The Alpha's Unclaimed Mate novel Chapter 436

Chapter 436: She Said I Love It & He Lit Up

Aurelia: We look good.

Serena grinned and shook her head.

Serena: We look damn good.

Aurelia: Mate will rip this tonight.

Serena: He absolutely will NOT rip this tonight. I won’t let him.

Aurelia: The slit makes it easier for him. He won’t even have to try. One pull. Gone.

Serena: Stop analyzing the structural vulnerabilities of my dress.

Aurelia: Good luck with stopping him.

She stepped into the heels. Of course the heels fit and matched. Of course every goddamn detail was perfect, because Finnick Shadowclaw did not do things halfway.

Aurelia: Mate brings us to a big party.

Serena: He is not. This is casual.

The door to their chambers opened.

Finnick Shadowclaw entered in formal dress, dark jacket, sapphire accents at the collar and cuffs, his hair pushed back, and his jaw clean.

Gods, he looked good. Unfairly good. Aggressively good.

His eyes found hers.

He stopped.

Fin had no words. His body halted two steps past the threshold the way a body halts when the brain receives information that exceeds its processing capacity.

The double doors closed behind him.

Finnick Shadowclaw, a man whose verbal precision was a professional asset, whose negotiations were legendary, whose ability to construct sentences under pressure had ended wars, was standing in his own doorway looking at a woman in a sapphire dress with his mouth slightly open and his vocabulary entirely offline.

Serena’s face flushed. The flush climbed her neck and hit her cheeks, the involuntary response of being looked at by a man whose gaze carried a weight she could feel on her skin.

She grinned. "I love it so much."

"For me?" Her eyes were red now. The makeup was in danger.

Fin closed the distance. His hand found her jaw, tilting her face up, his thumb catching the tear that had escaped before she could stop it.

"For you, baby."

She looked up at him through wet eyes and the gratitude in her chest was so large it hurt to hold. Partly for the necklace and earrings, but more for him, the man.

He turned her gently. His fingers gathered her white hair, lifting it from her neck, and the necklace settled against her collarbone with the cool weight of diamonds meeting skin. His fingers worked the clasp with a steadiness that said he had practiced this in his mind and was executing the practice with precision.

The clasp closed. His lips found her collarbone, pressing a kiss against the skin just below the necklace, and the kiss was warm and deliberate and carrying a possessiveness that had nothing to do with territory and everything to do with the woman wearing his colors and his jewels in his castle.

His mouth on her skin, his arms around her body, his colors on her dress, his jewels on her neck. The totality of it pressed against something in her chest that she didn’t have a name for.

He pulled her back against his chest. His arms wrapped around her from behind, his chin finding the top of her head. He was absolutely looking at their reflection in the mirror and finding the reflection satisfying and her face was absolutely blushing at that.

A knock on the chamber door.

Fin did not release her. His arms stayed. His chin stayed. The knock was an interruption and the interruption was going to have to accommodate the embrace because the embrace was taking priority.

Whoever was on the other side of that door was about to walk in on the Alpha King of Shadowclaw wrapped around his mate in front of a mirror, and the Alpha King did not care, and the mate was too busy blushing to care, and the person knocking was going to have to adjust their expectations for this interaction immediately.

"Come in," Fin called.