The Alpha's Unclaimed Mate-Chapter 150: Tell Your Master I’m Not Interested

After the High General took that step, a menacing grin spread across his face. He watched her the way a cat would play with a mouse.

Her pulse spiked, but her boots stayed planted.

Fin: He’s testing you. Keep your eyes on him. Make a second sword with flame.

Serena fabricated a second sword. It formed in tandem with a second blade for Elara behind her. She pushed flame into them, harder than necessary, and into the swords they already held.

The synchronized flare was so perfect that one of the guards almost clapped, cutting the motion short when he remembered whose side he was on.

Elara: Frostborne. You and I both know—

Fin cut her off mid-mindlink.

Fin: Fake it. Follow her lead.

The High General exhaled through his nose, and the sound was almost fond.

"Your hands are shaking. You can make weapons and set them on fire. But you’ve never killed anyone face-to-face, and we both know it."

"The head on my throne room floor is the mystery." He opened both arms wide, palms up, an invitation. "But by all means, let’s see what happens next."

Elara: He has a point.

Hyran and Aeron exchanged a glance that covered an entire tactical briefing in under a second. The conclusion was unanimous: they were going to die in this throne room because a small she-wolf was bluffing a Fae warlord with shaking hands and a villain speech she’d rehearsed for four seconds.

Fin’s attention was locked onto Serena. Every muscle was coiled with the specific tension of a man who was one wrong word away from ending the charade himself.

Fin: Are you able to make weapons for us?

Elara: She is.

At that moment, a side door opened. The guards were returning with prisoners. Serena released the breath she didn’t realize she was holding and inhaled fully.

Hyran: That was approximately four seconds from becoming a very different situation.

Aeron: Divine intervention. I say this as a man who does not believe in divine intervention.

Hale came first, massive and bloodied. Elara sucked in a breath behind Serena.

He looked like someone had tried to kill him and gotten tired halfway through. He didn’t bother hiding the bewilderment on his face, having heard the mindlinks. Three guards had daggers in them, and Elara held twin roaring blades.

Hyran: If those doors hadn’t opened, what was your move, Serena?

Serena: I would have fought him.

Hyran: Didn’t Dexmon rescue you after you got stabbed? That’s how you met. Your track record fighting with blade is abysmal.

He wasn’t wrong. That was the irritating part. Serena chose not to answer.

The rest followed in rapid succession, battered and barely upright, Archibald with cracked spectacles, Gavriel with his usual smirk beaten out of him, ten Hidden Flame members who looked like they’d been dragged through hell and left there.

All of them glowing pink. Nothing undermines weeks of brutal imprisonment and torture more than being rescued in hot pink. Hardened warriors, beaten and bloodied, standing in a line, glowing the exact shade of a six-year-old’s birthday party. Tactical excellence.

Gavriel looked at Serena, then at the glowing crown, then at the dual blades, then back at Serena. Smartass energy radiated off him like heat from a furnace and it was taking all of his restraint not to mindlink.

She fought the urge to grin. She needed to look every part of the inner bitch she was channeling, which didn’t include laughing in the middle of a hostage situation.

Everyone brought into the throne room understood without being told. They kept their hands cuffed behind their backs, pretending to still be bound, playing along with the charade. The ’we are absolutely still your prisoners, please don’t look too closely’ energy was immaculate.

The guards shoved them into a line near Fin and stepped back to flank the High General.

"You will not follow us," Serena said. Her voice rang through the throne room with an authority she didn’t feel. "You will not speak of what happened here to anyone."

The High General’s smile widened. "Or?"

Serena’s gaze dropped to the severed head on the floor, then returned to him with the calm of a woman who had already crossed a line she couldn’t come back from and had decided to keep walking.

"You will face the same fate as your second-in-command."

He smirked, amused. A quick dismissal of her words, like there wasn’t a head on his floor. He was over-performing his indifference, and that told Serena everything she needed.

This was him refusing to acknowledge defeat until there was a clear checkmate, while knowing full well the opponent was one move away from delivering it. Even if he wasn’t afraid of her, he was still outmatched today in this throne room, and he knew it.

"Understood," he answered after a moment.

Fin watched her deliver the ultimatum and felt something dangerous stir in his chest. Pride. And something else he was going to aggressively not think about until they were out of this throne room.

Serena held out her hand and prayed to the Moon Goddess that this would work. Her crown flashed white, blazing bright. Magic poured from her palm, spiraling outward, weaving itself into patterns she didn’t consciously direct.

A portal formed.

It was pink instead of the usual gold or silver, its edges shimmering with sparkling light. And it was the first portal she’d ever made, to her knowledge.

But the magic cost her. She felt it pull from somewhere deep. A muscle she’d never used and it hurt. Her vision dimmed at the edges.

Fin felt the sensation through their matebond like it was his own, and his blood ran cold. 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

"Don’t you want to know why you’re being hunted?" the High General asked.

His voice was casual, almost friendly, but there was something underneath it. He tilted his head, and the movement was serpentine.

"Don’t you want to know what you really are? Why every Fae lord from here to the Shadowlands would kill to possess you?"

He took another step towards her.

Fin: He’s playing for time. Move.

His mindlink cut through the High General’s words like a blade.

The melted chains and cuffs everyone was holding dropped to the floor. Except for Gavriel’s because he threw them at the nearest guard’s face.

The Fae guards watched in utter shock as the prisoners ran past with the collective expression of men watching their performance reviews happen in real time. Weeks of interrogation. Weeks of carefully maintained dominance. Undone by a white-haired girl in a glowing crown and a man who used his shackles as a projectile.

Hale grabbed Elara’s arm with no apologies, and went through first. The others followed in rapid succession.

Hyran cast one final look at the High General before crossing onto the other side. The look said I will remember your face.

The High General stared at him right back with a smirk. Then his gaze went back to Serena. "You’ve made yourself interesting. Interesting enough that my master will want you alive."

"Tell your master I’m not interested." Her tone was flat, rejecting his evil-overlord recruitment pitch with the energy of someone declining a newsletter subscription.

"You will be. And you’ll come to us willingly." It came out like a promise. Like a man planting a flag in soil he hadn’t conquered yet and calling it his. "Visibility is the tax the powerful pay for existing."

Fin grabbed Serena’s arm.

"Time to go," he said roughly.

His words registered, and she knew she needed to move. But her legs didn’t work. She started to feel pressure in her chest from holding the portal.

Her mind was also starting to become foggy. Every thought arrived late, half-formed, like words spoken underwater. She could feel herself becoming less.

The High General clocked it and began to close the distance.

Every nerve in Fin’s body fired at once, a white-hot wire pulled taut between the man walking toward her and the fact that Serena couldn’t run.

He picked her up, and booked it through her portal.

The last thing Serena saw was the High General’s smile behind the pink light.

The way he looked at her in that final moment gave her goosebumps.

She had shown them what she was, and you can’t unshow something.

His expression was the focused, patient hunger of a man who had just discovered that what he was hunting was far more valuable than he’d been told, and who had no intention of letting it stay lost for long.