Chapter 104: Fated Be Damned. I Choose Her.
In hindsight, the middle finger salute was spectacular. Five stars. The aftermath was what bent him over and spanked him bare-assed in front of five hundred witnesses.
Maddox’s hand was still raised, royal-fuck-you still intact, fangs still buried.
He had never had a matebond before. But he knew enough to know that a matebond was supposed to lock in during the marking. He held. Waited. It didn’t arrive.
His dragon tore through his chest with a sound that was more grief than rage.
WRONG. We should feel her. Something is blocking.
He retracted his fangs. Blood beaded on her neck where the mark sat, fresh and gleaming. Her eyes were closed, and her body was limp beneath him.
"Guinevere."
She didn’t answer.
He said it again, quieter, his mouth against her temple. "Baby, open your eyes."
They stayed closed.
Around him, nobles were still combusting from the spectacle. But Maddox heard none of it. His entire world had narrowed to her body on the stone and the nothing coming from it.
"What the fuck did I do?" he whispered, voice wrecked.
She was never mine. The thought repeated like a war drum.
He shook his head once. No. Fated be damned. He didn’t need that stamp of approval to know she was meant for him. He would still choose her without it. And either way, his mark should have created a matebond. It didn’t. So this was something else. Something was wrong.
That’s when he remembered the mark he’d seen on the dance floor. Under makeup. Hidden behind hair. At least he thought that’s what it was. But now he wasn’t sure.
When he tilted her head to look, there was too much blood to see. His lips pressed to the wound, soft, drawing it away until the skin was clean. A gentle kiss followed.
"I’ll fix this, baby. Don’t worry."
The second he lifted his head to get another look, his body ran cold. A silver mark glowed beneath his gold one. Healed. Someone had been there first.
His attention landed on Kael like a verdict. "You. Marked. Her."
Kael was standing six feet away and didn’t seem to hear him. Every drop of color had evacuated his face. His eyes were locked on Guinevere like she was the only thing keeping him vertical.
Maddox stood without looking away from Kael. "Did you?"
Kael dragged his eyes away from her and found Maddox’s. "Are you alright?"
The question was unexpected. Aimed at him. Not the unconscious woman. The man standing upright. With a pulse. On both legs.
Maddox’s nostrils flared. "ANSWER ME. NOW."
Kael didn’t answer. He scanned his brother’s face. Nodded. "You’re fine. Good." Then punched him in the jaw. "That’s for whatever the fuck that was."
The crack echoed off the stone walls. Maddox’s head snapped sideways.
The crowd inhaled. They had thought the tackle-hump-mark-finger was the encore. This was the encore to the encore. The night refused to peak.
"So you admit it! You marked my mate!" Maddox’s fist connected with Kael’s cheekbone before the sentence finished landing.
Kael staggered back two steps, catching himself on a column.
The gallery fell silent immediately, the words traveling faster than a Draconic command. Someone in the back said what everyone was thinking. "Both of them?"
The silence that followed was so total Maddox could hear the torches burning.
A guard at the archway broke first. "Holy fuck."
Then, like a dam giving way, the women in the gallery erupted. Single. It’s complicated. Married. Widowed. All united.
"I would pay my entire dowry to be unconscious between those two."
"If she doesn’t want one of them, I’ll take the spare."
"If this is how wolves mate, I’m switching species."
"I haven’t been this aroused since my wedding night."
The Drakencrest elders, who were already irritated, went through five stages of grief in under two seconds. Varro landed on denial. Drystan landed on anger. Cassia landed on wine.
"You forced a mark on a woman trying to leave." Kael was already off the cracked column and closing the distance.
Maddox closed the rest of it. They met in the center like two men who had been circling the same point all evening and had finally arrived.
"She’s mine. Mine to mark. Not yours. You lied and called her your mate in front of my entire hall." Maddox grabbed his collar.
Kael grabbed Maddox’s collar right back. "You don’t know if I lied. You could have just forced a mark on another man’s mate, you dick."
They rotated, locked together, each pulling the other in a circle that had no strategy and all pride.
"I know exactly what I marked," Maddox growled.
"You know nothing. You’ve known her for five days. And your first real conversation was tonight. I’ve known her for—"
Maddox headbutted him mid-sentence, mid-spin. Rude. Effective. He wasn’t sorry. The sound was wet and ugly and deeply satisfying.
Kael’s head recoiled, blood erupting from his nose in a line. He returned the gesture with an elbow to the ribs that sent Maddox stumbling three feet and crashing into a display table. A vase exploded. Pre-dynasty. A gift from a kingdom that no longer existed. Survived wars. Did not survive the Drakencrest brothers.
A lord in the front caught a piece of flying ceramic and held it like a souvenir he planned to frame.
"She wouldn’t even have a drink with me because you scared her away," Maddox snarled.
"Try again," Kael fired back. "Your first private interaction with her was a property dispute in your war room. Would you want to get a drink with you after that?"
"Twenty gold on the King," a Thornvale elder whispered.
"Fifty on Ashenvale," his wife replied without hesitation. "He fights dirty."
They weren’t wrong. Kael had always fought dirty. The difference was that tonight Maddox was fighting dirty too, and the discovery that he was capable of it was both troubling and invigorating.
He drove Kael into a life-sized portrait of their grandfather, ripping it down the center.
"YOU." Punch. "MARKED." Punch. "MY." Punch. "MATE."
Kael shoved off the canvas and threw his weight forward, driving them both into a pillar across the gallery. "And you marked her anyways like a woman-tackling-headbutting-son-of-our-father."
"She was never yours!" Maddox roared. "Find your own goddamn mate."
He threw Kael into a statue. The statue lost its head, which was unfortunate timing given tonight’s theme. The head skidded across the floor.
Kael rolled his eyes. "I didn’t mark her, you emotionally illiterate fucking dragon."
Didn’t mark her. Good. Great. Outstanding. Maddox was still going to hit him.
They crashed together, locked arms, and froze. Two men pushing with everything they had, going nowhere. The frustration on both faces was identical.
"SHE’S MINE. Don’t forget it," Maddox roared.
"Oh. WE KNOW. You have the subtlety of a battering ram in heat. You threw a glass at my head."
"Because you touched her."
"I fixed her earring, you psychopath." Kael’s grip tightened. "You dry-fucked her to a waltz and kept throwing ’baby’ around like it was your only move. Because it was."
"My one move put her in my lap. Your twelve moves put you in a corridor trying to send my mate home."
They let go at the same time. Circled.
Kael spat blood onto the stone. "Fine. She sat in your lap. She’s also on the floor unconscious now, but we’ll gloss over that. Are you done?"
"When you’re on the floor."
"Funny. I was going to say the same thing."
They collided again. Kael caught Maddox’s wrist mid-swing. Maddox caught Kael’s other arm. Both held. Neither released. A draw. Again.
"You had no business buying her anything," Maddox gritted, arms shaking.
"Oh, you mean the thing you ripped, little brother?" Kael replied, his boots sliding an inch on the stone. He corrected it immediately. "You’re welcome for the visual. The crimson looked spectacular going down."
"I claimed what belongs to me because she’s my mate. Something you wouldn’t understand."
"You humped her and flipped off the room. Romeo is in his grave rolling."
