The Alpha's Unclaimed Mate novel Chapter 572

Chapter 572: The Luna Who Terrified Children

A small boy, maybe seven, was standing behind Agnes with his face broadcasting the ancient, cross-cultural frequency of childhood humiliation.

Andrew hadn’t asked for a defender. Andrew had asked for a normal afternoon. But Agnes Viremont didn’t do normal afternoons. She did full-scale diplomatic shitstorms over playground infractions.

"Mom..." Andrew’s voice was small, careful, the tone of a child navigating a parent who had zero concept of proportional response. "It’s okay. He didn’t mean to."

Andrew was deploying the only weapon a child had against an overreacting parent: calm, reasonable minimization. It had never worked. It would never work. He deployed it anyway because hope was all he had.

"He absolutely meant to, Andrew. Intent was visible. The windup was deliberate. The aim was targeted. That was a hostile ball deployment and I will not tolerate hostile ball deployments against my son in my courtyard."

’Hostile ball deployment’ was a phrase that had no goddamn business existing. And yet.

"Mom, please."

"Crown princes do not get balls thrown at their heads, Marcus. It is a rule. I am making it a rule right now. The rule is effective immediately. Andrew is my son, which makes him the crown prince of Darkhowler, and crown princes are protected by very specific laws that I am also making up right now, and those laws include consequences for ball-related aggression."

She picked Andrew up with one arm. The boy was too old to be carried and too small to fight it, and his face achieved a shade of red that medical science had yet to classify. It landed somewhere between ’sunburn’ and ’volcanic eruption’ on the color spectrum, and it was called "Andrew Being Carried By His Mother In Public At An Age Where Carrying Is A War Crime."

The kid’s blush lava-ed from his neck to his ears as his legs dangled and his dignity evaporated.

Agnes was already turning on her heel.

"We’re leaving, Andrew. This courtyard has a bullying problem and I will be addressing it with the staff."

"Mom, he’s my friend."

"He WAS your friend. His friendship status is under review pending a behavioral assessment."

The boy was being extracted from a social situation like a hostage from a warzone, except the warzone was a playground and the hostage hadn’t called for a goddamn rescue.

She stormed off in the opposite direction with Andrew on her hip, her stride carrying the righteous fury of a mother whose child had been mildly inconvenienced and whose response was thermonuclear.

She didn’t see Garrett watching.

Andrew, to his credit, had stopped protesting. He hung from his mother’s hip with the resigned stillness of a boy who understood that resistance was futile and silence was the fastest route to being set down.

Marcus stood in the courtyard holding nothing, wearing the expression of a nine-year-old who had thrown a ball during a game and was now a cautionary tale. He didn’t know it yet, but his name would circulate among the courtyard children for weeks as the boy who got his friendship taken away.

He would recover. Children were resilient. But he would never throw a ball near Andrew Darkhowler again.

Garrett dragged a hand down his face. "Here we go again."

His tone carried the bone-deep exhaustion of a man mated to Agnes Darkhowler.

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