Wolf Princess Sold to the Dragon King

Maybe it was a wolf king bandaging her palms at four in the morning.

Maybe it was the camisole and shorts that had been in the running for her favorite pajamas and were now last place.

Maybe it was the third in command helpfully listing all the ways she was not good for Maddox politically, just in case she hadn’t considered it on her own.

Whatever it was, the amount of fucks given by Guinevere Lunaris was now freshly out of stock.

Heartbroken? Yes.

Dignity? Presume dead.

A bad bitch? On her way.

Ryker leaned back in a chair inside the preparation tent, watching her.

”Congratulations, Gwen. You’ve been assigned the best dragon on this field.” He tapped his chest. ”This guy.”

Blair started laughing.

Guinevere looked at her. ”What?”

”You are about to make him look good.”

”She is,” Ryker agreed without any shame. ”Skyrunner good.”

Damon abandoned the bow rack he was looking at. ”Walk me through this. What’s a skyrunner?”

”Happy to.” Ryker turned to them, and held up two fingers. ”Two types of courses. First is the standard. One rider. One dragon. Three laps. To get combat-cleared, you need eighty percent accuracy in under ten minutes. Average riders do it in eight, nine minutes. Competitive riders push five. Maddox’s record is three minutes flat.”

Ryker cracked his neck. ”But nobody gives a fuck about that. Kiddie pool. Skyrunner is what separates the boys from the men.” He glanced at Guinevere. ”I heard it. I don’t hate it. I’m keeping it.”

He turned back to Damon. ”Second type of course has six dragons. Seven laps. Higher difficulty. Combat-ready time is twenty-three minutes. Maddox’s record is six minutes forty-five seconds.”

Nicholas looked at Guinevere. ”And you’re running this today.”

His voice was level. The tendons in his neck were not.

”She’s not running it. She’s breaking it.” Ryker stood. Stretched. Pointed at Nicholas. ”Breathe. I mean it.” Pointed at Guinevere. ”Don’t be late. I’m the red one.”

Then he backed out of the tent with finger guns, which should have been beneath the Second in Command but was not because Ryker had discovered the power of hand gestures and there was no going back.

Blair dropped her voice so only Guinevere and the two wolves eavesdropping could hear.

”Listen to me. I don’t care if you rip your hands open again or light this goddamn field on fire. You are going to beat Maddox’s time by at least ten seconds.”

The corners of Guinevere’s mouth curved. ”I’ll get it done.”

”Good. And we are still giving Sterling the cold shoulder until I say otherwise. At least a day.” She clapped her hands twice. ”Bitch face back on.”

”When you tell me to do that it makes me smile.”

”Stop smiling.”

Guinevere walked to the bow rack in the back where Nicholas stood, grabbing one absentmindedly.

”Guinevere.”

She looked up at him.

His face had softened into something that clearly read: she’s forgotten her arrows and it’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.

He tipped his chin toward the quiver rack. ”Don’t you need a quiver?”

”No.”

He processed ’no’ for three seconds longer than any single syllable should require.

She didn’t notice, because she was too busy pulling her hair back.

Blair watched her hands like a hawk, then grabbed her wrist mid-ponytail. ”Stop. Stop. STOP. Damon. Nicholas. Someone. Restrain her.”

She took Guinevere’s hands, and placed them at her sides. ”Stay. Good girl”

Blair said it like she was training a puppy.

Guinevere’s lips twitched. ”You know, most wolves would be offended by that.”

”Most wolves didn’t marry my brother and become my personal dress-up doll. You did. Consequences, Gwen.”

Blair yanked the ponytail through in one motion. ”There. Put your bitch face back on. Right now.”

She linked her arm through Guinevere’s and steered them towards the tent flap. The wolves followed.

”You look like sex on a dragon and I refuse to apologize for saying that,” she said flatly.

Damon made a sound that was technically a cough.

”If I wasn’t straight,” she added. ”I’d be a problem for you right now.”

”Blair.”

”I said what I said. I’d do you.”

”BLAIR.”

Behind them, Nicholas’s face was stone.

