Wolf Princess Sold to the Dragon King

A grenade juggling hypocrite sheep walked into a wall of testosterone and her first instinct was to roast the flock.

Little did the flock know, twenty-three minutes prior, while sons played throat-roulette and dragons roamed free, that hypocrite sheep was full-on talking to herself.

She was having a heart-to-heart with herself, actually.

DOMINO 18: HOT-ASS MESS TO COLD-ASS CHESS

GREYHALL CROSSING - 7:27 PM

She scrubbed hair and body at lightspeed.

"Twenty minutes to turn from a hot-ass mess into cold-ass chess, Guinevere. Move."

Yes, she had been verbally processing. It was helping.

First aid kit in the bathing chamber. Fresh bandages over the lashes that had lost their cover in her bathing speedrun.

That’s when she noticed a dark mark forming under her ribs. It looked exactly like a bruise, which tracked considering she was sore as fuck.

"Add it to the list."

Bathrobe on. Hair down and drying.

Time to make the most important decision of all.

Two versions of herself lay out on the bed. Which one was getting thrown into the council meat grinder?

RIGHT SIDE:

Guinevere the demon-rider.

Squire attire.

It would communicate either, ’I have no armor but am trying to look like my men so I am dressed in squire clothes’ OR ’I don’t need goddamn armor because I’m that confident.’

PROS: It matched her men better. She could actually move in the damn thing if shit went sideways.

CONS: Socially a bigger gamble. Even if they bought the confidence angle instead of the squire costume, there was a 100% chance that it would offend at least one Alpha.

LEFT SIDE:

Guinevere the underestimated princess who will absolutely exploit that.

Favorite dress.

Deep Lunaris green. Perfect Alpha’s-daughter camouflage. It said ’I am harmless and only here because Daddy couldn’t make it.’

PROS: The smart option socially. It looked good and didn’t hurt her lashes. Perfect for being underestimated and invisible.

CONS: The dumb choice if they were attacked or if she needed to move with any urgency whatsoever.

Both options were valid. Both were dangerous. Both were judging her from the bed.

This shouldn’t have been this hard. And yet.

That’s when she remembered the token. The dress had no pockets so that meant she’d have to carry it or give it to Gavyn.

Decision locked.

VERDICT:

Guinevere the demon-rider and leader of the goddamn arrow tip formation.

Squire attire took the win.

Yes, the pockets are what decided it. No, it wasn’t because she’d come too damn far to play it safe, or because she’d earned the right to dress like her men, or that the Alphas could sit the fuck down.

The pockets.

"Life is too short not to have them," she announced to herself.

Then she eyed the stand. Cassian’s armor would hang on her like a kid playing dress up.

"Nope. Next."

The green cape was another story entirely. It would also be huge on her. But it was the single most politically loaded piece of fabric in the room.

It was supposed to stop above the knees on Cassian. On her, it would fit like a cloak, which was doable.

Fuck it. Decision locked.

"Borrowing this, thank you, Cassian."

Cassian’s blade was huge and would take effort not to fidget with. Today was not the day for that.

"No thank you."

Cassian’s crown. This one she recognized. A gift from their father to him. She wasn’t going to disrespect that, differences or not. Also, his head was fucking huge.

She had her mother’s crown anyways. No brainer. Done.

Squire Attire: On. Pockets = the real MVP.

Alpha-Cape: Check. Rebranded as the princess cloak.

Token: Secure.

Alpha Signet Ring: On a chain, tucked under the clothes.

Hair: Solid 8 out of 10. Damp, loose curls down to her waist.

Crown: Seated.

Showtime.

When she stepped out into the corridor, all six of her men were waiting. Six fists slammed to their chests in a salute.

Her fist went to her chest to salute them back. No, she wasn’t supposed to technically. But it felt right. Protocol could go fuck itself. They were a team, and she wanted them to know she respected the hell out of them just as much as they respected her.

Every face in the lineup did something messy and complicated, and one of them straightened up like he’d just been promoted in his own head.

"If I look like I know what I’m doing, just roll with it," she said with a grin, breaking the tension.

That earned a real laugh. The kind that loosens shoulders and tightens loyalty at the same time.

Arrow formation. Tip position locked.

She chose the pace and stuck to it like a psychopath. Her wolf approved so thoroughly it practically rolled over in her chest.

Seven pairs of boots moved like they shared one brain and zero tolerance for looking like amateurs.

Two rights and a left. She walked the route like she’d done it a hundred times. She’d done it zero times. What she had done was glance at a map once while naked.

One more turn.

Most of the packs were already in the council chamber but there was still a handful filling the grand hall like a wall of testosterone and opinions.

Every single group was doing the same shit as earlier: tight formation, Alpha at the tip, no variation, zero originality, pure flock.

She too was a sheep, and perfectly at peace with being a hypocrite one silently roasting the other flocks in her head because her flock was the best damn flock here.

For the first ten seconds, every other arrow managed to ignore hers completely. Just another pack blending into the sea of identical sheep formations.

There were a few she recognized and had met before. Ones that knew her father. Normally she would’ve nodded and slipped away like a polite ghost. That was the instinct screaming in her head, and she was actively strangling it.

One of them cracked first. Alpha Ashfang looked at her like she’d just pulled a grenade out of her pocket and started juggling it.

All it took was one sheep in one flock and the rest followed in an explosive chain reaction. Sheep being sheep.

In a blink, the room turned into pure what-the-fuck energy.

Packs completely stopped. Some walked into their own people. Perfect V-formations turned into confused meat piles.

Alphas were pissed. Betas were scrambling. Mouths were wide open.

It was fucking funny and it took effort not to look like she was enjoying their complete meltdown. She’d meet them all in hell.

They were almost to the council doors when she lit up gold. The glow bounced back at her from every polished surface, so she didn’t even have to look at her hands to know she was currently radioactive with divine bullshit.

Wonderful. It sure as hell picked a moment to show up again.

The gallery went from ’what the fuck’ to ’what in the absolute shitfucking hell’ in about half a second, which she didn’t think was possible but here they goddamn were.

The few Alphas who had recovered their composure lost it all over again. Except now their double-takes looked like full-body seizures of confusion.

The corridor turned into a goddamn petting zoo mid-earthquake. A buzz erupted.

"Is she on fire?"

"No."

"Then what the fuck is that."

"I don’t know."

"Is that Lunaris?"

"Why the hell did Renwick send his daughter?"

Then the gold snapped off like someone flipped a switch. Lucky for everyone involved, since a few of these Alphas looked like they were in witch-hunt mode and one more second away from deciding she needed a pond, some rope, and a traditional witch test.

"Did anyone else see that or am I having a stroke?"

"You’re not having a stroke."

"Maybe she turned it off."

"I want one."

"One what?"

"One of her. Who is her father?"

Guinevere ignored the circus and continued on her way to the council chamber. Surely the inside would be less of a shitshow. She would take her seat and everyone would forget about that accidental slipup.

Sure, Guinevere.

Eight hundred miles away, another domino fell in Lunaris, this one producing a fresh body. Neither the killer nor the corpse were what anyone had on their bingo card.