Wolf Princess Sold to the Dragon King

LUNARIS KEEP - GUINEVERE’S CHAMBERS

FOUR HOURS PRIOR

Before the wolf king tore apart his own fortress and the Luminari king carried a woman through a portal, the Dragon King had just learned his wife had a blade to her throat.

Maddox had been awake for almost two days. And now he was telling his brother no to something he wanted to do just as badly and it was killing him.

The word tasted like poison. His brother was lying on a bed leaking dark magic and begging to fly, and the answer was no, and the answer was right, and being right had never felt this much like betrayal.

Every instinct he had was screaming and his dragon was clawing at his chest. The husband in him wanted to shift, fly through the night, and burn whatever was holding a blade on his wife until it stopped existing.

But he would be putting his entire team at risk. There were limits, and every single person on his team had hit theirs three hours ago. A king who ignores his people’s limits for his own urgency is a stupid one.

"No you don’t understand. I saw through her eyes," Kael rasped.

The Luminari healer stopped for a second, tilting his head at Kael.

"What?" Maddox and Kael both asked at the same time.

"What you’re describing sounds like something we Luminari can do," he replied. "You have the light in you. But it can only be done with fated mates."

The healer resumed pushing magic into Kael.

No one spoke for a moment.

"I don’t care how he saw it. If he says he saw it, I believe it," Maddox said, breaking the silence. His eyes cut to Kael. "You’re staying in that bed. Everyone in here is recovering. I’m not losing my brother and my wife on the same night because you couldn’t sit still." He straightened. "Shadowfell is there. I’ve watched that man operate. He would burn his own summit to the ground before he’d let someone hurt her."

Kael let out a dark laugh that turned into a cough, and shook his head. "Oh, I’m sure he would. And I’m sure she would accidentally find the one gap in his security."

Ryker entered the chamber and dropped onto Guinevere’s ottoman the way a man does when he has decided, without discussion, that he lives here now.

Maddox glanced up at him. "Status."

"Alive. Fucked. Those are the same thing right now. My wings feel like they’ve been deep-fried and reattached backwards. If you need me airborne, fine, but I reserve the right to cry and I’m not apologizing for it."

"Noted. Sterling?"

Sterling’s jaw tightened. "Same, Commander."

Maddox turned to the Luminari healer who was still pushing white light into Kael’s chest at a rhythm that had been constant.

"How many more treatments until it’s purged?"

"At least two more, Your Majesty. Whatever they laced their weapons with was designed to resist purging. It reseeds if you stop too early."

"I’m just fine," Kael snapped. "Still the best damn looking dragon in the room. Next question."

"Two problems with that. One, you look like shit. Two, I’m in the room. So best looking is taken, and you’re not even second."

Kael’s mouth twitched. "Give me twenty minutes and a mirror. We’ll revisit."

Maddox’s gaze landed on his two mages slumped against the wall. Jaxon looked like a fucking corpse. Lux looked marginally better, which meant she looked like death’s hungover cousin.

"I need anchors for portals."

Jaxon opened one eye. "Already done, Commander. And can I just say, I am so proud of the dragons for using the correct terminology."

Jaxon complimenting the dragons’ collective intelligence to the dragon king was so fucking stupid it looped all the way around to funny.

The silence held for exactly two seconds before Ryker lost it. The laugh that came out of him had the pitch of a twelve-year-old girl, the volume of a goddamn war horn, and zero fucking business coming out of the High General of Velkaris.

Kael’s voice floated from the bed. "What the fuck is that noise? I’m literally dying and that laugh is the worst thing I’ve heard tonight."

✦✦✦

LUNARIS KEEP - RENWICK’S STUDY - 8:50 PM

Renwick Lunaris was pouring himself a second whiskey when the Dragon King appeared in his doorway.

"She’ll be back before dawn," Renwick said without looking up. "Two reasons. First, eight hundred miles at full speed has never been done by a female wolf. The fact that my new Beta thought it was possible is either a testament to the dark magic still in his body or I have a very stupid new Beta. I’m leaning towards both."

He took a sip.

"Second, even if she somehow makes it there, which I genuinely doubt, the continental summit requires an Alpha at the table. By blood. Oldest wolf law on the books. Every delegate must pass the Rite of Sovereignty, which goes to the firstborn male heir with an Alpha wolf. She fills none of those requirements. So they will reject her and she will be on the road home within the hour."

Maddox leaned against the frame, letting Renwick finish. He was a patient man when it served him. Right now, it served him to let Renwick feel smart for another ten seconds.

"My brother saw her standing in a council chamber with a blade at her throat. He got a flash of it before it went away."

Renwick set the glass down.

He dragged a hand down his face with the slow, thorough exhaustion of a man who had murdered a son, stabbed a Beta, sentenced a wife, negotiated with a dragon, and was now being told his seven-hundred-fifty-million-gold daughter had a blade against her throat.

He didn’t question how Kael ’saw it’ or argue. Maddox took the lack of pushback for what it was: the man believed it, and definitely had extra intel on whatever the hell ’it’ was. Textbook Renwick.

Renwick stood.

"I’m going to have to clean this up personally. Whatever she’s done in that chamber, the political fallout is going to require my face and my voice and my complete fucking attention."

Maddox stayed silent.

He hadn’t told Kael or anyone yet that he would also be leaving to retrieve his wife. He needed to rest for a few hours first. There was no way around it. His dragon was done. Telling Renwick was solely for the double insurance that she would be brought back safely.

Eight hundred miles away, Guinevere Lunaris had no idea that any of this was happening. She didn’t know her father had murdered his son or that the Dragon King had flown across the continent only for her to not be there or that he was about to do it again.

She didn’t know that Kael had been medically neglected all day. She didn’t know that Nicholas was about to tear his fortress apart and punch holes in the walls because she was missing. She didn’t know that a Luminari king was closing the distance and had been the voice that spoke to her twice.

She was unconscious and every decision being made tonight was being made without her, about her, for her, and not one of them was going to go the way anyone planned.