Wolf Princess Sold to the Dragon King

Chapter 119: Get Your Hands Off My Brother, You Fuck

Guinevere didn’t answer.

Maddox immediately tried to grab her, but she moved in a blur of gold and his arms closed around air.

"Guinevere. Come here. Now."

CLICK. CLICK.

Every torch in the room died at once along with her glow. Darkness swallowed the chamber whole.

Silence.

For three seconds, nobody breathed.

CLINK.

WHOOSH.

Torches erupted in a millisecond flash before the chamber went into pitch darkness again. That flash of light revealed an empty room and Kael sitting on the floor bewildered. No coins.

He scrambled to his feet.

CLICK. CLICK.

Sterling’s cuff vibrated on his wrist. It lit gold.

WHOOSH.

Another flash. Shorter, but enough to reveal rows of figures; their bodies were human, but their heads were blank, like mannequins. The nearest one leaned into Kael, hovering inches from his face.

"Oh, hell no." He opened both palms and let flame flow. The thing should have been set on fire, but his flame met nothing. "What the..."

"Sterling?" Guinevere called, confused and disoriented. A second ago she was at the top of some stairs. She blinked. Now she stood in pitch black.

"Gwen. Don’t move. I’m coming," Maddox, Sterling, and Kael called at the same time.

Her mind was reeling: When did Maddox and Kael get here? Where is here?

Something clamped around her ankle and yanked. She hit the ground, hard enough to knock the wind out of her. It dragged her as she fought for air.

Her first full breath came out as a scream, every nerve in her body firing at once.

Broken matebond or not, Maddox felt her terror like it was his own, and he would die before he let anything happen to her.

"GUINEVERE!"

He sprinted towards the sound of her scream, drawing the blade she’d given him. It flared gold, but Kael, flanking him, could only manage a dim glow of flame in his fists.

"The dark is eating our fire," Kael called. "This is some next-level nightmare fuel bullshit, Wolf Girl."

CRACK.

The sound came from above. Dust and pebbles poured down like rain, bouncing off their shoulders.

From the opposite side of the chamber, Sterling was also running with barely-visible flame in one hand. But his cuff was blazing bright, untouched by the darkness, pulling him towards her.

Guinevere reached for her flame. Nothing. Fantastic. The second time now in a life-or-death moment that it wouldn’t come. The whole reason she’d gone to the library today was to understand it better.

Whispers echoed in the chamber, interrupting her thoughts.

"Little vessel, don’t you cry,

Your mother screamed the same goodbye."

"Count the daughters, one by one,

Stolen before the rising sun."

"GUINEVERE!" Maddox roared louder, his voice drowning out the noise. "Cover your head and keep calling for me."

Guinevere tried to answer, but all she could get out was wheezes. Dust had her lungs, dead hands had her legs, and panic had her mind.

In through the nose. Out through the mouth. One. Two. Three.

Her ribs unlocked.

Four.

Five.

She inhaled sharply. More air than before. Enough.

"M-M-Maddox," she coughed.

"I’m trying to get to you, baby," Maddox yelled. "Almost there."

CRACK.

Maddox heard something break from above and had a rough idea of where she was. He dropped the glowing sword and dove, throwing himself over her, just as a slab fell from the ceiling.

It hit his back, cracking two of his ribs on impact.

"Maddox!"

The thing pulling her yanked harder. But his arms locked around her tight, and his knee moved between her legs.

"I’ve got you, baby."

She could smell the blood in his voice.

With a pained grunt, he lifted one of his hands, and angled himself towards the thing.

Flame erupted.

It shrieked unnaturally. Then it started laughing.

"Don’t look until I say, Gwen," he said. "Close your eyes."

She closed her eyes without hesitation and felt the thing release her.

"Wrap your legs around me, baby."

Maddox had told her that exact thing the day he told her he loved her. They were in a situation then too.

"Your ribs, Maddox."

"Do you trust me?"

"Yes." Even if she was scared, she did trust him completely. "T-t-tell me if I’m hurting you."

She wrapped her legs around him. They were moving before she realized they were off the floor. One of his arms was around her, the other was using flame.

"Shit," he breathed.

Before she could ask, tendrils surged from the dark, coiling around their torsos and yanking so violently that he was ripped from her grip.

"Maddox," she gasped.

Nearby, Kael’s boot hit metal on the ground. Maddox’s sword. He reached to pick it up. Gold fire erupted along the steel the second his hand closed around the hilt.

The flame gave him three feet of visibility. He could see Maddox. Tendrils wrapped around his chest and ribs. His face was white, and his teeth were red.

"Get your fucking hands off my brother, you shadowy cunt!"

Kael swung. The blade carved through the first tendril, turning it into ash the second it made contact.

Swing. Second tendril gone. Flash of gold.

"Die MOTHERFUCKER."

Kael drove the blade through the third and last one. Shrieks came from the darkness as the thing retracted.

Maddox dropped. Kael grabbed him by the collar before he hit the ground.

"You good?"

"I’m fine."

"You’re not fine. You’re wheezing like a broken bagpipe."

"I said I’m fine."

Across the chamber, Sterling’s bracelet changed directions abruptly.

"Gwen. Use your flame," he yelled.

Guinevere tried to flex that muscle again, but it wouldn’t come.

Panic. It was everywhere. In her chest, in her throat, in the space between her thoughts. It was winning. Her own fire was buried under so much of it, it might as well have been in another body.

Maddox’s wasn’t.

His flame crashed through whatever connection they shared with the subtlety of a battering ram. Warmth flooded her from her chest outward, forcing the dark back.

For the first time, she could see what had her.

The scream that tore out of her throat whited out her vision. The kind a soul makes when it sees something it was never supposed to see.