The Alpha's Unclaimed Mate novel Chapter 570

Chapter 570: Purple Fur Husband Bait

Petra set the oil down and wiped her hands on a cloth. "Your Grace, may I suggest something?"

"You may."

"Your wolf is beautiful."

The sentence landed in the parlor with the precision of a woman who had spent years learning exactly which compliments opened which doors in Bellatrix Drakenfell’s decision-making architecture.

Bellatrix paused. The pause was the pause of a woman hearing a truth she already knew being stated by someone else, and the stating was producing a warmth that she would never acknowledge aloud but was currently heating the center of her chest.

"She is," Bellatrix agreed. The agreement was immediate and carried zero humility. "The purple is rare. The purple is exquisite. I have been told my wolf is one of the most striking in Drakenfell’s history, and I have been told this by people who were afraid of me, which means it was true because frightened people do not waste lies on compliments."

"A pack run, Your Grace."

Bellatrix’s face collapsed into the specific configuration of a woman who had been offered a plate of something she found categorically repulsive.

"A pack run."

"Yes, Your Grace."

"Running. In a forest. With the pack. In wolf form. On purpose."

Each word was delivered as its own sentence, each sentence more horrified than the last, as though Petra had suggested she swim in a public lake or eat standing up.

"Yes, Your Grace."

"Petra, I have avoided pack runs for thirty years. I have avoided them with the dedication of a woman whose wolf is too beautiful for mud and whose dignity is too valuable for group activities. Pack runs involve dirt, communal howling, and the company of people I tolerate better from a distance. The answer is absolutely—"

She stopped.

Petra watched the calculation happen in real time.

Bellatrix’s mouth stayed open. Her eyes narrowed. The narrowing was the narrowing of a woman whose disgust was being ambushed by her own strategy, and the strategy was winning.

Serena had her wolf now.

Bellatrix had been in the underground chamber when the girl’s wolf was revealed. She had watched Tiberon coaching her through the shift, seen the white fur and the golden eyes, witnessed her husband treating the girl with a tenderness he reserved for things he valued and the valuing had been so obvious it was practically a public announcement.

She didn’t care about any of that. Obviously.

But a pack run for the new princess. A pack run hosted by the queen. Organized by the woman who was embracing her son’s mate, welcoming her into the family, providing her with her first official pack experience. Favorite parent point. Divorce insurance. Social calendar dominance.

"Actually," Bellatrix said slowly, the word unfolding like a strategy document being declassified, "that is a wonderful idea."

Petra’s face betrayed nothing. Petra’s face was a professional surface that had learned to betray nothing the way walls learn to hold paint.

"The pack run will be for Serena. Her first as a member of the royal family. Hosted by me. Planned by me. The court will see a queen welcoming her son’s mate into the pack with open arms and open forests, and the opening will be so goddamn warm that divorcing me afterward will feel like kicking a woman who just threw a party for someone else’s happiness."

She paused. Corrected herself.

"Obviously, I am doing this strategically. This is a chess move. The girl getting a nice evening is incidental. The incidental is irrelevant. I am not doing this for her. I am doing this for my marriage. The marriage is the priority. The girl is the excuse for planning the pack run which serves my objective and my objective is survival."

Bellatrix had spent too many sentences explaining how little she cared and was exhausted by that.

She picked up her wine. Drank.

"The fact that she has never had a proper pack run and this would be her first is coincidental. Entirely coincidental. I do not care about her feelings on the matter. She could run in a circle by herself for all I care. The pack run is a tool, and the tool is shaped like a gift, and the gift is wrapped in my generosity, and the generosity is fake."

The speech was three paragraphs longer than it needed to be, which was the specific length of a woman trying to convince herself of something she was already failing to believe.

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