Chapter 101: Lap-Trapped & Loving It (He Was)
The logistics were in his favor and he was not above using them.
Maddox dropped into the nearest chair with Guinevere still in his arms, putting her in his lap. Exactly where she belonged.
She turned scarlet immediately. He hadn’t even said anything yet. Just existing underneath her was enough to cause this. His ego took a victory lap.
"I’m really okay, Commander." She tried to squirm off of him. She failed.
He waited patiently with his arms locked around her waist like steel bands. Putting her down wasn’t happening tonight.
"You’re cute when you blush," he commented, kissing her temple.
She stiffened the second he did. She was shy. He could work with that.
"I’ll let you go if you call me Maddox."
"Fine, Maddox then."
Negotiation. His strong suit. Not hers, apparently, because she took the deal immediately.
Maddox’s arms didn’t loosen. "I change my mind. I’m keeping you here."
Her mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. Considering his inner circle was actively hiding something from him and his ballroom was a crime scene, he was enjoying this more than he had any right to.
"Maddox, let me down."
"Say that again."
"Let me down."
"No, the first part."
Her eyes widened. The realization landed. He enjoyed every millisecond of it, from the confusion to the understanding to the blush doubling. It was going on a list of things he planned to cause often.
She tried twisting off of him again. Failed again. Completely oblivious to what she was doing to him. Every tiny shift of her body sent fresh heat rushing to his groin. His dragon wanted him to take her. Now. It didn’t care that people were watching.
An unhelpful image flooded his mind of gripping her thighs and bouncing her on his cock in this chair. He stifled a groan, making no attempt to hide his aching erection.
Guinevere must have noticed it because she gasped.
He nipped her earlobe. "If you keep grinding on me, I won’t be responsible for what happens under this silk."
"Maddox, the entire room is watching."
"They just watched you glow, throw champagne in a lord’s face, and crack dragon iron. You blushing in my lap is the least interesting thing you’ve done tonight."
She shot him a look that said she would remember this breach of contract for a very long time.
He laughed hard enough that every head turned. If they weren’t looking before, they were now because the Dragon King did not laugh.
His dragon started purring. Unbelievable. Five minutes ago it was in a panic. Now it was curled behind his ribs like a cat in a sunbeam.
She crossed her arms and stared at the far wall. Dragon speed had its advantages. He scooped her off his lap, angling her body closer to his, and his mouth was on hers before she registered the adjustment.
"Maddox!"
He pulled back, settling her sideways in his lap again. "What?"
The entire ballroom had gone deathly quiet. Her mouth worked twice. No words. The crossed arms were gone. She hadn’t noticed. He had.
He was considering a second kiss when the moment was interrupted. Lux materialized in front of them, wine glass absent for the first time tonight, which meant this was serious.
He adjusted Guinevere to face forward in his lap for Lux. She protested by going completely rigid, which was cute, and refusing to look at him, which was cuter, and he was going to need professional help for whatever was happening in his chest.
"Are you finished moving me?" she snapped, still not looking at him.
"Probably not."
Lux knelt in front of them. "I’m going to be honest with you because I respect you. This is going to be uncomfortable."
"It’s okay, Lux," Guinevere replied.
Lux didn’t say anything else. Her hands came up, palms flat over Guinevere’s chest, and violet light pulsed from her fingers. Dark threads rose from Guinevere’s body. Thinner and smaller than the ones Jaxon had pulled.
Guinevere’s breath caught in her throat and she tensed immediately. Maddox’s hand moved to her back on instinct, rubbing slow circles between her shoulder blades. It didn’t help. He kept doing it anyway because stopping meant accepting he couldn’t fix this.
Lux paused between threads and looked at her. "Your pain tolerance is high."
She resumed unbothered as if that was a mere observation, pulling out one more while Jaxon observed.
"You used what I taught you," Lux said, not looking at him as she worked. "Only dark magic can pull these. You got the ones that hadn’t fused yet. The rest, your magic read as hers and skipped." She held up a thread. "Look at the color. This one’s gold at the edges, already bonded. That’s why it’s painful when extracted."
"How did it get past our wards?" Maddox asked, keeping his voice calm for Guinevere, his hand never ceasing its rhythm on her back.
