Wolf Princess Sold to the Dragon King

Chapter 126: Stand Down, Ex-High Marshal. Fuck.

They were still in the war room when Maddox’s mindlink hit.

Kael and Sterling ran to Maddox’s chambers at full dragon speed. Second time today they’d sprinted side by side for the same woman. Kael was starting to feel like they were in a relationship.

As soon as they entered, they both froze. Guinevere was standing there in a bra looking like a demon’s scratch post.

Maddox knelt in front of her with a face that could curdle cum at fifty paces, while Aldric’s palms hovered over her back, pushing healing magic into her.

Sterling’s bracelet began vibrating so violently Kael could hear it.

He glanced down at it. "If that thing starts moaning I’m walking out."

Guinevere caught them both standing there and immediately said, "It doesn’t hurt."

No blush or modesty. Wolf girl had officially run out of fucks to give. Maddox’s dragon also was done, apparently, because the jealous bastard didn’t even care that everyone was seeing his wife half-naked.

"They look like they hurt," Sterling managed.

"They itch, actually. Like a sunburn."

"Guinevere," Maddox said from the floor in front of her. He opened his mouth. Closed it. No words came.

"It itches," she repeated. "I promise, Maddox. There’s no need for all of this."

Maddox looked like he was one ’I’m fine’ away from crying.

The woman had claw marks from a demon and was describing it like a mosquito bite. Wolf girl was either the toughest bitch alive, pun intended, or lying for the room.

Behind him, Lux entered, Jaxon at her heel. Without a word, she crossed the room to Guinevere.

Guinevere swallowed, catching their faces. "It doesn’t hurt."

"There she goes again," Kael commented. He was baffled. She was the most confusing woman he had ever met.

"If it did, I would tell you."

Kael tilted his head. "Would you though?"

"Definitely not you, Kael," she fired back. "Not unless you said please."

Kael smirked. That was a good one from Wolf Girl. She was cute when she got feisty.

Maddox shook his head, his sad-puppy face turning into something that looked a lot like constipation. Kael couldn’t be sure.

"Has there ever been a moment in your life where you said ’this hurts’ out loud to another person? Give us one example."

"I told Blair my back was hurting," she snapped.

"Let her be, Kael," Sterling cut in. "You have zero pain tolerance and are the last person who should have an opinion on that."

Kael let out a laugh that had zero humor in it. "Wow. That’s rich. You spent one day with her and now you’re a Guinevere expert."

"I’ve known her longer than you."

"By one day, Emberfell. How many times have you made her cry?"

Guinevere’s face flushed so red it was practically edible, and she shoved it into her hands.

Sterling turned his head slowly to Kael.

"Careful."

"Or what?"

"Or I stop being careful."

Kael patted Sterling’s chest twice. "Stand down, Ex-High Marshal. Your secret’s safe with me."

Sterling didn’t move. "I don’t have a secret."

"Sure you don’t."

Maddox’s head snapped to Sterling at this, eyes narrowed.

"Kael," Blair clipped. "You attacked her in the woods and abducted her from a mountain. Everyone else might be fine with spinning the truth but I’m not. Sit the fuck down and close your mouth or leave."

Maddox’s attention immediately switched from Sterling to Kael like a compass finding a new north. Anything involving Guinevere automatically leapfrogged that person to the front of his list. Kael would hot potato that right back where it belonged.

"Yes on the first," Kael sighed. "No on the second. She was dying thanks to Sterling. He had her merge with flame while Maddox was away. And I could have easily kept her. But instead, I brought her to Maddox. You’re welcome." He paused. "Also you are the most biased source in this room because you still hate me."

"It hurts your feelings that I don’t like you," Blair observed.

"Yes."

"Good."

Lux, who’d been holding her hands over Guinevere’s back, cleared her throat.

"Her body is rejecting the residual dark magic. Every fragment, including the microscopic ones too small for me to extract manually. They’re working their way to the surface through the tissue."

Allergic. To dark magic. Of course the pure little wolf was allergic to evil. She probably got hives from swearing too.

Kael then caught the smell. He sniffed twice to be sure. "Did a flower shop explode in here?"

Silence.

Lux pulled her hands away from Guinevere’s back. "You are allergic to dark magic. To a degree I have never seen, on any continent, in any text I have ever read." She flashed a small smile. "You’re lucky I like you. I should be offended."

Guinevere laughed. Every man in the room let out a breath they didn’t know they were holding, like a bunch of worried idiots who just got the all-clear. Kael was aware.

"How long has she been vomiting blood?" Aldric asked.

