Wolf Princess Sold to the Dragon King

In the last thirty minutes, Nicholas Shadowfell had been told he had a great personality, bitten his fated mate, been bitten back, accidentally mated her against a wall in front of eighteen witnesses, and was now walking towards a council chamber like none of it happened.

He was halfway there when eighteen pairs of boots rounded the corner ahead of him in a formation that had no business being that tight considering six of them were not in his pack and all of them had been drinking.

Gavyn was leading the Lunaris warriors.

"Alpha Shadowfell." His voice was steady, projecting the complete belief that nothing had happened and the blade-swinging-near-decapitation attempt was a misunderstanding at best.

Nicholas gave him a nod. The kid had done his job. He wasn’t going to pretend that was a problem.

Nicholas: Damon.

Damon: Nick.

Nicholas: Which of these six do I need to speak with to make sure tonight stays buried?

Damon: None. Beta boy handled it.

They had made it to the great hall when Gavyn stopped abruptly. He turned to his men.

"You three. Her chambers. You are on her door until I come back. Nobody enters. If she wakes up, one of you finds me immediately and the other two stay with her."

Without a word, three Lunaris wolves left.

Gavyn and the two remaining eased into the formation, tucked behind Damon and Reed and sandwiched ahead of the rest of Shadowfell’s men like they were pack. Nobody thought twice.

Nicholas: Funny he should remember that.

Damon: Better late than never.

Reed: Those kids are about to find eight guards already there.

Damon: That’s fine. Her pack should be guarding too.

The council doors opened.

Nicholas entered and the room’s collective face reset.

Forty-seven pairs of Alpha eyes fixed on him while every Beta and Gamma zeroed in on the three Lunaris wolves walking in Shadowfell’s formation like the most natural thing in the world. The entire secondary hierarchy was thinking the same thing: what the fuck does this mean, who approved it, and do I need to adjust.

One look from Damon answered all three. Yes, he approved it. Yes, it means what you think it means. And no, you don’t need to adjust. You need to sit down and stop staring at my puppies.

The staring ended.

Reed: In case anyone didn’t pick up on the first ten hints.

Damon: What hints? The partial shift? The mate announcement? The war declaration? The walking out? The kicking Stonehowl out? Which part of the covert operation are you referring to?

Reed: That cat has been out of the bag for a good hour.

Damon: Reed, the cat burned the bag, pissed on the ashes, and is currently sitting on the council table grooming itself in front of forty-eight Alphas. There is no goddamn bag.

Nicholas took his seat like the last thirty minutes had been an intermission. He gave zero acknowledgment of the fact that he’d just declared threatening Guinevere Lunaris an act of war against Shadowfell and then exited without taking questions.

The message was received loud and clear.

✦✦✦

30 MINUTES LATER

The map was mostly lit, the twins were arguing, and the session was underway like nothing had ever interrupted it.

Alpha Redmoon glanced at Gavyn who was sitting next to Damon in the stands.

"Before this lot ran her off, the Lunaris princess said you were under siege and won last night. Was there a strategy deployed that we haven’t discussed yet, boy?"

All eyes turned to the rookie Beta. He gave a nod and stood.

"Yes, Alpha. The strategy she was referring to involves tar."

"Tar," Darwin Blackmoor repeated.

"Yes. They always go for wood entrances first because they can claw through it. You put plywood in front as a decoy with tar behind it. The second it hits their hands, they slow down. Then they spread it to each other. One application buys your ground units enough time to set a kill line."

He paused. The table was leaned in so far that three Alphas were practically lying on the wood.

"Dark Fae hunt in packs of six. If you see one, there are five more you cannot see. If one has tar, they spread it to their other five."

The chamber was dead quiet.

"Your archers are your best defense because as soon as they land inside your walls, they can make portals there too."

An Alpha three seats down opened his mouth. Gavyn kept talking.

"Shifting is a last resort. Mainly because their blood is a hallucinogen. We won last night with zero wolves. Everything was by blade or arrow. Whatever amount you have in your armory, triple it."

A low murmur spread through the chamber.

"They also attacked in three major waves over a twenty-four hour span. Ground first. Then they used wings. The final wave was when the portals started opening. We reset the plywood tar strategy between and they fell for it every time," he added.

"Tar. Can’t say I was expecting that," Benjamin Blackmoor said after a moment.

Alpha Ironmaw was staring at Gavyn like the man had just handed him a clean, simple blueprint for survival and was furious that he hadn’t thought of it himself. "Where did Lunaris learn this? Wolves have never fought Dark Fae at this scale."

"We didn’t learn it from wolves," Gavyn answered. "A dragon named Kael Ashenvale commanded our army."

"Renwick Lunaris let someone command his army," Grimscar repeated, like saying it twice might make it make sense.

"Yes, Alpha."

Damon: The odds of Renwick actually allowing that are what?

Nicholas: Zero. He’d rather lose the war than lose the wheel. Every Alpha at this table now thinks Lunaris is dead or missing.

Damon: In case the missing prince and the temp Beta didn’t scream "something is horribly wrong in Lunaris," letting a stranger command his army just wrote it in ten-foot letters across the map.

Reed: The puppies know something.

Damon: The puppies have known something all night. Every time someone mentions Lunaris, one of them leaks.

Reed: Should I refill door kid’s glass?

Damon: Reed, we are in a council chamber.

Reed: After then.

Damon: After, absolutely. Pour doubles.

Door kid glanced at Gavyn. The silent exchange was missed by no one.

"Out with it, boy. One of you," Redmoon said.

Gavyn kept his expression neutral.

"In the third wave, they kept trying to fly away with warriors after wounding them. If you find yourself on the back of a Fae, stab its eye and use that to steer. It will fly you wherever its head is pointed. The princess saved our Beta by doing that. We replicated her process and they flew away with zero of the men they picked up."

Nicholas dragged a hand down his face, fully losing his composure.

"The echolocation," door kid said loud enough for the room to hear.

"Oh, right," Gavyn said. "They talk a lot. But that aside they rely on echolocation. If there are too many for your men to take in one spot, have them bang on their shields. Kael had us do that where our defenses were weaker and it worked."

Door kid gave him an approving nod.

The chamber erupted for exactly one second before Nicholas’s expression killed it.

"The portals." Alpha Grimscar leaned forward, his voice cutting through the residual noise. "When they hit my territory, they kept opening rifts in the sky. Purple. Massive. Every time we closed on a group, another rift opened behind our lines and fresh units poured through. We couldn’t hold a position because the ground kept changing."

Gavyn nodded. "They did the same thing in Lunaris. Multiple rifts. Simultaneous deployment."

"How do you close them?" Grimscar asked. The question carried the weight of a man who had lost wolves to those rifts and was still carrying the bodies.

"Our princess closed them."

Silence.

"She shot them."

More silence. The kind that has opinions and is deciding which one to express first.

"Shot them," Veilcross repeated. "With what?"

"A bow. Arrows. She fired into the center of the rifts and they collapsed."

"You expect us to believe," Alpha Ironmaw said slowly, leaning back in his chair, "that a princess with no military training fired arrows into magical portals with enough accuracy to hit the center, and the portals just decided to close for her."

"Yes, Alpha," all three Lunaris wolves said in unison.

"I was standing next to her when she did it," Gavyn added.