Wolf Princess Sold to the Dragon King

LUNARIS KEEP - INFIRMARY - 9:00 PM

Renwick Lunaris had one more thing to do before he left. It was going to take sixty seconds. It was going to ruin a young man’s entire evening. He was fine with that.

Tyler Draven opened his eyes to see his Alpha standing over his bed.

”Your father is no longer Beta of Lunaris.”

Tyler stared at him. The words entered his ears, passed through his brain, and came out the other side without leaving comprehension behind.

”Effective immediately, you are. Don’t fuck it up.”

The color left Tyler’s face so fast it looked like someone had pulled a plug. ”I don’t understand. What happened to my father?”

”Ask him about it. I don’t have the energy to explain other men’s mistakes tonight.” Renwick’s voice was flat and final in the way that meant the conversation was over whether the other party had finished processing or not. ”What I need from you is this Keep running when I return. My daughter went to Greyhall Crossing for a summit she would be removed from because you didn’t know something basic. That’s the kind of failure I don’t forgive twice. The Keep is yours until I return. Run it like you understand what’s at stake.”

Tyler swallowed the accusation like a man swallowing glass, one painful shard at a time.

”Yes, Alpha. It won’t happen again. I’ll take care of the Keep.”

Renwick paused.

The pause was small. Barely a breath. The kind of pause a man makes when something surprises him and he refuses to let the surprise reach his face. Tyler Draven had just accepted full responsibility without deflection, without excuse, and without a single syllable of the defensive bullshit that Cassian would have fired back in the same situation.

He would never acknowledge the comparison. He would never admit that the boy lying in a bed with stab wounds and dark magic scarring was a stark upgrade over the son he’d killed on a staircase hours ago.

But the pause said it anyway.

”Heal. I need you functional, not brave. That’s not a request.”

Tyler would have saluted if his arms weren’t full of stab wounds. He gave a nod instead and watched Renwick leave.

When the door closed, he exhaled for what felt like the first time in fifty-three seconds. He had been promoted, threatened, blamed, and dismissed and was trying to determine which one to process first.

✦✦✦

LUNARIS KEEP - MAIN GATE - 9:50 PM

Renwick Lunaris departed his own Keep with six of his men.

He was going to collect his daughter from a summit she had no right to attend, smooth over whatever political damage she’d caused, and bring her home.

Behind him, the Keep settled into the first quiet it had known in forty-eight hours. Maddox’s dragons held the walls. The Luminari held the wards. Tyler Draven held the command from a bed.

Somewhere over the mountains, Landon Solveil was forty-seven miles from a balcony. Somewhere inside Greyhall Crossing, Nicholas Shadowfell was winning a continent.

And somewhere between them, unconscious on a bed guarded by eleven men who were about to fail spectacularly, Guinevere Lunaris slept with wolf venom in her veins, lash marks on her back, and a blanket that would not be there when Nicholas arrived.

✦✦✦

LUNARIS KEEP - GUINEVERE’S CHAMBERS - 1:30 AM

Maddox planned a quick five-minute eye-rest but ended up dead-to-the-world, jammed into a white armchair in the most uncomfortable sitting position invented by the devil himself.

He was tearing through the clouds in dragon form over the ocean when something grabbed his attention.

She was sitting on a cliffside with her knees pulled to her chest. Her arms were wrapped around herself the way people hold themselves when no one else is going to do it.

Immediately he landed and shifted, crossing the distance in three strides, and dropped to his knees next to her.

”Guinevere.”

She looked up and flinched with a tear-streaked face that made his chest crack open.

For a second he thought she might reach for him. She didn’t. Her hands stayed wrapped around her own elbows like they were the only solid things left.

”D-do I know you?” she asked softly.

His dragon made a sound behind his ribs that was closer to a whimper than a roar.

I’m your husband. You married me. I’ve been looking for you for two days and love you so goddamn much.

The words sat in his throat. But she had flinched when she looked at him and she was shaking. So that wasn’t what she needed right now. He needed to be a steady wall, not a window.

”Yes,” he answered. ”My name is Maddox.”

He sat down next to her on the cliff slowly, eyes not leaving hers.

She wiped her face with the back of her hand. The gesture was so familiar a lump formed in the back of his throat.

”I think there is something wrong with me, Maddox.” Her voice cracked on the last word.

Maddox’s eyes burned and he swallowed it whole because falling apart in front of a woman who needed steadiness was not an option.

Instead, he flashed a convincing grin.

”That makes two of us.”

”You seem fine to me.”

”I seem fine because I have excellent posture and a face built for confidence. Underneath this, I’m a wreck. Don’t tell anyone.”

”Who would I tell?”

”Fair point. You don’t know anyone here.” He paused. ”You know me now, though. So that’s one.”

”I’ve known you for thirty seconds.”

Another tear slipped down her cheek and his thumb caught it before she could. His throat closed so hard he had to swallow twice before he trusted his voice.

”Best thirty seconds I’ve had all day.”

The edges of the dream were going soft. He could feel it. The light was changing, the ocean was blurring, and the floor beneath them was thinning like ice over deep water.

”Maddox, please don’t go.”

”Never.”

Instinct took over. His arms went around her before the thought finished forming, pulling her against his chest. The dream shattered the second he finally had her.

Maddox opened his eyes in Lunaris Keep staring at a ceiling that wasn’t his. His chest was heaving. His face was wet.

His hands were raised around the ghost of her, and the absence was so loud he almost couldn’t hear himself breathe.