Serena woke to arms around her.
Tears were in her eyes and she realized she must have been crying.
There was an ache in her chest and it took her a moment to remember why.
"Hey Serena… it's okay. You're safe," Gav whispered, tightening his arms around her.
They were both fully clothed, on top of Hale and Elara's bed.
She stayed like that for a minute, staring at nothing. The ache in her chest wasn't just emotional.
The severed matebond had left something raw and bleeding where the connection used to be. She could still feel the ghost of it. The place where his emotions had flowed into hers, where she'd felt his worry, his want, his certainty.
Empty now. Just empty.
She rolled onto her back. Gav brushed tears from her eyes with his thumb.
"Do you think we were actually fated mates?" Serena asked, more silent tears falling.
Gav opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. He looked like a man who had been handed a bomb and told to defuse it with feelings.
"Dex isn't one to lie," Gav said carefully. "I think he wasn't thinking with his brain and Agnes threw herself on him."
"There's never been fated mates who were also bonded to a single dragon. In recorded history." She exhaled, the words tasting like ash. "I think he was confusing his feelings."
"That's possible. He switched from Agnes to you pretty rapidly," Gav answered truthfully, speaking his thoughts aloud. "One second he was kissing her, and the next he was holding you."
He immediately realized that was not the comforting statement he'd intended it to be.
Serena stared at the ceiling.
He'd told her he loved her. In the dream, in the library. The one place she always felt safe. He'd said I've never been more sure of anything in my life.
And she'd believed him.
She'd told him things she'd never told anyone. About her wolf going silent. About never shifting.
She'd sat in that bath with her back against his chest and let him hold the broken pieces of her, and he hadn't flinched.
He'd just said I'm sorry, baby and kissed her temple like she was something precious.
You're mine, he'd said. A hundred times. Whoever tries to come for you will have to go through me and an army of dragons.
And she'd said Yours and meant it with everything she had.
"I wished them well," Serena said quietly. "Agnes and him. I had no intention of going near him or their relationship." Her voice cracked. "If they were already that intimate before marking... I can see why she felt so wronged."
Gav paused.
Most people were intimate before marking. A comment like that was more proof. She was more innocent than he'd thought. He didn't think her promiscuous, but he had assumed she'd been intimate before, as most were. He'd assumed Dex said she was a virgin at dinner to shut down Bellatrix and Agnes.
"Was Dex the first man you've been with?" he asked.
The second the words left his mouth, he wanted to recall them. Like an arrow already loosed. Except this arrow was heading directly into emotional territory he was not equipped for.
"Gav..." She swallowed. "I hadn't kissed a boy before Dex. Let alone been with one."
Gav's wolf snarled, trying to claw to the surface. He closed his eyes hard, jaw clenched so tight his teeth ached.
To say he felt anger would be an understatement.
Rage. Pure, blinding rage.
Her first kiss. Her first touch. Her first everything. And Dex did that to her.
He felt protective over Serena. He had actually been courting her. Interested in her as his mate. And he damn sure would have been loyal.
His hands fisted in the sheets.
He was going to kill Dex. Not today. Today was about Serena. But eventually, he would with his bare hands.
When he opened his eyes, she was looking up at the ceiling, wiping tears with her hands.
"He moved my things into his quarters while I was in the infirmary and didn't tell me," she said, taking a steadying breath. "It was a bit much, but he was insistent, so I followed his lead. He told me he ended things with Agnes two weeks before but was forced to continue the engagement with her in public."
She let out a hollow laugh.
"Sounds really stupid when I say it aloud." Her voice went flat. "I wonder what he told her about me."
The worst part wasn't the betrayal itself. It was how easily it unraveled everything.
Every I love you, every you're mine, every moment she'd thought was real. All of it suddenly felt like something she'd invented.
Like she'd been so desperate to belong somewhere that she'd built a castle out of fog and called it home.
She'd given him her first kiss. Her first everything.
And he was inside Agnes a few days later.
"I mean," Gav said, breaking the silence, "poisoning is a reasonable reaction."
Serena grabbed a pillow and smacked him with it.
"I'm going to pretend that pillow hasn't touched Hale's butt," Gav said.
She dropped it like she'd been burned, and Gav started laughing.
"It's definitely touched his butt," he added. "Multiple times."
It made her laugh despite everything. A wet, broken sound, but still a laugh.
"Why would you tell me that after I hit you with it?"
"On the bright side," Gav continued, "you're about to go to summer camp away from here. War Summit Camp, but still counts."
"You're forgetting the part where I have to sit through the most awkward Battle Address."
"Outside of the Battle Address and the Draken Forces meetings, Hale and I are handling the rest," Gavriel said. "So you are officially safe for a few days."
"I cannot accept this crown. Agnes should have it," Serena said, still staring at the ceiling. "I do not want it."
"Very dramatic," Gav said. "Let us maybe not hand the crown to the woman actively trying to poison people until after Drakenfell survives."
"I will never abandon Drakenfell. I will always protect it with everything I have."
"Also dramatic," Gav replied. "You are not going anywhere. The mage-librarians would be devastated, and I refuse to be responsible for that level of heartbreak."
Serena laughed, wiping her eyes.
That was the exact moment Hale walked in.
He took in the scene once, nodded like a man reaching a logical conclusion, and said, "Group hug."
Then he launched himself onto the bed, diving squarely on top of both of them.