"He carried you unconscious more than one time. He also helped you with that trial and Bellatrix, and was there for you when everyone was treating you like you were made of glass. Including Dex."

Serena wiped her eyes. "I know he was a good friend that made me laugh and now-" her voice trailed. "I have to tell Dex."

Dex’s head lifted. His jaw was still locked but his eyes were open and fixed on the tapestry, and his entire body went still with the specific stillness of a man who has just heard the woman he loves decide to be honest with him and does not know yet if he wants her to be.

"That’s your choice. But ask yourself, is it worth ruining a friendship?"

"I don’t know what the right thing to do is."

"Chalk it up to heightened emotions and brush it under the rug. I’m telling you."

"I guess this will be added to the list of things I can’t tell Dex."

His hand found the back of his own neck. He gripped it. Hard. His fingers dug into the muscle, and his eyes closed again.

A list. She had a list. Of things she was keeping from him. He was listening to his mate discuss the inventory of secrets she had decided he couldn’t handle, and the fact that the list had more than one item was the part that was going to keep him awake for the next week.

He was. He just wished she knew that.

"You only have one other thing you can’t tell Dex."

"I’ve almost told him that thing twice. I’ve wanted to. Again, I honestly don’t know what the right thing to do is."

She stopped. Swallowed. "Would you tell someone you love something knowing it would tear him apart?"

Elara thought about it for a second. "You know what Hale said? He said you are too goddamn protective over Dex. He’s a big boy and can handle it. Hale doesn’t know what ’it’ is though."

Serena let out a wet, miserable laugh. "I ran into Dex after I saw that. One of my first nights here."

Elara snorted, and covered her face with her hands. "That image you painted. You watched."

"I didn’t watch. I was processing it. I told you. I didn’t know what I was seeing until it was burned in my mind forever. Gav pouring candle wax on Bellatrix’s back thrusting into her in the war room. I will never sit at that spot."

Dex’s brain, which had been processing one catastrophe, stalled on a second one entirely. That spot. Somewhere in the war room, Gav had fucked his mother.

"He called out your name right? That’s why Bellatrix smacked him."

Dex’s head came off the wall. His eyes opened. The expression on his face in the dark corridor was the expression of a man whose brain had been processing a betrayal and had just received completely unrelated information that was somehow worse.

He saw Serena put her face in her hands. "Yes, Elara. Thank you for reminding me."

Dex’s fist hit the wall. Silent. Controlled. The stone didn’t crack but his knuckle did, and the pain was welcome because it gave him something to feel that wasn’t the image of his best friend moaning his mate’s name while buried inside his mother.

He was going to need a very long time to process that sentence. Possibly the rest of his life.

Elara burst out laughing. Full, uncontrollable laughter that she tried to smother with her hand and failed.

"I never brought it up when she was attacking me personally. But with Cass, I didn’t have a choice." Serena shook her head. "Bellatrix had the audacity to call Gav her sloppy seconds with Tiberon and Dex in the hall. They might already know. I have no clue."

Elara sucked in a breath, her laughter dying. "If you tell Dex about the candle wax, leave Gav moaning your name out of the equation."

Serena nodded slowly. "What do I tell Dex about Gav today?" She wiped her eyes. "And Fin."

"You have failed to friendzone both of them. Spectacularly."

"I did better with Dex."

"You absolutely did not. He spanked you and you had kinky sex. You did astronomically worse with him."

Dex’s face went hot in the dark corridor from the fact that Elara Vaelor knew the details of his sex life and was using them as a benchmark for Serena’s inability to maintain boundaries.

The worst part was that she wasn’t wrong. He had been friendzoned and had responded by bending Serena over—

He stopped that thought. He stopped it with both hands and buried it.

"I’ll pull Gav aside privately and make sure he’s clear that he is a friend. And chalk it up to adrenaline. Maybe it was, Elara. Who knows," Serena said, resolute.

"I really didn’t see it coming."

"Really? Considering he follows you around like a puppy?" Elara stared at her. "Agnes was right. You really aren’t the shiniest crayon in the box."

"I mean, not since I’ve been with Dex. I didn’t know he felt that way."

"The man has a type. He likes queens."

"Bellatrix and I are not the same type."

"Fine. Let’s modify. He likes women in Dex’s life."

Dex’s breathing changed and nostrils flared. His chest was too full of too many things and his lungs had stopped getting their full share.

His hands were shaking from holding back a shift. His eyes were glowing molten gold in the dark corridor.

He needed to move. The conversation was ending. They would come out soon and find the tapestry and find him behind it, and the version of this where he was caught eavesdropping was worse than the version where he walked away and pretended he didn’t know.

His legs didn’t want to move. His legs wanted to stay in this corridor until he had processed enough of what he had just heard to form a response that didn’t involve his claws.

He moved anyway. One step. Then another. Each one carrying a man who had walked into this corridor as a mate and was walking out as something he didn’t have a word for yet.

He was not going to find Serena and confront her. Not now.

Not while his wolf was this close to the surface and his hands were this close to claws.

He was going to find Gavriel Sterling.

And Gavriel Sterling was going to explain himself. With or without his teeth.