved aside by something stronger.

She opened it.

From somewhere deep in the library, a door slammed.

Gav’s head snapped toward the sound. His wolf snarled. But there was no scent. No heartbeat. No footsteps.

Just the echo, bouncing off stone and dying in the dark.

"He’s showing off," Serena muttered, already reading.

Gav looked at her. Standing in the restricted section of the library at three in the morning, wearing a nightgown and unlaced boots, tears still drying on her face, reading a book that an emperor had thrown at her from beyond the veil.

He loved her so much it made his teeth hurt.

"Right," he said. "I’m going to need you to start from the beginning."