Wolf Princess Sold to the Dragon King

”I told her to stay behind the rock... did she stay... of course not,” Kael grumbled, his eyes still closed.

”Let’s get him to my chambers,” Guinevere said.

”Yes, Luna.”

”Princess is just fine.”

Gavyn Holt and a warrior looked at her, then at each other. A brief, complicated exchange passed between them that she didn’t have time for.

Whatever political crisis was brewing could get the fuck in line behind the seventeen other crises she was currently managing. The queue was long and the customer service was terrible.

”Yes, Princess,” they said.

Good enough. New motto.

Gavyn and the warrior hooked Kael’s arms over their shoulders and hauled him upright.

Kael’s head lolled forward. His feet scraped the stone like they had given up. He mumbled something into Gavyn’s shoulder that sounded like ”I can walk.”

”No, you absolutely cannot,” Guinevere said from behind them. ”Let them help you, Kael.”

”Can,” he insisted. His legs disagreed so loudly that Gavyn nearly dropped him.

In hindsight, the top floor of the tower furthest from their starting point might have been an oversight on her end. Whoops. He weighed more than his size suggested, which was already considerable, and both men were sweating by the second flight.

”You’re... my wolves now... I adopted you... no take-backs...”

They lowered him into her bed.

”You two are my favorites. Don’t tell Tyler.” Kael’s tone was serious, but his eyes were closed.

The two warriors stood there a second too long, matching looks of pure ’what the fuck just happened’ on both faces.

”Nice bed... too many pillows... who needs this many...” Kael added.

Unconscious, stabbed, bleeding through bandages, and his first observation was interior design criticism. The man had priorities.

The healer arrived sixty seconds later, already carrying supplies, already sweating, already wearing the expression of a man who had treated more bodies tonight than he had in the previous calendar year.

He took one look at the dragon, one look at Guinevere, and wisely asked zero personal questions.

He cut Kael’s shirt open and went quiet.

The stab wound below his left ribs was deep, clean-edged, and surrounded by a fading web of black that looked like veins drawn in ink.

Guinevere’s hand flew to her mouth.

”Is it infected?” she asked.

”No, Your Grace. This is something else.”

”Is it Dark Fae magic?”

She asked the question but she had a feeling she already knew the answer.

”I think so. He’s not the only one,” the old man replied. ”I will clean and wrap it.”

”If you use... that green shit on me... I will personally...,” Kael said point blank, but his eyes were still closed.

The healer used the green shit on him. He cleaned the wound, put green paste on it, and wrapped his torso in bandages. The dragon did not personally anything because the dragon was unconscious.

”Keep him still. I’ll be back to check on him in a few hours,” the healer said, gathering his supplies.

”Thank you.”

The healer left. The door closed.

She stood beside the bed for a moment, looking at the unconscious man who had been sleep-talking, sleep-threatening, and sleep-critiquing her pillow count. Keeping him still was going to be a full-time goddamn job.

She reached to pull a blanket up around him. The second her fingers brushed his skin, both of them glowed gold.

That sensation of electricity came back. Sparks bit into her fingertips.

”...that’s nice... keep doing that...” he groaned, eyes still closed.

She ripped her hand away like it was on fire.

The glow died instantly.

Her hand tingled. Her face was hot. She was blushing at a comatose man. Rock bottom had a basement and she’d just moved in.

She reached out again. Touched his arm.

Gold. Sparks. Glow. Immediate.

She pulled back.

Gone.

He made a sound in his sleep that was either a whine or a growl and both options were equally adorable.

Touch. Glow.

Release. Dark.

Touch. Glow.

Her wolf stirred for the first time since she’d woken up in this Keep. A presence she’d been hiding so long that feeling it move was almost startling.

Mate.

The word detonated in her skull like a firework in a closet.

Both of her hands flew to her mouth. The glow stopped.

His face scrunched. Full unconscious displeasure. The man was sleep-pouting because she stopped touching him.

She stared at him.

Obviously.

OBVIOUSLY he was her mate. That was what the sparks were. That was what the jolt was when he carried her. That was what the warmth was every single time they touched and her brain short-circuited and her chest did the thing and she felt safe around a stranger for no goddamn reason.

She felt like the biggest idiot in the entire kingdom and the kingdom currently had Cassian in it, so that was saying something.

Her wolf spoke again.

Something is blocking. We need to unblock.

What do you mean blocking? she thought back.

There’s a door inside us. Locked.

Wonderful. Adding that to the list.

”If anyone... draws on my face... while I’m out... I will burn this Keep,” Kael mumbled.

That was funny. She had to admit. Nothing about a bleeding dragon threatening arson from her bed should have been. And yet. Goddamnit.

She walked into the bathing chamber and closed the door.

Mirror.

Bruised face. Split lip healing. Hair that had been through a war because it had. And on the left side of her neck, partially hidden by the massive purple bruise, a symbol was glowing.

Gold. Silver. White. Three colors woven together in a pattern that shifted when she turned her head, like light moving through stained glass.

Was this what dragon marks looked like? She genuinely didn’t know.

How the FUCK she missed that this morning was a question she would be asking herself for the rest of her natural life. She had looked in this mirror. She had stared at the bruise. She had examined every inch of damage on her body and had somehow, cosmically, impossibly overlooked a glowing goddamn symbol on her own neck.

In her defense, the bruise was enormous. In the prosecution’s case, the symbol was GLOWING.

A dragon mark. On her neck. Which meant at some point in the recent past, a dragon had marked her and she had zero memory of it happening.

That tracked.

She walked back into the bedroom and looked at Kael. Unconscious. Breathing through fresh bandages. A man who had saved her Keep, her pack, and her life, and was currently in her bed.

He was her husband then. Presumably.

Cassian had said she was sold to a dragon. That meant lord unless her father somehow convinced the dragon king himself. Unlikely.

Kael led their army like a commander. That meant he probably had a fleet.

Seven hundred and fifty million gold, and a military alliance. That was the deal.

Ashenvale. Kael Ashenvale.

She had never heard the name. She had memorized the forty dragon houses growing up. But maybe there were clans that weren’t part of houses too?

Or maybe he was a general?

An unwanted thought crept in her head. What if he wasn’t the one her father sold her to? What if he was her fated mate she ran away with and Cassian was right all along?

Her stomach twisted. If she’d been sold and then ran, every consequence that had followed, the whipping, the political collapse, their father’s disappearance, sat on her shoulders whether she remembered it or not.