"Since the second you left," Blair answered before Guinevere could. "She locked the door and ran the water so I wouldn’t hear."

Throwing up blood was new information Kael hadn’t anticipated. His dragon rumbled in his chest.

Wrong. She’s sick. We take her.

Kael closed his eyes, swallowing the beast down.

Guinevere shot Blair a look of pure betrayal.

"Don’t give me that look," Blair said. "Also your hair has completely come down."

She reached over and gently gathered all of Guinevere’s hair, pulling it up into a high ponytail on her head.

It was at this point that both Sterling and Kael got a full look. Shoulders. Arms. Chest. They saw it, but her hair had been partly covering her until now.

Both men wore matching expressions of "oh fuck" wrapped in fake composure. The "oh fuck" was winning by a landslide. They glanced at each other, and realized they were twins in terror. A rare ceasefire moment.

Three new gashes opened while they watched. Slow. Deliberate. Like the magic was writing on her.

"Fuck," Kael said at the exact same time as Maddox.

Maddox’s head dropped forward an inch. He was still on his knees in front of her.

Guinevere saw it. She reached for him. Both hands on the sides of his face, pulling his forehead to hers.

"Hey. I’m right here. I’m okay. I promise."

His eyes met hers.

"Don’t worry, Maddox."

Kael watched her comfort him. She was the one bleeding. But she had looked at him like he was the emergency. The math was backwards and she didn’t care.

Maddox’s throat worked once. He pressed his lips to one of her gashes on her stomach, then looked up at her.

She leaned down to give him a hug. A comforting hug. Like Maddox was a little kid. Kael couldn’t blame him. He wanted one too now.

"Maddox?" She stiffened, drawing back, then pulled her hands away from him and looked down at her palms.

Blood. Warm and fresh.

The room went quiet.

Kael knew the smell of that blood and it wasn’t hers. He crossed the room and tugged on the zipper of Maddox’s zip suit before Maddox could protest.

Gashes. Forming in real time.

Maddox turned his head and looked at Kael. Kael opened his mouth, but no words came.

"Flame absorption, first hypothesis," Lux said. "Matebond is less plausible with it being blocked, but not off the table."

"Flame absorption. SHIT." Kael tugged the back of his zip suit down because this room was full of selfish bastards. "Do I have matching demon scratches too?"

"Your back is fine, Kael," Jaxon replied. "She was in his lap. You touched her hair."

"Oh thank fuck."

They all stared like he’d suggested group anal. Considering he carried the same flame it wasn’t THAT unreasonable of a question.

"It doesn’t explain why his body is reacting this way with the Mirrorlock," Aldric commented. He glanced up at Lux. "Can you extract it?"

Lux’s hands hovered over Maddox for a good twenty seconds. "I don’t feel any. Either too small for me to sense, or phantom symptoms."

Kael raised an eyebrow. "That’s the most toxic shit I’ve heard all month."

"He would still have to be receiving information from her through their matebond to have symptoms," Jaxon said. "Mirrorlock or not."

Guinevere’s hand flew to her mouth, listening to this.

No sound. Just tears, falling off her jaw and onto her hands, while her face did the thing it did when the grief was too big for the container she’d built for it.

"Don’t cry," Maddox said. "Goddamnit, Guinevere. New policy still stands. I watched you puke blood for five minutes and I get a scratch, and now you’re doing this."

She let out a wet laugh.

Kael rolled his eyes so hard he saw his own skull. His little brother was the most dramatic hypocrite alive.

A thin stream of water appeared from under the bathing chamber door. Kael watched it make a slow, determined journey across the stone floor.

"Is anyone going to address the river?" he asked.

No one paid him any attention. Rude motherfuckers, the lot of them.

He watched it reach the rug.

Nobody moved. Maddox was mid-examination. Guinevere was mid-crisis. Sterling was mid-whatever Sterling was always mid. It reached Sterling’s boot. He looked down. Looked up. Still didn’t mention it.

Kael watched the water crawl toward his own boots, then gestured with both hands at it.

"Oh, come on. No one?"

Ball-shriveling silence.

He crossed the room and found the source on the other side of Maddox’s bathing chamber door. "If you were wondering why it smells like a goddamn whorehouse exploded, somebody left the bath on."

Not one fucker looked up.

"A very expensive whorehouse," Kael added. "Someone should turn that shit off before we need an ark."

The audacity of these hoes. No one cared that the room was goddamn flooding and smelled. They were all too busy being cold-hearted savages.

"Sterling has the bracelet for this. My masculinity has limits."