"There was no signature to catch." Lux held up a thread. "Soul-seeding. The caster splits off a piece of their own soul and plants it inside another body. It sleeps undetectable until the host dies."
Maddox exchanged a look with Jaxon that said: Whatever it takes, hire her.
Jaxon returned one that said: She counter-offered and I’m still recovering.
Lux kept her hands over Guinevere, glowing, for ten seconds after the dark threads stopped. Something in her expression shifted when she pulled back. A flash of reluctance. There and gone so fast Maddox almost doubted he’d seen it.
"Commander, I can’t pull the rest from her while she’s on you. It’s affecting you too when I try to pull it."
The sentence landed wrong. In all their interactions, Lux delivered bad news like weather forecasts. Now she was being careful.
His dragon grumbled.
She lies.
Guinevere used the opening. She escaped his grip while his brain was still chewing on Lux’s tone, face blazing, looking like a woman who had woken up in someone else’s bed and realized the curtains were open and the neighbors were home. All five hundred of them.
She had faced a hostage taker with zero hesitation. But public affection was the thing that she couldn’t handle. Acknowledged. He would be doing it again. Often.
The grin wanted out. He fought it. Then lost.
"Thank you, Maddox. I’ll let you get back to things." She dipped without looking at him, then booked it like the ballroom was on fire.
The second she moved past the archway and out of view his dragon surged. He could relate.
Three elders swarmed him the second her glow cleared the archway like they’d been waiting.
"The wards failed, Your Majesty," Varro said, as though Maddox had been unaware of the man reattaching his own head twenty feet away.
"I’ve attended sixty-three galas in this Keep," Drystan added. "Not one decapitation until tonight. I do hope this isn’t a trend."
"Do you need a drink, Your Majesty?" Cassia asked. "You look like you need several. Treason. Dark magic. Naming a war criminal as your fourth."
Maddox held up a finger. "I’ll be right back."
He would not be right back.
The lie left his mouth with the practiced ease of a man who had been dodging elders since he was crowned. They would figure that out in about forty seconds.
She’d been out of his sight for three minutes. Three minutes too long. Every instinct he had was pulling in the same direction, and he was done ignoring them tonight.
Even with her head start, she was the easiest woman to track on two continents. Adorable.
He moved at Dragon King speed, following her scent. Vanilla and snow threaded through two ballrooms and into the grand gallery, where it got stronger.
He was about to round the corner when Ryker’s voice stopped him mid-step.
"I went to bat to keep you here, Gwen. But we just saw that isn’t going to work. I’m sorry."
Maddox heard Ryker exhale. Long. Controlled. The breath of a man loading a sentence he didn’t want to fire.
"This is the part where I’m the bad guy," he continued. "You go back tonight. I’ve arranged a full dragon escort with your Skyrunner team. That’s the most I can swing."
The words hit Maddox in the chest. Over his dead body.
His High General had watched her hold his flame and wanted to send her back like she was a visiting dignitary who had overstayed her welcome. The suggestion was so far outside of his character that it circled from insulting to informative.
Maddox didn’t move or announce himself. The king in him understood something the mate in him was too furious to accept: whatever he was about to hear next was going to tell him exactly how long the people he trusted had been managing him.
The scent of her tears reached him before she spoke.
"I understand," she whispered.
"You were told to keep distance, Guinevere," Sterling said with no warmth.
Sterling’s warmth was a myth. Maddox had known this for years and had been fine with it until this exact second when it was aimed at the wrong person. His dragon slammed against his ribs, roaring to rip the man’s throat out for speaking to her like that. Maddox closed his eyes, shoving the beast down.
"Shut your mouth, Sterling," Blair snapped. "She maintained distance all week. This was not her fault."
"It was, Blair," Guinevere whispered, her voice cracking. "I’m sorry."
She was standing around a corner apologizing like proximity to the Dragon King was a crime she had committed. For a proximity that Maddox had initiated, enforced, and refused to let go of all night.
She was supposed to be around him. That’s how mates worked.
The rage that built in his chest had no ceiling. Every muscle in his body locked. Jaw. Shoulders. Hands.
He was going to remember this moment for the rest of his life, and everyone in that hall was going to answer for it, starting with Sterling.
