Wolf Princess Sold to the Dragon King

Prince murdered by Dad. Classic.

One death so far on the continent of Nyros. One murder currently loading on the other end. And the night’s barely gotten its pants on.

The rest of the dominos are just waiting for the shove.

Starting with the end of the chain already swimming in blood, tile thirty belonged to the Dragon King.

DOMINO 30: MADDOX DRAKENCREST HAS ARRIVED

LUNARIS KEEP - PRINCESS’S TOWER - 7:56 PM

”Jaxon. Move.”

Maddox’s voice hit the room like a starter pistol. The Master Mage was already moving, dropping beside Beta Draven with blue magic flooding from both hands into a wound that was trying its absolute hardest to become permanent.

Lux was a half-step behind him, anchoring the stabilization from the opposite side because she was Lux and she didn’t wait for instructions when a body was on the clock.

Maddox was through the doorway before the light even settled.

Behind him, the room exhaled.

Maria collapsed beside Draven, her entire body shaking, the kind of ugly crying that happens when a woman watches the father of her child get stabbed and then watches a stranger try to undo it.

”Thank you,” she sobbed. ”Thank you, thank you, thank you—”

”Maria.”

Kael’s voice was gravel dragged across broken glass. He coughed, and the cough sounded like it cost him a rib. The Luminari healer pressed light deeper into his chest without breaking rhythm.

Kael raised one hand off the bed. A single finger to his lips.

Maria went quiet. The kind of quiet that only happens when a half-dead man on a bed full of pillows gives you a look that says I need you to shut the fuck up right now and trust me.

She wiped her face and held Draven’s hand while Jaxon worked.

Kael’s eyes drifted to Ryker. Then Sterling. A look passed between the three of them that required zero words and communicated everything.

Ryker was already moving toward the door.

✦✦✦

DOMINO 31: MADDOX WASN’T ASKING

STAIRWELL - OTHER SIDE OF THE DOOR - 7:56 PM

Maddox stopped on the landing.

Cassian was below him. Slumped against the wall. Smile still frozen on a face that would never move again. Blood had pooled on the third step and was creeping toward the fourth with the patience of something that had nowhere else to be.

Below that, Renwick Lunaris was descending the stairs like a man leaving a board meeting. Measured. Unhurried. The blade at his side still wet.

Maddox had killed men. He’d ordered deaths. He’d watched enemies burn and felt nothing because they earned it. He was an imperfect man wearing an imperfect crown, and he’d made peace with that.

This was different.

Every instinct he had, king, dragon, husband, brother, all four were screaming the same word at the same volume.

Wrong.

A father who murdered his own son over pride. A son who died on stairs defending a man Renwick had already gutted. A pregnant woman sobbing on a stone floor while foreign mages tried to keep two bodies alive that this bastard had put down in under ten minutes.

Cold. Calculated. Efficient.

Maddox had met monsters before. Monsters roared. Monsters burned. Monsters lost control and you could see it coming from a mile away.

Renwick Lunaris was worse than a monster. He was a system. And the system had just processed its own son like a line item on a budget he was trimming.

The Dragon King’s gut had been wrong before. He’d admit that. He’d be the first to admit that.

His gut was screaming now and he was going with it.

”Renwick.”

The Alpha King’s foot paused on the next step.

”A word.”

Renwick turned.

His face was completely fucking empty. Zero guilt. Zero grief. Zero evidence that the body cooling six steps above him shared his goddamn bloodline.

Two kings on a staircase. One body between them. That domino was still falling when the next one started, eight hundred miles away.

✦✦✦

DOMINO 32: TEN STEPS AND A MOTHERFUCKER

GREYHALL CROSSING - COUNCIL CHAMBER - 7:57 PM

Father’s playbook. Daughter’s clean execution.

Squire-pants domino was about to make one hell of an entrance with zero idea that her brother was dead, her Beta was dying, and her father made it happen.

She was equally unaware that Nicholas Shadowfell’s wolf was going completely insane scenting her while Nicholas kept telling it to calm down because that was fucking impossible.

What she did know was that you don’t half-ass a performance when entering a lion’s den. You become the fucking lion.

The council doors opened.

RULE 1: Walk into every room like you’ve already fucked everyone in it and they should be grateful.

She entered and scanned faces. Some she had met a few times. A few she’d studied so thoroughly she could name their preferred whiskey.

The chamber was fucking enormous. A massive round table owned the center with fifty seats. Each chair wore a pack emblem for its Alpha. Rising pews climbed the walls for everyone else.

She made it ten steps in when the room noticed her.

Conversations died mid-word. Every head turned.

Why?

Was it because it looked like she got in a fist fight with a bear? Was it that she was dressed in squire attire with an Alpha cape? Was it the fact she was the sole cat in a dog park? A female in a dicks-only club?

RULE 2: Keep your legs moving and your face shut. Flinch and they’ll fuck you standing.

Guinevere continued forward and didn’t flinch or react. These fucks had no idea about her last forty-eight hours. Lashes, hypothermia, and a battle really puts things in perspective.

Her pack followed in perfect formation. Tight. No gaps. Best fucking flock in the building.

A buzz erupted. Right on cue.

”No armor. No Alpha. No prince. What is Renwick playing at?”

”Bold or stupid?”

”Ask me in an hour.”

”Is that the one who was glowing in the corridor?”

”White wolf. I saw ’er with my own eyes.”

A voice cut through them all like a rock through glass.

”There she is.” A man slow clapped. ”The princess Renwick kept locked away and sold the day she found her wolf.”

Tharos Stonehowl.

RULE 25: Motherfuckers who come in hot are never showing their real playbook on the first swing. Aggressive opening moves are just dick-waving. Don’t ever touch it.

She ignored him.

He moved, blocking her path. Of course he did.

”I’m talking to you, girl.”