The Alpha's Unclaimed Mate novel Chapter 571

Chapter 571: Bitch-Slapped By Playground Law

Three. Three fucking matebonds.

The ancestors had looked at Serena Frostborne and said, "You know what this girl needs? More bullshit. Pile it on. Really stack the deck until the whole damn table collapses."

Finnick Shadowclaw slept like dog shit, and when he woke up that morning, he immediately wished he hadn’t.

The ceiling was the same ceiling. The pain was the same pain. The existential confusion had settled in like a tenant who’d already changed the locks.

The stab wounds and his ribs made themselves known immediately. His body was still healing which meant he could not shift, and shifting was the thing he needed because shifting was running and running was the thing Finnick Shadowclaw did when his chest was full of things he didn’t like. Some cultures called those things ’feelings,’ but he didn’t have those because he was a man among men.

The objective to solve this was unclear and that was the problem. He was the kind of man who had an objective for brushing his teeth. But this was fog.

His mate collected matebonds like a goddamn rewards program, and he wasn’t sure if he was the premium tier or the free trial. Every thought boomeranged back harder than the last, and Fin was running out of walls to duck behind.

Tonight was his night according to their custody arrangement. She was due at Shadowclaw at 4:00 PM.

He didn’t know if he wanted to see her, and he didn’t know what he would do when he did.

He didn’t know if the anger in his chest was aimed at her, or at the ancestors, or at the Moon Goddess for handing three matebonds to one woman like a fucking buy-two-get-one-free promotion on something that was supposed to be sacred and singular.

The anger wasn’t clean. That was the thing. Clean anger he could work with. Clean anger had a target and a trajectory, and you could throw it at something and feel empty after, which was almost the same as feeling better.

This anger had roots and he didn’t know if he even wanted the details from her.

The details were a door, and behind the door was either an explanation that made things better or an explanation that made things worse, and Finnick Shadowclaw was standing in front of that door with his hand on the knob and his feet pointed in the opposite direction.

Because Finnick Shadowclaw could face down skeleton wolves, volcanic hellfire, and a kraken with an attitude problem, but asking his mate a direct question about her feelings and if she had been lying to him this whole time? Fuck that. Horseshit.

His wolf had been mercifully quiet all morning. Xeon understood that some silences were strategic and some silences were survival, and this one was both. Sometimes it was best to just shut the hell up.

By midday, Fin had delegated every responsibility that required his presence and cleared his schedule.

He packed his feelings into a tight, furious ball of dick-deep denial and stepped through a portal to Darkhowler like a man with somewhere to be that wasn’t inside his own skull.

✦✦✦

DARKHOWLER — CASTLE GROUNDS

The air in Darkhowler was different. Northern. Cold in a way that had opinions about your lungs and expressed them on the first inhale. Forest and stone and the particular mineral quality of a kingdom built into mountains.

Fin found Garrett on the grounds, walking the eastern perimeter path with his hands locked behind his back at a speed that said "casual stroll" while his eyes conducted a full property audit.

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