Just as they exited the tent, two hundred fists struck their chests in unison. Every Drakencrest soldier within visual range was saluting her. The look on all of their faces was pride. Something she wasn’t expecting.

It meant more to her than they probably realized. She blinked twice. Fast. The kind of fast that keeps things from falling. She wanted to make them proud.

A red dragon was waiting at the center of the field.

Full speed in human form had only ever happened unintentionally, catching blades on instinct. But it was never something she did on purpose.

Today changed that. The humble setting in Guinevere Lunaris had shut off.

The field blurred beneath a dead sprint that set her calves on fire. She jumped, closing the distance, and landed standing on Ryker’s back instead of sitting.

Every voice in the crowd cut out at once. A non-Drakencrest rider broke the silence with, ”What the fuck.”

Ryker: Where the hell has that been?

She didn’t answer.

On the side of the field, Blair grabbed the arm of the nearest person, who happened to be Damon.

”I dressed her. I did that. That is my work. You’re welcome. All of you.”

Damon looked down at her hand and then at her face and decided this was not the moment to address it.

Nicholas stopped breathing.

Damon glanced at him. ”Was that Alpha speed on a female?”

A muscle in Nicholas’s jaw fired once. That was his answer.

”You good, Nick?”

Nicholas was not good.

The horn sounded. Ryker launched into the air at full speed with Guinevere standing.

The world went mute and her body switched to a language it had always known.

The first arrow came. She caught it. Loaded. Drew. Fired.

Bullseye.

The other arrows followed right on schedule.

She wasn’t aware that Maddox had stopped talking mid-sentence. Or that Kael had stepped out on a balcony to watch because he thought everyone had been blowing smoke.

When the first round of arrows were done, she wedged the bow between two spine ridges on Ryker’s back, the same spot she’d used every run with him.

”Time?” Sterling asked. He had just arrived at the field with Maddox.

”Nineteen seconds,” Sparrow answered.

Gold orbs materialized in the air. She jumped, hitting four on the way down. Zero hesitation.

The green dragon caught her on schedule. Tossed her. But not to land on his back like usual. He tossed her to the brown dragon.

That was new. It also just shaved three seconds off her time because she landed dead center on her next orb. It changed from gold to green. Collected.

Ryker: Surprise.

She ran. Jumped. Landed standing on the black dragon coming from the opposite direction.

Below, the tent flaps opened. She didn’t notice.

On the field, Sparrow’s arms were folded, his head tilted back, watching the sky with the quiet satisfaction of a man who been keeping a secret and was finally allowed to enjoy it.

”Thirty five seconds,” Sparrow called.

She dove off Ryker’s back, straight down, shifting in freefall. White light painted the entire field. Her wolf hit the ground at a speed that turned the orb run into a white streak.

Shifted back. Caught. Tossed. She caught an incoming arrow before she landed. Bullseye.

”Forty-five seconds.”

Lap two. More arrows came. Incoming fire. She caught them so fast the motion looked like a magic trick.

She fired again. And again. Center, center, center. The split arrows were stacking in the targets like God had a grudge against the wood and Guinevere was his preferred method of communication.

”One minute fifteen.”

She missed nothing. Every hit split the previous arrow.

Split. Split. Split. Split.

The targets were starting to look offensive. Arrows stacked three and four deep in center mass, each one splitting the last with surgical precision that had stopped being impressive and started being rude.

Fun. She was having it. On divorce-o’clock. Noted.

Below, the Drakencrest soldiers who’d watched her train knew how this would end.

”There’s no way,” a visiting captain commented loudly. ”At that speed, she’ll be lucky to hit one.”

”No way,” a Drakencrest rider agreed, nodding solemnly. ”Real shame.” He paused. ”Fifty gold says she hits every bullseye?”

”Make it a hundred.”

”Done.”

He was not the only one. Three Drakencrest riders stood in a row nodding sympathetically at the visiting lords like a choir of grief.

”Real shame.”

”Hate to see it.”

”Speed kills accuracy every time.”

Behind their backs, a fourth was running a ledger.