Wolf Princess Sold to the Dragon King

Hood up. Crown on. Fast walk. Mental checklist. Three days of questions loaded into her brain like ammunition. Guinevere left her closet like a woman on a top-secret mission.

The prison break from her quarters lasted approximately five seconds before a throat cleared behind her.

She let out a high-pitched scream as she spun around, hand flying to her chest, heart pounding.

She thought Maddox had left their room ten minutes ago. She was wrong. He stood in his study’s doorframe, arms crossed, and Sterling was also present.

”I thought you were gone,” she breathed.

Maddox’s eyes dropped to the pulse point on her neck then back up to her face. ”Where are you going?”

The question sounded easy. But she noticed his fingers digging into his arms. It took her a second to understand he probably was stressed from the war summit, and she wasn’t going to add to that.

”To run an errand and find Blair.”

She didn’t want to broadcast her mission just yet.

A muscle in his jaw moved. She couldn’t place what was behind it; so she waited. But he didn’t respond right away. He held her eyes longer than the question deserved, something working behind his expression that never quite surfaced. Then he exhaled and pushed off the doorframe.

”Sterling is taking over your security. Effective this morning.”

Unexpected. Also a slight damper to her plans.

”Oh,” she said lightly. ”That’s really all right. I’m sure you both are buried in work.”

Maddox’s arms recrossed. The same position as before, but tighter.

A matebond would have been helpful right about now. She had no idea why he’d feel the need to assign her security at all.

She studied him for a second before understanding: he was probably worried after last night’s dark magic incident. It was kind of cute. But also, completely unnecessary. Last night ranked somewhere around ”mild inconvenience” on her spectrum.

Sterling cut through the silence. ”This is the most important assignment I’ve been given, Gwen. There’s nothing on my desk that outranks it.”

The sincerity in his tone hit her sideways. The Sterling she expected, the clinical, efficient, emotionally unavailable Third in Command was absent. The man standing in front of her had red-rimmed eyes.

”Are you sure, Sterling? It’ll be boring.”

”Yes, I’m sure. And I doubt that,” he replied.

”Okay,” she said softly. ”I could use your help actually.”

Sterling straightened. The red-rimmed eyes didn’t change, but something behind them did. Like a man who had been handed a purpose and was already locking into it.

”Of course.”

Next to him, Maddox’s expression turned sour so quickly she physically stepped back. It was identical to the glare he gave her across the ballroom last night.

Her blood went cold. ”Maddox, are you alright?”

”Yes,” he grunted in a tone that suggested the opposite. His face did not soften either.

”Okay. I’ll see you then.” She turned and made her way to the door.

The awkwardness of that exit was going to live in her body for the rest of the day and possibly into next week. One hour ago, this man had held her in a bathtub and called her baby. The range was staggering.

She made it two corridors at a speed slightly below a run before realizing Sterling hadn’t caught up.

She stopped, turned, and saw him standing ten paces or so behind her, following her like a palace ghost with a security clearance.

Absolutely not. Enough awkward for one day.

”I’ve never had security before, but having you back there is making me want to confess to crimes I haven’t committed. Can you walk next to me instead?”

Sterling’s lips twitched, which she was fairly certain was the most emotion she’d ever seen from him. At this rate, she’d have him smiling by the end of the year.

”Sure.”

He fell into step beside her. Better. Significantly less haunting. She could work with this.

They had rounded the corner into the western hall when a small body collided with her legs at full speed. The impact had the force of a very small, very committed battering ram and her knees buckled exactly the way they had the last four times he had done this.

She completely missed Sterling’s hand going to the hilt of his blade over a four-year-old, which was probably for the best.

She laughed and hugged him back. ”Good morning, Torin.”

The boy shoved a wildflower at her that was bald, as in it was missing all of its petals.

”For you.”

”Thank you. This one’s the prettiest yet.”

The boy beamed like he’d been knighted. Guinevere tucked the flower into the clasp of her cloak, where it sat crooked and ridiculous and she left it there on purpose.

She stood. They resumed walking. A steward passed on their left.

”Good morning, Maeven.”

The woman dipped her head. ”Good morning, Princess. The east terrace shutters were repaired this morning, just as you’d mentioned.”

”Wow, that was fast. Thank you.”

Next to her, Sterling’s brow lifted by a millimeter. Something she was unaware of.

She continued moving through the Keep on her way to the library. She hadn’t been yet, and the Gods couldn’t have stopped her.

”Where are we headed?” he asked, speaking for the first time since agreeing to walk next to her.

”Library.” She said it with a reverence other people reserve for cathedrals.

Something flickered behind his eyes, too fast to name. It looked like surprise but with him, she never knew.

He matched her stride and said nothing else. The library was one flight of stairs and five corridors away. They were thirty feet from the stairwell when a golden archway materialized in the wall to their right, opening into a tunnel that hadn’t been there a second ago.

”What’s a small detour?” she said to herself, already veering off course.

Next to her, Sterling blinked again. Rubbed his eyes. The tunnel was still there. This was happening.

The second she stepped through the archway, golden runes lit the walls.

His hand went to his blade, while he scanned. Structural integrity of the stone. Width of the passage. Distance to the nearest known corridor. Escape routes. Threat vectors.

She noticed.

”Don’t worry, it’s safe.” She considered her words, then added: ”Probably.”

Another gold archway formed at the other end. She walked through it unbothered, her default emotional state these days.

She glanced around, realized they were in the library, then grinned. The Keep had built her a shortcut.

”How neat.”

She meant it. It was neat.

The comment was delivered with the tone and energy of a woman who had found a convenient place to park her carriage, and Sterling blinked several more times because it was fully, completely, irreversibly registering that she was dead serious.

He had in fact, not been expecting her to walk through a wall of a five-thousand-year-old fortress, let alone respond with ’how neat.’

Sterling Emberfell, former High Marshal of the Drakencrest Armed Forces, current personal security detail to Guinevere Drakencrest, and a man whose emotional range had been described by Blair as ’a straight line with ambitions of flatness,’ revised his earlier assessment that this assignment would be boring.

It was going to be the most important thing he’d ever done.

He was fairly certain he didn’t deserve it.

Next to him, Guinevere was already scanning the library shelves with the focus of a woman who had waited three days for this moment and intended to make every second count.