Chapter 331: Mama’s Going To Jail But Mama Loves You
Garrett had dated Guinevere Ashford for four months. Watching a dragon fall from the sky, interrupting her execution didn’t even make top five.
The dating highlight reel included:
FAKING:
1) Multiple pregnancy scares. Every. Damn. Argument.
2) Dramatic fainting spells in public, him carrying her, only for her to forget she was supposed to be unconscious and start screaming at him the second he put her down.
3) An entire goddamn abduction. Garrett spent twenty-six hours losing his mind searching for her, only to find out post-breakup that she had hired the kidnappers.
4) A fucking fire in Darkhowler’s Keep. He found out after they broke up that she started the entire fire so that he would come rescue her.
FORGING:
1) Save The Date invitations after their first fucking date.
2) Using his royal seal to send letters to every pack with eligible daughters politely informing them that Garrett was not interested.
OTHER FUCKED SHIT:
1) Spiking his and Finnick’s ale with laxatives when they met without her once.
2) Paying a mage to curse him so he sneezed violently every time he tried to say another woman’s name.
No one had answered Garrett’s question on what the hell was going on. But it wasn’t about her. He asked what the hell was happening because Fin and Dexmon’s eyes were glowing.
Dex descended the gallery steps. His stride was unhurried, his posture carrying a weight and authority that Dexmon Drakenfell had only worn a few times before.
The crowd parted. They parted because the thing walking through them was wearing Dex’s face and moving with the gravity of a king who had ruled for centuries before Drakenfell had a name.
He stopped at the edge of the platform. The dragon, still tangled in the rubble of its own landing, had curled its body around Guinevere.
Dex spoke. His voice was his and older than his.
"This dragon has found its bonded. To execute a bonded is to execute the dragon. Under the Covenant of Ash, sworn under King Druthmen Drakenfell, the bond between dragon and rider is inviolable. The sentence cannot be carried out."
The words landed across the square with the weight of law older than the stones they stood on.
Tiberon watched his son, but did not comment. He had just overruled a death sentence on the authority of a covenant most wolves in this square had never heard of, and he had done it with the voice of a king who had been dead for thousands of years.
Hundreds of wolves stood in the ruins of an execution that had just been rewritten by a dragon who couldn’t land.
Dex turned his head. His gold eyes found Fin, who was descending the eastern gallery with the same unhurried stride, the same ancient gravity, his own gold burning with the particular intensity of a man who was and was simultaneously more than himself.
Dex studied him.
"You are not Ronan."
The name sat in the air. Ancient. A name that belonged to a wolf king who had walked beside the Dragon King in a life that predated every throne in Skardos.
Fin’s mouth curved. The expression was his and older than his, carrying warmth that Finnick Shadowclaw rarely allowed himself.
"No. I am someone else this time, my friend."
The gold in both their eyes held for three full seconds. Two incarnations, standing in the wreckage of an execution, acknowledging each other across millennia with the ease of men who had done this before and would do it again.
Garrett looked between them. His mouth was open. He closed it. Opened it again. Closed it a second time, because every question he had required a context he clearly lacked, and the two men standing in front of him were having a conversation that spanned lifetimes he hadn’t been invited to.
"I understood exactly zero of that," he said. "And I am choosing to be fine with it."
The gold faded. Dex blinked. Fin blinked. Both of them looked around the square with the synchronized disorientation of men surfacing from deep water, registering the rubble, the crowd, the dragon wrapped around a woman in manacles, and the particular silence of wolves trying to determine whether the execution was cancelled, postponed, or had been replaced by something they would be telling their grandchildren about.
Dex looked at his hands. Then at Fin. Then at the dragon. Then at Guinevere, whose green eyes were still glowing, whose face carried a smug expression.
Tiberon had already moved. He was beside Dex, his posture unchanged, his expression giving the crowd precisely nothing to read.
"The Covenant," Tiberon said quietly, for his son alone. "You invoked it correctly."
The king’s mouth moved by a fraction. The fraction could have been a smile on any other man. On Tiberon Drakenfell, it was a classified document.
Guinevere lifted her chained wrists, green fire still licking across her skin. Her smile was pure venom wrapped in silk. "I have several questions. First: get these fucking cuffs off me before I let my new friend turn this entire square into a crater."
Hale looked at Dex. Dex looked at Tiberon. Tiberon looked at the dragon.
The dragon opened one eye. It was green. The exact shade of Guinevere’s.
"No." Dex’s voice was ice-cold steel. "Dragon law spares the bonded. It does not pardon traitors or monsters." His gold eyes bored into Guinevere’s glowing green ones. "You stay in custody until further notice."
The dragon roared in fury. Dex flared brighter gold and the roar choked off into a whimper.
Dexmon turned towards the guards. "Take her."
The guards grabbed her arms. She went loud.
"You arrogant prick!" she screamed, lunging against her chains as guards closed in. "I just got a goddamn dragon and you think you can still cuff me?"
One guard tightened his grip. She turned to him. "Your grip is too tight. My dragon will burn you."
She looked over her shoulder at the dragon, who was sitting up straight, eyes on Dexmon.
Then she thrashed wildly, kicking one guard in the chest hard enough to send him flying into rubble. The dragon snarled and snapped at the nearest wolf, eyes blazing the same murderous green as hers.
A third guard stepped in, hoisting her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Guinevere immediately started drumming on his back with her manacled fists.
"UNHAND ME. My emotional support dragon will remember your face! He has separation anxiety and very sharp teeth!"
As the guards dragged her away, the dragon sat down hard and unleashed the most pathetic, warbling cry imaginable — like a foghorn discovering feelings. Several wolves in the front row actually clutched their hearts.
"My SON WILL MAUL YOU!" she screamed, then immediately corrected herself in the same breath, "—I mean my dragon! He’s basically my son!"
Garrett stared in disbelief. He rubbed his eyes. Nope. She was still yelling. He had dated that.
"I WILL BE BACK FOR YOU, BABY!" she bellowed as the guards dragged her. "MAMA IS GOING TO JAIL BUT MAMA LOVES YOU! DON’T LET THEM TOUCH YOU! BITE ANYONE WHO TRIES! IF THEY FEED YOU LOW-QUALITY SHEEP I WILL BURN THIS KINGDOM DOWN!"
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