The Alpha's Unclaimed Mate novel Chapter 417

Chapter 417: Pregnant Was The Biggest Grenade Available

Elara’s hand tightened on Hale’s. The tightening was sharp, involuntary, carrying a spike of panic that the matebond delivered to Hale’s chest with the precision of an arrow.

Hale looked at Elara. Elara looked at Hale. The look lasted two seconds and communicated entirely different things to each person.

Elara was thinking: He moaned Serena’s name. If Hale connects this to the mark, the secret is over.

Hale was thinking: She is panicking. She is panicking because the man she has feelings for just moaned another woman’s name in his sleep, and the panic is jealousy, and the jealousy is proof.

Both of them were wrong about each other. Both of them were certain they were right. And Gavriel Sterling, unconscious, dreaming, oblivious, had just made everything worse.

Gav settled back into stillness. The name dissolved into the room’s silence, leaving behind a residue that both Hale and Elara were processing in completely different directions.

Hale stood.

The standing was slow, deliberate, carrying the mechanical precision of a man whose investigative mind had just received a new data point and was integrating it into the existing file. He looked at Elara. Elara looked at Hale. The matebond between them was carrying so many competing signals that the connection sounded like a room full of people screaming at different volumes about different topics.

His eyes moved past her.

They landed on the bandage.

Gav’s shoulder. The white gauze. Fresh. Changed this morning at five AM by the woman sitting beside him. Changed yesterday. Changed the day before. Changed with a frequency and a personal attention that exceeded the medical requirements of a wound that should have been healing on its own and was being monitored by a woman who was keeping a secret about what was underneath it.

"Elara."

His voice was quiet. The quiet was worse than volume. Volume meant anger. Quiet meant Hale was thinking, and when Hale was thinking, the thoughts arrived at conclusions, and the conclusions were usually correct.

"Why have you been changing that bandage?"

The question was surgical. Aimed. Carrying the focused precision of a man who had been collecting evidence for three days and had just identified the physical location of the secret his mate was hiding.

Elara’s blood went cold.

"What is wrong with him that he even needs it changed that often?" Hale continued. His eyes were still on the bandage. "The dark veins are gone. His vitals are stable. Alaric cleared the wound days ago. A healed wound requires a bandage change once, maybe twice. You have changed it seven times in three days, Elara. At five in the morning. While I was asleep."

His gaze moved from the bandage to her face. The gaze was steady, patient, and absolutely devastating in its clarity, because Hale Ironholt’s observational skills had assembled the evidence into a structure and the structure had a door and he was about to open it.

"Pregnant," Elara repeated, because the word was out and the word was working and Hale’s attention had migrated from the bandage to her body with a velocity that suggested the migration was permanent.

His mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. The mouth was trying to form words. The words were being assembled in a brain that had just received information too large for its current processing capacity, and the assembly line had shut down, and the workers had gone home, and the factory was dark.

"I’m going to be a—"

His eyes rolled back.

The Beta of Drakenfell, a warrior who had survived wars, sieges, dungeons, poisonings, and Thor Crushturn, went down like a felled tree.

He hit the floor of Gavriel Sterling’s chamber with a sound that rattled the nightstand, shook the glasses Dex had left three days ago, and produced a vibration that traveled through the stone floor and was felt by a guard posted two corridors away who later reported a minor seismic event.

Elara stared down at her unconscious mate. "Shoot. Hale?"

She dropped to her knees. "Hey, Hale. You’re scaring me."

He did not wake up. His face was peaceful. The face of a man whose brain had protected itself from information overload by deploying the emergency shutdown protocol, and the protocol was unconsciousness, and the unconsciousness was going to last as long as his nervous system needed to reboot.