Wolf Princess Sold to the Dragon King

A volcanic island in the middle of an ocean is a terrible place to receive the worst news of your life.

No bar. No trees to punch. Just black rock and ocean and the growing suspicion that this whole rescue mission was being personally fucked with by a higher power.

Three kings stood in the center of it in front of a cave, following an unhelpful vector, trying to find the woman they loved. Inside the cave, Luminari and mages worked.

Without warning, Maddox grunted, falling to his knees at the mouth of a cave.

"Fuck."

His free hand flew to his back. The pain was sharp, linear, cutting across his shoulder blades in a stripe that felt like a hot wire being dragged across his skin.

Nicholas and Landon both dropped a second later.

Three kings down in under five seconds. Every mage and specialist in the cave immediately stopped what they were doing, because when three of the most powerful men alive go to their knees simultaneously, the smart move is to shut the hell up and pay attention.

"Something is hurting her. Right now," Maddox gritted out.

He was wearing a Drakencrest combat suit. His hands went to the back zipper and he pulled it down, dragging it off his shoulders and letting it fall to his waist.

The cave went silent.

Red lines were forming on his back. Fresh, angry, appearing one at a time in parallel stripes that ran from his left shoulder blade to his right hip. Each one materialized as if drawn.

A third line appeared. Then a fourth.

Nicholas pulled his shirt over his head. His back was worse. The lines were deeper, the blood already soaking through the fabric before he’d removed it. His wolf was snarling continuously now, the sound filling the cave with a low vibration that made the Luminari specialists exchange glances.

Nicholas looked at Maddox’s back. His brows knitted together.

"These are different than the last set I got from her a few days ago. Assuming you received those too, Drakencrest?"

The subtext in that question was not missed by Maddox. But that wasn’t what gave him pause. Giving Nicholas information was one thing. Explaining it to Landon was something else.

Maddox looked at the mages and Luminari specialists. Then at Landon, who was on one knee with his hand on the stone, blood forming on his back through his white tunic in patterns he was choosing to endure without comment.

"Yes," Maddox replied. "She’s allergic to dark magic. We found that out the hard way."

A fifth line appeared across his back. He didn’t flinch. His jaw tightened by a fraction and the gold in his eyes burned hotter.

Landon’s jaw worked once but he did not comment.

Damon moved behind Nicholas and tilted his head, studying the pattern on his Alpha’s back. His eyes narrowed. The Beta stepped closer, his face shifting from concern to something harder.

"These are different," Damon said. His voice was quiet. Certain. "The ones two days ago were irregular. Random angles. These are thicker and parallel lines."

He straightened.

"These are lashes."

The word detonated in the cave.

"Say that again," Landon said, his voice cold as ice.

"Lashes," Damon repeated. "Still practiced by some wolf packs in Nyros."

A sixth line appeared across Maddox’s back from a ghost whip that he couldn’t fight.

Maddox’s dragon roared inside his skull so loudly that the sound leaked. An actual, audible growl filled the cave, low and sustained, vibrating through the stone floor. His fists were at his sides, gold flame crawling up his forearms, and the composure that had been structural, load-bearing, the only thing keeping the Dragon King functional since the river, developed its first visible crack.

"How many is that?" His voice was barely human.

"Seven," Damon answered. "Standard wolf pack discipline is ten."

Nicholas’s wolf was no longer growling. His eyes were fully wolf, molten gold.

The last three arrived on schedule.

"Ten," Damon said.

No one breathed. The number sat in the air like a death sentence.

Maddox’s flame exploded out of his hands and slammed into the cave wall with all the subtlety of a dragon mid-tantrum. Two Luminari specialists dove sideways. He hadn’t aimed at them or anything else. The fire was pure overflow: the physical result of a dragon watching his mate get punished from thousands of miles away.

"WHO THE FUCK IS TOUCHING MY WIFE?" The question ripped from his throat in two voices, man and dragon, overlapping.

"The vector points northwest," Jaxon said, his voice carefully steady. "Wherever she is, it’s—"

"FIND HER." Maddox turned on the Master Mage with eyes that were fully dragon, gold and slit-pupiled. "I don’t care what it costs. I don’t care what you have to do. You find her."

"We split up," Nicholas said. "My instinct says she was captured by a wolf pack in Nyros or by rogues. Rogues also give lashes."

"Rogues," Maddox repeated.

"Yes. Packless wolves."

The list of people who might be whipping his wife now included organized wolf packs, rogue wolves, and fuck knows what else.

"Commander," Lux called. "I think I found something."

Every head snapped in her direction.

Lux never finished. Maddox dropped.

"FUCK."

A new lash carved across his back, the first since the initial ten, and the hope that it was over died on the cave floor with him.

Twelve followed three seconds later.

"If she is being whipped by wolves," Nicholas snarled. "I will kill whoever is responsible with my bare hands."

For one terrible second, all three of them felt the exact same thing at the exact same time: the split-second of impact, the white flash of agony, and the distant, muffled sound of her breath breaking.

More lashes came.

Maddox looked at Nicholas. Nicholas looked at Maddox. The dragon king and the wolf king locked eyes over matching wounds and reached an agreement that would have taken diplomats six months and a treaty. Theirs took two seconds and no paper. Whoever did this was dead. The only variable was who got there first.