The Alpha's Unclaimed Mate

SHADOWCLAW — ALPHA QUARTERS

Serena stood alone in front of the mirror and stared at two boxes on the bed.

Fin had asked her an hour ago if she would come to a pack celebration tonight. The asking had been casual. He said it with offhanded ease, like he was adding one more line item on a schedule.

She had said yes because Fin had asked, and saying yes to Fin when he asked for her time was the easiest decision she made on any given day. The celebration was a Shadowclaw tradition, he had said.

That made this her first Shadowclaw event and she didn’t know what to expect. But she was honored to be included. This was about him, not her.

She had done her own makeup, which she took as additional evidence that the evening was casual, because if this were a significant event, Fin would have given her a heads up. He would have assigned an omega to help her dress. He would have asked Elara to come.

He would have done the things that Alphas did when their mates were about to be presented publicly, and he had done zero of those things, which meant this was small. A gathering. Wine and conversation.

She opened the first box.

Her jaw dropped.

The dress was midnight-sapphire silk. The fabric caught the low firelight of the chamber and held it, producing a luminance that lived between blue and black and belonged to neither, a color that existed exclusively in the space where darkness met jewels. Sapphires were sewn into the bodice in a descending pattern that followed the neckline, each stone small, precise, catching light independently, producing a collective shimmer that moved when the fabric moved.

Shadowclaw’s color. His color. On her body.

She touched the silk. The silk was cool, heavy in the way that expensive fabric was heavy, carrying weight that communicated quality rather than burden. The construction was extraordinary, the seaming invisible.

This was the most beautiful dress she had ever been gifted.

The thought arrived uninvited. She had received a golden coronation gown from Dexmon that she had loved so fiercely she had cried in front of a mirror, and a crimson dress from Gavriel that was so bold she had never planned to wear it until Agnes forced her hand, and both of those dresses were stunning. But this midnight-colored dress with sapphires that caught the light like scattered stars, was the most beautiful of all three.

Aurelia: Don’t tell the gold one. Don’t tell the red one. We take this to the grave.

Serena: Agreed. I would never tell either of them that.

The secret would live and die inside her chest beside the other secrets she kept for the men she loved, because protecting their feelings was a reflex she would never unlearn and never wanted to.

If Elara were here, Elara would look at this dress, look at Serena, look back at the dress, and tell Serena to do something vulgar in bed as a thank you that she probably read in The Knotty Omega.

She opened the second box. Tall heels that screamed elegant. They were gold with some midnight accents, and adorned with sapphires.

"He outdid himself," she breathed.

Casual. Low stakes. She repeated this to herself three times, because the dress in the box was screaming something very fucking different, and the dress and the briefing were telling two completely contradictory stories, and one of them was a goddamn liar.

She pulled the dress on alone and laced the back.

It hugged her curves more than she would have asked a tailor for on her own. It was bold. Gavriel-Sterling-dress level bold. There was a slit up the side revealing her leg. It was tight, and pushed her breasts up. Every curve was visible.

This dress was tailored for her exactly, which meant Fin had her measurements, which she had already assumed because he had gifted her other dresses. How he had obtained them remained a mystery.

When she looked in the mirror, her eyes burned.

The dress reminded her of another life. It was the kind of dress that her mother used to wear, and for a moment, when she looked at her reflection, she saw her mother staring back.

Serena used to sneak into her chambers to touch her mother’s dresses and imagine being old enough to wear something so beautiful. Now she was, and it made her feel like that girl again.

She swallowed the lump in the back of her throat, and breathed, pulling her composure back into place.

If this were a significant event, it would have been announced and Fin would have prepared her. It was days before an artifact retrieval, with the continent in crisis and training still incomplete.

So that meant he had gotten her this dress because he wanted to for something casual. And that thought alone almost made her cry again. He was looking for an excuse to give her this dress.

Aurelia: We need to give mate a gift too.

Serena: I agree.

Aurelia: Something good. Something worthy. Maybe a kill. A fresh kill shows devotion.

Serena: We are not giving Fin a dead animal.

Aurelia: It’s traditional.

Serena: In what tradition? Do you even know how to kill an animal? Because I sure as hell don’t have that instinct. That’s gross.

Aurelia: I bite it. But you are right, that is gross. We give him a live animal instead and let mate kill it.

She had a fleeting thought. A small, quick thought that surfaced and submerged in the span of two seconds: what if he was deliberately making it feel casual so she would be relaxed, and the casualness was the preparation, and the preparation was designed to keep her calm because the event was significant and he knew she would panic if she knew?

The mirror reflected a woman in a custom sapphire gown with real jewels and matching heels standing in the Alpha King’s private chambers telling herself this was casual. The mirror, if mirrors had opinions, would have called bullshit.

She shook her head at the mirror. "No way."